 |
|
|
|
Bird call: Fashion takes inspiration from feathers
This season, no creature is safe from fashion's greedy grasp - that means you too, cockatoo.
By David Livingstone
|
|
|
|
Check out the latest in sexy, slim skirts for fall
Up in the treetop, Buddy's going berserk. A territorial red-winged blackbird, he's all agitated, ruffling his colourful epaulettes in full display mode and making a racket. They call him a songbird, but his piercing whistle and complaining squawk don't sound like anything you'd want on your iPod. And he's got worse in store: From tree to street light to traffic sign, he sweeps down on pedestrians from behind. It's as if midtown Toronto belongs to him. One after another, trespassers don't know what hit them. A sudden rustle near the nape of their neck and, quick as instinct, an arm crooks up and the head jerks around, freezing into a posture that is not a human's prettiest pose. But it's a highly recognizable one; even in a line drawing, you'd know it as terror. Throw in a beehive hairdo and a chartreuse suit with bracelet sleeves and it's Alfred Hitchcock.
More recently on film, Carrie Bradshaw wore a bird on her head; for the London premiere of Sex and the City, Sarah Jessica Parker chose a Philip Treacy hat sprouting feathers. Maybe that's why Buddy seems so rattled: He's been reading Women's Wear Daily (WWD). He knows that feathers are all the rage, and there's no telling who's next. It has happened before - not birds reading but, almost as unlikely, ladies favouring blackbirds, starlings, larks, pigeons and hummingbirds for hats and other finery.
That was back in the late 19th century, and perhaps not since then has the fashionable wardrobe been so indebted to the ornithological world. Just check out the headlines from WWD alone: "Rhapsody in Plume," "Fowl Play," "Flights of Fancy," "Taking Flight," "Fly By," "Temple of Plume" and "Feather Forecast." That's not to mention stories about the new popularity of faunal fashions in general. These also encompass furs and exotic skins and have been covered under headlines such as "Wild Cards," "Animal House" and "The Jungle Look."
Everywhere, avifaunal references are being sighted. Just a few years ago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York mounted a show called Wild: Fashion Untamed. It included garments of feathers. Summarizing their appeal, curator Andrew Bolton writes in the catalogue, "Their fragile, tremblant delicateness allows apparel to become dynamic, animating the body and adding emphasis to gestures and movements." This past year, the Met again celebrated plumes, this time with an exhibition of featherwork from ancient Peru: tabards, headdresses and jewellery made from macaw, duck and tanager.
Raven from Alexander McQueen, pheasant from Jean Paul Gaultier, duck from Miu Miu - for several seasons, designer collections have been offering feathers from head to toe. For fall/winter 2008, there was a cavalier plume on a snap-brimmed hat from Ralph Lauren, as well as shoes covered in barbs and vanes from Roger Vivier. In between, there were feathers employed as flighty trim, and dresses, even coats, that were nothing but.
More feathered fashion on the next page
Image courtesy of Marcio Madeira
|
|
|
|
Next page |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
OR |
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
