Visited a Museum Today

Today I went to see an exhibit at the Society of Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida. The exhibit intrigued me because it is an intricately designed costume exhibit all created with paper by Belgium artist Isabelle de Borchgrave. Isabelle grew up with a passion for art and after college she worked in interior design and began designing dresses, scarves and jewelry. She specialized in designing fabrics. 

After a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in 1984, Isabelle was inspired to begin creating fashion out of paper. She collaborated with theatrical costumer Rita Brown in many of her designs. Isabelle designed and painted her own designs on paper for the costumes. She designed four different series: 300 years of fashion, the Russian Ballet, the world of 19th century Venice and the Medici royal family. 

Isabelle has had many costume exhibits around the world. She has also been commissioned to create specific projects such as recreating Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding dress for the JFK Library in Boston.

I love creating with paper so I was fascinated with this exhibit and all of the different textures and patterns in the designs, right down to the shoes. It's making me contemplate what more I could do with papers, sculptures and books.

This dress was one of my favorites, I really like it's black and white simplicity of pattern.

These two costumes were designed by Henri Matisse for the Russian Ballet.