January 20 – August 11, 2024
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Contents
3 Map
4 Additional Spaces
5 Augmented Reality Experience
6 Audio Tour
7 Digital Resources
8 Exhibition Didactics
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Exhibition Map
de Young museum \ Upper Level, Galleries 50A, 60, 61, and 62
Additional Spaces
In partnership with the Fine Arts Museums, Snap’s Augmented-Reality Mirrors will allow visitors to “try on” three pieces from the collection. School groups are permitted to engage with the Snapchat Augmented Reality Mirrors but are asked to be mindful of the queuing line capacity. If planning to have students engage with the AR Mirrors, please have no more than five students wait in line with one chaperone at a time. A group of 30 students is estimated to spend about 15 minutes going through the AR experience. Additional wait time should be expected.
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Augmented Reality Experience
There are three Snap AR Mirrors, each allowing visitors to experience one of the three dresses. Only one person at a time is allowed to experience each of the mirrors. Photos can be taken with a personal device or through the use of the AR Mirror. If using an AR Mirror to take a photo, the photo will be accessible via a one-time QR code.
DATA PROTECTION NOTICE: This space contains a Snap AR Mirror that allows visitors to interact with an augmented reality experience. By entering the space, visitors acknowledge Snap’s Privacy Policy. [https://snap.com/en-US/privacy/privacy-policy]
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Audio Tour
Students can access the tour on-site using their own devices and listen using the browser link. Use of headphones is recommended, but if headphones are unavailable, students may listen to the tour at a low volume. If the use of personal devices is a hardship for your group, physical audio guides may be available for use; please note that there is a limited number of devices. Requests for physical audio guides should be made to schooltours@famsf.org at least one week in advance of your visit.
Audio Tour Link�https://deyoung.stqry.app/es/1/list/24982
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Digital Resources
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Exhibition Didactics
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Introduction
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style explores the history of fashion in San Francisco through the lens of the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, home to one of the most significant holdings of 20th- and 21st-century high fashion and haute couture in the United States. The exhibition showcases the strengths of the Museums’ collection, such as French haute couture and contemporary Japanese fashion design, to examine how these holdings reflect and intersect with sociopolitical changes in the city from the early 1900s to today.
The clothes and accessories included in this presentation attest to changes in women’s fashion broadly over this period but also reflect the wearers’ independent style choices. Much of the Museums’ collection was formed by generous gifts from local donors—among them activists, entrepreneurs, civic leaders, and philanthropists. The exhibition thus does not capture the multiplicity of San Francisco’s fashion histories so much as offer focused explorations of the histories that manifest in the materiality of each object. Additional loans from communities not historically engaged by the Museums serve to broaden the narrative.
By featuring exceptional designs from this dynamic century, Fashioning San Francisco highlights how fashion is woven into our social and cultural landscape while also celebrating the distinctive qualities of individual style.
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Reasserting Identity After the Earthquake
At the turn of the 20th century, San Francisco was a blossoming cosmopolitan city, home to elegant restaurants and hotels, annual fairs, and cultural events. Luxurious department stores, many located on Union Square in the downtown area, sold imported gowns from New York and Europe (especially France) to a rapidly growing population of women. But in 1906 the great earthquake and fire effectively destroyed downtown’s retail landscape. Within weeks, many of the city’s leading retailers banded together to quickly erect a temporary shopping district. The return of French-made models, in particular, was major news; affluent San Franciscans used fashion to reassert their individual and collective identities in the wake of disaster.
As the process of rebuilding unfolded, the city aimed to boost an image of resiliency and promote the “New San Francisco.” These efforts included planning the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a world’s fair where Parisian couture gowns were prominently displayed. Department stores began their move back to the downtown area starting in 1908. French-made clothing continued to command San Francisco’s fashion landscape in the ensuing decades, with local retailers selling exclusive wares as well as American replicas and adaptations of French haute couture.
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
The Little Black Dress: A Fashion Staple
“A ‘little black dress’ of some sort or another … is considered almost indispensable in most wardrobes,” declared the San Francisco Chronicle’s fashion editor in 1937. Women had worn black dresses for centuries as religious attire, uniforms, sportswear, or expressions of mourning. But the little black dress emerged as a modern-day fashion staple during World War I (1914–1918), a development spurred by the tremendous death toll, wartime fabric shortages, and economic concerns.
A socially democratic garment, the little black dress was readily mass-produced and widely available on the fashion market, befitting the needs and budgets of women across the social class spectrum. Today, the “little black dress” is a colloquialism that encompasses a range of styles, from short, casual daytime dresses to long, formal evening gowns. Viewed collectively, the garments in this gallery offer a lens through which to observe the evolution of dress in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
After the Ball: Formal Wear in the Big City
Philanthropy has been vital to the lived experiences of San Franciscans since the city’s inception. In the mid-19th century, a fast-growing population (lured by the promise of gold) and limited government infrastructure meant that many San Franciscans relied on acts of charity for survival. Formal events designed to raise funds and awareness for charitable endeavors bolstered the city’s fashion sector, especially luxury department stores like the City of Paris and �I. Magnin & Company, which supplied fine gowns for galas, balls, and other high-profile affairs.
The ball gown typically featured a fitted waist and lavish skirt, and was made of luxurious materials and embellishments. Gowns worn by San Franciscans were of great local and national interest; the press frequently documented women’s ensembles at philanthropic events or opening nights at the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet. As Life magazine proclaimed in 1952, an “opening night gives San Francisco a chance to get the fashion jump . . . and the city’s well-dressed women make the most of their chance.”
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Avant-garde: Fashion As Art
The term avant-garde is often synonymous with unusual and experimental ideas. In fashion it denotes garments or objects that redefine artistic convention; utilize new tools, materials, or techniques; and question the very nature of what constitutes clothing. San Franciscans have a long-standing history of embracing radical clothing styles; local fashion mavericks especially supported boundary-pushing designers in the late 20th and 21st centuries.
The Museums’ permanent collection preserves the legacies of the European designers Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, and Alexander McQueen, who interrogated the traditional trappings of haute couture with their 1990s and 2000s collections. It also features avant-garde works by innovative artists such as the Bay Area–based Chinese American designer Kaisik Wong and Japanese designers Rei Kawakubo and Kei Ninomiya. Many of these works play with expansive and amorphous forms as a way to blur the boundary between dress and body.
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Well-suited: Upending A Sartorial Standard
The suit has been an emblem of male authority in European and North American dress for centuries. While its design has varied according to prevailing fashion, it has traditionally consisted of two to three components—�a pair of trousers, a coat, and a vest—since the late 18th century. As women entered the workforce in larger numbers in the 20th century, the suit also became a practical part of their wardrobes, perceived as useful for conveying power. In 1985, in a Vogue magazine symposium on fashion for working women, Dianne Feinstein, the first female mayor of San Francisco, remarked, “Women are still new to positions of power, and therefore people tend to make snap judgments about them.”
Modern women’s suits were often designed as so-called feminized versions of the traditional men’s suit, manifested in silhouette changes, patterned textiles, and decorative accents. The suits displayed in this gallery reflect the vital leadership roles of the Bay Area women who wore them: business owners, philanthropists, and civic leaders seeking to project confidence in a rapidly changing world.
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Global Aesthetic Influences: Life On The Pacific Rim
By the late 19th century, San Francisco had emerged as a prominent port city, with a population whose ethnic diversity exceeded that of most major East Coast cities. The Museums’ global costume and textiles collection, including its 20th and 21st-century high fashion and haute couture holdings, formed amid this diverse setting. Consequently, the collection reflects the centuries-long practice of cultural appropriation and commodification in fashion and the arts broadly.
Cultural appropriation is typically characterized as the taking of aesthetic or material elements from one culture by a more socially powerful individual or group who is not a member of that culture without giving credit or profit. The term is often intertwined with the related concepts of cultural borrowing, exchange, and inspiration. Multivalent interpretations of cultural appropriation and commodification in contemporary fashion continue to evolve as legacies of subjugation are confronted and as globalization fosters a more interdependent and connected world.
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style
Best Foot Forward: Shoes and Identity
Shoes have historically been indicators of socioeconomic hierarchy, and feet, especially women’s feet, have been objectified and commodified by many cultures. As a result, footwear provides a powerful way for women to make statements about their own bodies and control how they are perceived. Due to their functionality and intimate relationship with comfort and mobility, shoes—activated fashion elements unto themselves—make a unique contribution to a wearer’s sense of identity.
As women’s hemlines rose during and after World War I (1914–1918), shoes became more visible. From the stilettos and low block heels that were fashionable in the 1950s and 1960s to booming 1970s trends like platforms to experimental late 20th-century creations, footwear styles have remained varied, proving that shoes are versatile accessories for designers.
Photograph by Gary Sexton
Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style