Costume Design 

Curator: My goodness, look at this, a true vision! Erte's costume design...it's almost like a dream pulled from the subconscious, isn't it? So theatrical, yet so elegant. What strikes you first? Editor: The sheer volume of decoration and ornamentation—it is lavish and imposing. Consider how much construction and handiwork this concept demands, even before we imagine it as a performance costume. What does it tell us about the social expectations and labor divisions of its time? Curator: It sings of the Art Deco era, doesn’t it? The lines, the stylization, the opulence...it is a love song to the beauty and frivolity of the 1920s, to transformation. See the floral explosions, the cascades of beads mimicking a jeweled waterfall! One imagines this figure emerging from a dream garden. It whispers secrets of illusion and extravagance, but its lines remain light. Editor: There’s that tension between heavy materiality and weightless performance. It prompts reflection on craft versus art. Costume design as a kind of applied art, meant to enable, support, even constrain the performer. How do such demands shape creative choice and output, I wonder? And the intended audience's expectations must dictate this design to some degree, certainly. Curator: Ah, audience as co-creator! And do you not also find in these drawings the spark of individuality bursting free? This is where imagination runs wild! Editor: Absolutely! I wonder too about the unseen labor embedded in each carefully drawn line, each envisioned sequin. The material conditions that give rise to such fantasy—who sewed these imagined seams, and under what circumstances? Costume hints at societal values but depends on so many artisans behind the scenes. Curator: It makes one consider the silent army of creators behind all spectacle and grandeur. Costume design lives at the cusp of illusion and functionality... It beckons with fantasy but then stands firmly within economic parameters, doesn't it? Editor: Precisely! The allure is a crafted thing, supported by countless unseen hands, threads, hours. Recognizing that shifts the perspective on glamour itself. Curator: How wonderful to remember that every beautiful facade comes from somewhere! The unseen labor that empowers an artistic moment! This changes, perhaps even deepens our wonder at Erte’s design. Thank you for that. Editor: My pleasure, It certainly enriches the experience of witnessing the visual feast of imagination, and it provides new perspective on historical contexts of costume design.