The World Chess Hall of Fame’s exhibit inspired by the prowess of the Queen chess piece is more than whimsy. It’s a clever idea from an unexpected venue with a surprising confluence of international architects and contributors.
“A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes, Fashion & Chess,” explores the queen within us all — wise, vain, heroic, faithful, dismissive, clownish, motherly, seductive and saintly. In the sense that everyone is the captain of her fate, the exhibit proposes that our captain relates to one of nine female archetypes.
And that archetype relates to our inner queen, so to speak.
Even in chess, the lowly ranking pawn can be elevated to queen, the game’s most dynamic and powerful piece, with some ingenuity.
Susan Barrett, director of the World Chess Hall of Fame, has repeatedly said that the exhibit is more than just a fashion exhibit and that much has been done to emphasis the storytelling inspiration of each article of clothing.
In the foreword to the exhibit catalog, Barrett wrote that clothing projects an idealized version of ourselves, hiding flaws and accentuating assets at its best. Like the game of chess, fashion can also be a great equalizer. Anyone with enough skill can be a champion or revered, no matter what their previous station in life.
“But really you don’t have to know anything about that or think too hard,” said Sofia Hedman, curator of the exhibit. “Even if people don’t get all the hidden symbols or read all the panels about who made this or why, I want them to be able to walk in and enjoy it.
“There’s a lot of humor here in the clothing,” Hedman said. “That wit and humor and imagination is very important.”
She said that humor is very difficult to convey visually. When it’s successful, it speaks to irony, satire, farce and the highest levels of intellect.
One of the first visible pieces in the exhibit is meant to stop people in their tracks. It is a mesmerizing Alexander McQueen cocktail dress from his “Natural Dis-tinction, Un-natural Selection” spring 2009 collection inspired by Charles Darwin and “The Origin of Species.” The piece is fully encrusted with chunky bronze- and silver-hued Swarovski crystals. The neck dips low into a U shape, the waist narrows and the bottom resembles a bell jar. The sparkle of it casts a constellation of light onto a nearby wall.
From there, things get interesting.
• The glove by British jewelry designer Shaun Leane specially commissioned by heiress and fashion muse Daphne Guinness is tucked away under glass. The medieval armor-like “evening glove” is composed of 18-karat white gold and includes more than 5,000 pavé white diamonds that form a flock of birds mid-flight. In 2011, the value was estimated at nearly $2 million. Alexander McQueen designed the dress that Guinness wore for the glove’s debut in which she lay still on a table as if it were a funeral visitation.
• Swedish designer Bea Szenfeld’s Very Ape ensemble is bound to start a conversation because the designer likes to create garments that are not made out of fabric. Why? Because she wants people to look at her clothes. This item is a flesh-colored unitard with a 4- to 5-foot gorilla adhered to it. The smile-inducing look mimics the indelicate creature embracing the wearer like an infant being carried by a parent. Composed of white paper, the result will confuse and beguile. It’s from Szenfeld’s recent runway show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Stockholm from her comically elaborate “Make Love Not Fashion” Haute Papier Collection.
• Designer Keta Gutmane of Latvia provided a piece made of wood called “Room Story.” The garment, if you can call it that, is more of an installation. Visitors will notice strips of wood flooring on the ground that has distinct missing panels in the middle, the flooring curves upward, and hovering over the hole is a floating dress made of the same material that appears to be taking flight.
• The Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf created a so-called Swiss-cheese dress of their spring 2010 collection. The look is both theatrical and disturbing. Worn by the likes of Katy Perry, the garment looks impossible. The illusion on the runway was women who appeared to be cut away in segments but were somehow still walking around as if whole. At the time, the designers called the gowns, “Credit Crunch Couture” saying that they cut away the excess tulle because of the down economy. The very pink strapless dress from the collection is housed in a special room filled ceiling to floor with convex mirrors that mimic the holes in the dress. Visitors can peek in and marvel at the gown from every conceivable angle but can’t help but view themselves gazing as well.
• There are several pieces by Belgian designer Iris Van Herpen, but the “snake dress” from her 2011 haute couture collection is perhaps the most captivating. She created it to evoke the mental state of someone at the moment they parachute jump from a plane. A mass of black acrylic sheets form a minidress of serpentine tubes that are supposed to interpret the internal. She has explained, “I feel as though my mind is snaking through thousands of bends.”
• One of the paradigms of the exhibit is that “You are what you wear.” The curator Hedman said that storytelling is an underappreciated but intrinsic part of fashion. Clothes tell a story, and people have many stories associated with what they wear and why.
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