Charles James: America’s Couturier

“It’s the air that’s sculpted, not the silk; it touches the body in only two or three variable places. The rest of the silhouette you can vary as much as you desire.”

—Charles James

As you walk among the galleries at the Metropolitan Museum devoted to the work of designer Charles James, you cannot help but be struck by the realization that James truly was an architect and sculptor.  That in itself should be enough to lure fashion fans to the Metropolitan Museum before the exhibit, “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” closes after Aug. 10.

Charles Wilson Brega James (1906–1978), was a British-born designer who gained renown in the United States as America’s Couturier. Vogue magazine once described James as a, “master of color comparatives, of the cut and fold of exceptional cloths.” James used his training as a milliner and architect to craft his garments with masterful precision with careful attention to construction and proportion. He was most well known for his extravagant ball gowns, worn by some of the most important  American socialites, as well as his seamed coats.

In a pre-recorded interview for the museum’s website, Harold Koda, curator-in-charge of The Costume Institute and co-curator of the James exhibit, said it was fitting to have the James exhibit be the inaugural exhibit for the newly renovated Anna Wintour Costume Center at the museum.

“If you wear a down jacket, if you’ve ever had a wrap dress, or the strapless gown—all of those things were innovations by James, perhaps the only, and certainly the greatest, couturier that worked in New York City,” Koda said. “He was an artist who happened to be working in fashion as his medium.”

The Met Museum exhibit actually takes up three gallery spaces.

In the main Costume Institute gallery, located on the museum’s lower level, visitors can study a profusion of coats, day dresses, and cocktail dresses. Large wall projections scattered throughout this gallery show extreme close-up shots of some of the fabrics used and of different sections of some of the garments on display.

An adjacent, smaller gallery—the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery—includes photographs, intricate notes by the designer, sketches, hats James created for his collections, and some of James’ signature dress forms which he created to revolutionize that element in construction of his garments.

Those items alone would be enough for an exceptional exhibit.

But a separate display of 15 gowns in the new Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery on the museum’s main level truly make seeing “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” a true visual experience.

“As you move past, we have introduced an analytical component: monitors and robotic arms devised by (exhibition designers) Diller, Scofidio and Renfro—tracing out details of the garment, balancing the romance with all of the science that went into creating that effect,” Koda said.

The Tisch Gallery presents each gown in its own individual spotlight with a computerized robot arm tracing over each detail of an individual gown. As the arm moves over different sections of a gown, observers can see close-ups of the fabric used and watch an animated graphic of the fabric, as it is cut it into shapes. A succession of animated graphics then show the understructure’s construction, the shapes being sewn together and, finally, the fabric being draped to create the final garment.

Jan Reeder, co-curator for the James exhibit, said the Tisch Gallery gowns are actually divided into four sections, each showing a different technique that James employed. Some of his gowns were named based on a particular shape or inspiration, such as his Swan gown, the Tree, and the Clover Leaf ball gown.

“He was very influenced by late Victorian bustle dresses, and the ‘Swan’ gown is a wonderful example,” Reeder said in the pre-recorded press interview. “James’s iteration, though, is a very light gown that he created with chiffon and beautiful transparent tulle. The ‘Umbrella’ dress is the first dress that he created using a real understructure, and one of the very first strapless gowns.

“The ‘Clover Leaf’ ball gown incorporates his wonderful artistry as a sculptor and as a romanticist with the rigor of his understanding of engineering cut, and construction in a way that made it wearable.” And if you look closely, you’ll see more of James’s sayings on the Tisch Gallery’s walls.

“[James] was someone who was, throughout his career, evolving in his ideas about construction, but never deviated from the fact that he felt that the artifice of fashion could, in fact, improve the human body,” Koda said. “If there was anything that worked against him as a business person, it’s that he saw his design output as artistic creation, rather than something for commercial benefit. His whole methodology, his whole career, was dedicated to an artistic practice. He was a sculptor in cloth.”

—Karyn D. Collins