Lady's Coat c. 1936

Curator: This drawing, titled "Lady's Coat," is believed to be from around 1936. Editor: Well, hello, Empress Josephine! It just feels so...stately, and somehow a bit melancholic. The blue is gorgeous, but the stark white under-drawing does hint at an unfinished project, an intention left unfulfilled perhaps. Curator: Indeed. What strikes me is how this image provides a portal to exploring constructions of femininity in the mid-1930s. Consider the ways the figure is erased in favor of idealizing and fetishizing its potential adornment. It prompts us to ponder who gets represented, who is made invisible. Editor: Absolutely. And even within the confines of that "ideal," there's such fascinating tension between the strict tailoring of the coat and the frilliness of the embroidery! It's like she's fighting her way out of a doily! Is she powerful, restricted, or playing with those tropes, do you think? It gives an insight into that era's societal constraints imposed upon women... Curator: Or perhaps her refusal of those constraints through the very clothing she dons, or refuses? Think about what fashion meant at that time - silent codes signalling privilege and power. By showing it to us like this the Artist invites us to consider class dynamics and gender expectations embedded in that era's haute couture scene. The piece becomes an interesting window into identity negotiations... Editor: Precisely. Even the drawing medium hints at that: it is more of a ghost than a person! I feel that the person behind the coat design understands the coat would not exist without the person; yet in drawing the focus seems to be in it without anyone inside it. But that melancholy keeps pulling me back… maybe this design never saw the light. A loss...or perhaps it never was. It's tantalizing to think that an unseen hand stopped here so we might imagine... Curator: Mmh, perhaps a lost blueprint indeed, echoing stories that needed unveiling… or perhaps the artwork does have someone in it? Can the clothing represent the figure and their ideas/concepts or presence to an ideal itself? That might be the entire concept of the sketch as art itself. Interesting piece. Thank you for illuminating what it could mean. Editor: The same to you. It truly does conjure whispers across time, doesn’t it?