My new BFF Mr. Ferguson (who commented in person on my earlier post!) kindly alerted me to the fact that there are a few more of his delectable metal mesh dresses on ebay. It's such an honor to be contacted by the designer!
Here's an interesting and versatile tabard dress worn by Tina Turner on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1985:
Then there's this lovely red-black floral dress with a lovely halter front and cowl back.
And another lovely, a serious mini dress worn by Talisa Soto in a seriously star-studded mid-80s Revlon ad. (This auction's closed, but the item may still be available.)
These dresses are all one of a kind. Here's what I know about Mr. Ferguson, courtesy of the ebay seller:
Mr. Ferguson has designed costumes for The Joffrey Ballet; other designs are in collections worldwide as well as the permanent collection of The Museum of the City of New York, other selected exhibitions include "Goddess: The Classical Mode" at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, 2003, and "Goddess" MoMu, Belgium, 2004.
"Reviving a technique used in the 1920's for metal mesh bags, Douglas Ferguson's late-twentieth century silhouettes overlay classical references on a medieval chain-mail-like material. Like other conflations of recognizable period styles, his designs have the paradoxical effect of being outside time. It is a strategy used by costume designers in theater and the cinema,by illustrators in comic books, and more recently, by creators of computer games, to suggest utopias and dystopias, the future and imaginary parallel realities…Ferguson has devised his own techniques for patterning their surface, exploiting the durability of enamel paints used for cars to create his coruscating designs. Although the mesh is kept in relatively unaltered rectilinear panels, individual components of the material, quatrefoil links, may be removed to modify the shape of each pattern piece. The minimum intervention required by the material, which flows over the body's contours, results in a structural simplicity similar to that of the uncut draped garments of the Greeks."
(Goddess: The Classical Mode, by Harold Koda, Director of The Costume Institute, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).
There has to be more to the story - I have so many questions. Were the dresses commissioned for each photo shoot? How many mesh dresses were made? Was the mesh itself made or commissioned by the designer? I'd also love to see more designs, perhaps for the stage, or in other materials.
If you're reading this Mr. F, and wouldn't mind an email interview, please contact me!
eileen (at) daisyfairbanks (dot) com
