Costume Représentant Parties Du Monde, Bal Louis XIV 1923

This black and white photograph shows a costume designed by Valentine Hugo for a Bal Louis XIV. The whole thing is silvery, glistening. It looks like a sketch come to life, an idea still in process. The material is everything here. It drapes and folds, catching light, almost fluid in its stillness. The lines, radiating from the neck, feel like quick, decisive strokes of a pen, translated into fabric and form. Those vertical folds pull my eye down, inviting me to imagine the body underneath, the movement, the dance. There is something playful about this costume, like a conversation between fabric and light, movement and stillness. Hugo's design reminds me of Sophie Taeuber-Arp's Dada costumes, embracing the absurd and the beautiful. Art, after all, is an ongoing dialogue, an exploration of what could be, not just what is.