» Duchesse de Guermantes

Posts in the Duchesse de Guermantes category

Wide-brimmed hat, circa 1935

By The Museum at FIT
In Objects
Tagged with 1935 accessory Countess Greffulhe Duchesse de Guermantes hat velvet
On 19 Dec | '2016

Like all fashionable women of her era, the Countess Greffulhe never went outside without wearing a hat. Her archive includes a sheet of paper headed “Traveling 1900,” on which she made a careful list of accessories she would require, including: “Large hat necessary – light and halo-like. Summer veils . . . We need 2 black hats, 1 navy blue, 1 cream, 1 fancy, 1 fur hat for traveling.” Her contemporaries often mentioned her hats, and Proust also alluded repeatedly to the hats of the Duchesse de Guermantes.

Wide-brimmed hat, circa 1935
Velvet, feathers, tulle, paste (jewelry)
GAL1964.20.44, gift of the Gramont family to the Palais Galliera

Proust’s Muse, The Countess Greffulhe runs through January 7, 2016 at The Museum at FIT in NYC.

This exhibition was developed by the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris, Paris Musées.

Evening Dress circa 1925

By The Museum at FIT
In Objects
Tagged with 1925 dress Duchesse de Guermantes ivory Marcel Proust tulle
On 5 Dec | '2016

Photograph © Zach Hilty/BFA.com

The frocks of the 1920s were a far cry from the elaborate evening gowns in which Élisabeth Greffulhe had once astonished Parisian society. Yet memories of fashions past inevitably occur. For example, Proust once described the Duchesse de Guermantes wearing a gown ornamented with “innumerable spangles.” He wrote, “I did not believe that any other woman could usurp that spangled bodice, any more than the flashing aegis of Minerva.”

Evening dress (no label), circa 1925
Ivory tulle, embroidered with beads and sequins, silk muslin
GAL1964.20.20, gift of the Gramont family to the Palais Galliera

Proust’s Muse, The Countess Greffulhe runs through January 7, 2016 at The Museum at FIT in NYC.

This exhibition was developed by the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris, Paris Musées.

Mariano Fortuny

By The Museum at FIT
In Objects
Tagged with 1912 Duchesse de Guermantes Fortuny jacket Marcel Proust velvet
On 14 Nov | '2016

© Julien Vidal / Galliera / Roger-Viollet

Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish artist based in Venice, created “unique” garments made from marvelous fabrics that evoked for Proust “that Venice loaded with the gorgeous East.” In Proust’s novel, the Duchesse de Guermantes often wears Fortuny, and the narrator asks her about one such gown “streaked with gold like a butterfly’s wing” that seemed to have a special poetry. Soon he is bribing his mistress Albertine to stay with him, by buying her Fortuny gowns that “swarmed with Arabic ornaments, like the Venetian palaces hidden like sultanas behind a screen of pierced stone.”

Proust’s Muse, The Countess Greffulhe runs through January 7, 2016 at The Museum at FIT in NYC.

Mariano Fortuny
Jacket, circa 1912
Bronze green silk velvet printed with gold, matching belt
GAL1964.20.14AB, gift of the Gramont family to the Palais Galliera

This exhibition was developed by the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris, Paris Musées.

Shoes

By The Museum at FIT
In Objects
Tagged with 1905 Duchesse de Guermantes Marcel Proust red shoes velvet
On 28 Oct | '2016

One of the most famous scenes in Proust’s novel occurs near the end of The Guermantes Way, when the Duchesse de Guermantes, “lifting her skirt,” begins to step into their carriage. Catching sight of her foot, her husband exclaims: “Oriane, what are you thinking of! You are still wearing your black shoes! With a red dress! Go upstairs, quickly, and put on your red shoes!” It is a devastating moment, because their friend Swann has just been telling them that he is dying – something they prefer not to hear, since they are late for a party.

In real life, another friend of Proust’s, Madame Strauss, did once put on black shoes with a red dress, and her husband angrily ordered her to change, but it was not under such circumstances of cruelty and selfishness. Proust simply ran upstairs to fetch the other pair of shoes. Thus, a writer takes elements from life and transforms them into art.

Proust’s Muse, The Countess Greffulhe runs through January 7, 2016 at The Museum at FIT in NYC.

Lagel-Meier
Pair of high-heeled shoes, circa 1905
Sheared velvet, leather
GAL1964.20.75, gift of the Gramont family to the Palais Galliera

This exhibition was developed by the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris, Paris Musées.