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The Brontës in Haute Couture: A Sartorial Adaptation of Literary Texts

The Brontës in Haute Couture: A Sartorial Adaptation of Literary Texts Abstract This essay elucidates the ways in which Veronique Branquinho, a contemporary Belgian avant-garde fashion designer, appropriates the literary heritage of the Brontë sisters. A well-read, intellectual visual artist, she has presented collections marked with literary references. Her recent works tap into some key aspects of the Brontë oeuvre, re-envisioning them into highly original sartorial forms. The influence of the Brontës manifests itself in the ethos of Branquinho’s craftsmanship as well as in the individual artefacts that she has created. The designer’s Brontë-inspired dresses with their formal beauty and distinctive aesthetics could be viewed as an intermedial ode to the British writers, her enduring muses, attesting to the universal appeal of the sisters across disciplines. The Brontë sisters, literary heritage, sartorial adaptation, Veronique Branquinho, fashion design The cultural legacy of the Brontë sisters abounds. Their works, established as canonical texts in world literature, have inspired generations of creative minds in literary, visual, and performing arts. Although a great deal of attention has been paid to transmedia afterlives of the Brontës in the fields of film, theatre, music, and dance (Regis and Wynne; Rubik and Mettinger-Schartmann; Stoneman), their influence on the applied arts and, especially, on fashion remains virtually untouched. Literature and fashion, if seemingly disparate, are intimately associated with each other. The fashion historian Aileen Ribeiro contends in The Art of Dress that fashion is ‘the only art that relates so closely to the narrative of our lives’ (3). The phrase, which could be equally applicable to literature, indicates the affinities between the two art forms. Writers probed the notion of fashion at literal and metaphorical levels (Balzac; Carlyle). They also employed dress imagery in their texts as a social, aesthetic, or psychological index of manners, morals, and sentiments (Hughes). The Brontës, who were alert to the expressive power of costume in the fictional world, would serve as prominent examples themselves (Bernstein; Hollander 439; Spooner). They made informed references to clothes in their novels as a means of narrating diverse issues including identity formation, gender awareness, class relations, and material culture. More specifically, dress performs a central role in the heroine’s perception of selfhood in Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853). In the latter novel, it also functions as a telling indicator of urban bourgeois lifestyle and consumerism. In Wuthering Heights (1847), fashion is deployed to signify class division and social mobility. Later writers like Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, or Elizabeth Bowen were more concerned with fashion as a cultural phenomenon of modern society, addressing the subject in conjunction with wider discourses of their times. Fashion designers, in turn, drew inspiration from literature. Some of them even pursued writing as a new creative channel in parallel with their own medium, exemplified by such designers-cum-authors as Sonia Rykiel, Elizabeth Hawes, or Emily Wilkens.1 As Gabrielle Chanel observed, ‘fashion is not something that exists in dresses only’ (qtd. in Alston and Dixon 82). It is, like literature, richly semantic and is involved with ideas, beliefs, values, and modes of life (Carlyle 72; Wilson 9). In a sense, as Roland Barthes daringly asserts, fashion is a literature (12). In this context, Veronique Branquinho, a contemporary Belgian fashion designer, claims particular attention. Literature has been a long-standing creative catalyst for the couturière, whose recent collections feature an intriguing sartorial appropriation of Brontë classics. Born in Belgium in 1973, she graduated from the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1995.2 She made a debut with her women’s collection in Paris in 1997, founding her eponymous brand in the following year. Her unique, unusual look, as seen in the combination of ‘Victorian governess’ blouses and masculine tailored jackets, immediately drew attention of the fashion world, critically acclaimed by fashion journalists of the illustrious press like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, or the New York Times (Windels, Young Belgian 122). Critics defined her as a designer ‘on the cutting edge of fashion’ (Menkes). They recognized in her a ‘quirky new individuality’ and particularly commended her inventive synthesis of modern sensibility and classic craftsmanship, which manifested itself in ‘the clean silhouettes and modernist proportions of precise tailoring’ of her pieces (Menkes; Middleton). In 1998, she was awarded the Best New Designer prize by VH1 in New York, an honour which further raised her profile in the transatlantic press and retail market (Windels, “Life after the Six” 74). In 2003, she extended her label to menswear line and opened her flagship store in Antwerp. Branquinho had to discontinue the business in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis but after a three-year hiatus, made a successful comeback, relaunching her brand in partnership with the Italian manufacturer Gibò Co., now Onward Luxury Group. In 2019, she entered into a new collaboration with the Belgian retailer, Veritas. Apart from the aforementioned career, Branquinho has built varied experience in the field. She served as a designer in the prestigious Italian house of Ruffo Research; the artistic director of the Belgian brand Delvaux; a guest editor of the fashion journal A Magazine; a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2008, MoMu, the Fashion Museum of Antwerp, held a retrospective solo exhibition entitled ‘Moi, Veronique Branquinho TOuTe NUe’ to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the designer’s label. The signature look of Branquinho’s collections is, as indicated above, at once traditional and innovative. It can be defined as a classic, timeless style with Romantic and Gothic twists (Muret). Her clothing, simple and sophisticated, is noted for its understated chic, impeccable tailoring, and quality material. Her design is to be placed in the context of the new wave of contemporary Belgian fashion. Belgium emerged in the fashion world in recent years as its second largest city Antwerp established itself as a new style hub. Prior to the 1980s, Antwerp was far from a readily identifiable world-class fashion capital like Paris, Milan, or London. Yet things began to change with the international success of local designers and, most notably, the Antwerp Six, Belgium’s most influential avant-garde fashion collective. The Antwerp Six refers to six graduates from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, who played a pivotal role in placing Belgium on the international fashion map: Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, and Marina Yee.3 They studied fashion under the supervision of Linda Loppa and received their diplomas in 1980–82. The designers set out to revolutionize the notion of fashion. They took ground-breaking approaches to fashion, combining traditional craftsmanship with avant-garde ideas and experimenting with radical design aesthetics such as the conceptual or the deconstructive. The group thus represented an iconoclastic attitude towards the fashion establishment. Their ‘anti-glamour’ fashion challenged the Parisian fashion of the late 1980s, which was characterized by glamourous power dressing of Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler (Godtsenhoven 55). The group launched an international career with the presentation of their first collections in the 1986 British Designer Show in London, where the UK press noticed the enterprising new talents and publicized them as ‘the Antwerp Six’. Thereafter they disbanded to work individually, each of the members evolving a distinctive style and trademark of his/her own. In the course of the next three decades, their cutting-edge designs brought up to date catwalks worldwide and transformed the international fashion scene. It is noteworthy that the Antwerp Six attained their reputation with their design philosophy as well as with the artefacts that they produced. In spite of their commitment to ‘fashion as idea’, they were pragmatic and sober-minded in their designing practice. They were socially aware and were alert to the ethical aspect of fashion, taking a critical view of the capitalist fashion system. They pursued ‘slow fashion’ with sustainability in mind, working at their own pace at a distance from the hectic rhythm of the fashion industry. Their ecological concern meant that they took a less-is-more approach. They thus flouted the norms of the Parisian fashion system, organizing their shows in alternative venues rather than in fancy hotel salons; using models recruited through street-casting; and eschewing large-scale public-relations campaigns (Godtsenhoven 58). All these were at odds with the standard business practices set by major luxury couture houses of the day and, therefore, could be construed as the trail-blazing designers’ reaction to the dictates of the fashion industry. Petula Vomera summarizes the group’s hallmark features: The most significant factor is that personal expression and artistic integrity is favoured over commercial success and financial gain. Their disregard for the predominant trends from season to season illustrates this. […] While major marketing strategies are often ignored, this increases the emphasis on the process of design and manufacture. […] Collections often start from highly abstract concepts, employing classic ideals of craftsmanship whilst always remaining wearable. Much of the garments are labour-intensive; the use of traditional and couture principles are applied […] the Belgians have pioneered fashion concepts like Deconstruction, Component dressing and Reconstruction. Their styling methods like Bohemian-chic and Eccentric-eclectic have inspired whole new directions and images in contemporary fashion. (8–10) The Antwerp Six set the example for younger Flemish designers including Branquinho, Raf Simons, A. F. Vandevorst, and Bernhard Willhelm, who continue to cause a stir in the global fashion arena, redefining the concept of fashion and interrogating the prevailing business practices of the fashion industry. Branquinho, as mentioned above, stands in the continuum of Belgian avant-garde fashion, and her work with its focus on creativity, minimalism, and sustainability is essentially informed by the design philosophy pioneered by the Antwerp Six (Olivier Singer). Recently, she addressed her abiding sartorial concerns through literary inspirations from the Brontë sisters. Although she is engaged in fashion or a visual art form,4 Branquinho is wary of potential pitfalls inherent in our image-saturated culture, seeking to move beyond mere image-making. For her, a conceptual vision is paramount: ‘It’s certain that the whole world is very busy with images. I cannot work like that; I’m still concerned about content, intensity and integrity. I cannot just do images’ (qtd. in Thawley). Like all great artists, she is dedicated to the essentials of her medium, constantly calling into question what fashion is and should be. ‘Fashion for me is a language and I want to tell a story’, she states (qtd. in Ahmed). Branquinho’s creative reframing of the Brontës set in motion with her autumn/winter 2015 collection, which exhibited, among other things, items inlaid with Emily Brontë’s poems. For instance, a checkerboard jacquard sweater (Figure 1) subtly incorporates the poet’s verse of 1839, ‘That Wind, I Used to Hear It Swelling’ (Brontë 135): That wind, I used to hear it swelling With joy divinely deep; You might have seen my hot tears welling, But rapture made me weep. I used to love on winter nights To lie and dream alone Of all the rare and real delights My early years had known; And oh, above the rest of those That coming time should bear, Like heaven’s own glorious stars they rose Still beaming bright and fair. Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. Branquinho notes that she came across the poem while reading Emily Brontë. The designer relates to her literary-inspired garment: ‘I saw this poem I really loved and that for me really captured the essence of the woman I’m designing for. And I wanted to include it, in a way, but I’m not one who wants to have a slogan’ (qtd. in Huston). Therefore, the verse makes its way into her design in such a way that the text seamlessly merges into the geometric motif of textile. That is, the words constitute the decorative mosaics of the intarsia pattern of the sweater while clearly legible in their own right. The colour scheme of the outfit—toned-down vermillion, mint, beige, black, and grey—is beautifully evocative of the visionary romanticism of the poem. Another lyric piece of Emily, ‘I’m Happiest When Most Away’ (1838, Brontë 63), has been knitted into a Fair Isle sweater (Figure 2): I’m happiest when most away I can bear my soul from its home of clay On a windy night when the moon is bright And the eye can wander through worlds of light— When I am not and none beside— Nor earth nor sea nor cloudless sky— But only spirit wandering wide Through infinite immensity. Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. In an interview with a fashion magazine Branquinho articulated that the whole conception of her autumn/winter 2015 collection, from the overarching theme to the details of coiffure and make-up, was indebted to Emily Brontë: The A/W15 invitation was a poem by Emily Brontë … in fact, all of the poetry in the collection was. I took it from a really beautiful book I have called Poems of Solitude. […] I think that the hair and makeup was the most dark-romantic part, very Emily Brontë. It’s a little bit like an image of a haunted woman in the forest, running away from something […] like little birds escaping and dreaming away. (qtd. in Olivier Singer) The influence of Emily Brontë continues to be perceived in the designer’s creations for the subsequent season. Her pre-spring 2016 collection, entitled ‘Forever Wild at Heart’, seems to revisit, by dint of the sartorial language, the powerful, enigmatic, and imaginative world of Wuthering Heights, in which an array of larger-than-life ideas—nature, instinct, raw emotions, freedom, and civilization—are tackled. Branquinho designed fifteen dresses, all in black and white, which were presented with a romantic or surreal note in the forest by the photographer Ronald Stoops. The models, paired with their alter ego, embody the drama of good and evil within the mind and the universe (Figure 3). In their movements, they look free-flowing, uninhibited, and almost weightless with the dividing line between reality and unreality blurred (Figures 4–6). The designer explains that the collection was motivated by her desire to go back to the basics and to the core of humanity: ‘The images of the collection shot in the woods express total freedom and beauty; that always has been an inspiration to me. Forever Wild at Heart’ (qtd. in Crash). The simple, unadorned dresses made of natural fabric speak volumes for themselves, brilliantly conveying the wild, elemental, and unchained spirit permeated in Emily Brontë’s novel. Figure 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Branquinho’s pre-fall 2016–17 collection is more explicitly ‘Brontë-esque’, as Vogue puts it (Maya Singer). It features a Victoriana wardrobe with capes, trailing flounced skirts, velvet-trimmed ponchos, and leather Wellington boots (Figures 7–8). The Gothic aesthetics which cut across Charlotte Brontë’s novels such as Jane Eyre or Villette are palpable in the sublime, introspective, and supernatural qualities of the collection (Steele and Park 10–11), but the apparent historicism of fashion is counterbalanced by modern, practical-minded items like oversize sweaters or shirtdresses with masculine tailoring. ‘It’s a darker mood’, the designer elaborates, ‘I like that there is a twist between what is elegant and feminine but also very controlled and styled. It’s the balance between those things that I like’ (qtd. in Ahmed). Branquinho’s vision of femininity here revealed is distinctive. In effect, she represents the only female voice of the second wave of Belgian fashion talent, and femininity constitutes one of the central themes which she has been intent on exploring through her art since her academy days (Windels, Young Belgian 120). A curator of the MoMu recounts the designer’s intricate configuration of women: Figure 7. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 7. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 8. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 8. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Both in its imaging of women and in its use and combinations of materials, Branquinho’s work displays duality on different levels. In her creations, women come across as both innocent and erotic, playful and severe, mysterious and always complex. Her early work foregrounded the transitional period from girl to woman and the emotional complexity of the rites of passage in the lives of all women. (MoMu) Intriguingly enough, the womanhood which she envisions recalls that of Brontë heroines like Jane Eyre or Lucy Snowe, as is affirmed by the designer: ‘I think that is part of my women; they’re independent and strong, but at the same time they’re fragile and I can imagine they get lost in romantic fantasies of solitude’ (qtd. in Ahmed). In sum, her women, equivocal, complex, and subtly drawn, defy any monolithic interpretations; ambiguity and mystery are crucial to her iconography of femininity (Derycke and Van de Veire 84). Although there have been a considerable number of studies on the reworkings of Brontë texts in a variety of genres, little has been written about their influence on fashion. The sartorial artworks of Branquinho stand out in this respect. A remarkably well-read, intellectual designer with a particular penchant for nineteenth-century British literature, she has presented collections imbued with literary sensibilities. Her recent works, as discussed above, tap into some key aspects of Brontë classics, refashioning them into highly original sartorial forms. The influence of the Brontës manifests itself in the ethos of her craftsmanship in general as well as in the individual artefacts she has created. That is, she seems to share with the sisters a balanced view of tradition and innovation; critical distancing from mainstream cultural values; and a commitment to artistic integrity. In conclusion, the designer’s Brontë-inspired dresses with their formal beauty and idiosyncratic aesthetics could be regarded as an intermedial ode to the British writers, her enduring muses, attesting to the universal appeal of the sisters across disciplines. 2016 Footnotes 1 The French designer Sonia Rykiel (1930–2016) published several books about fashion, novels, and a collection of children’s stories. Elizabeth Hawes (1903–71) was an American fashion designer, writer, and union activist. Fashion is Spinach, her memoir of 1938, offers an astute critique of the fashion scene during the inter-war period. Emily Wilkens (1917–2000), an American children’s wear designer, was also a published author. 2 For her biography, see https://www.veroniquebranquinho.com/about; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronique_Branquinho; https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronique_Branquinho. 3 For a detailed study of the Antwerp Six, see Van Godtsenhoven; Vomera; Derycke and Van de Veire. 4 Fashion is ‘a form of visual art, a creation of images with the visible self as its medium’ (Hollander 311). References Ahmed , Osman . “Veronique Branquinho’s Brontë Fashion Heroines.” AnOther . 5 Dec. 2016 . https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/9337/veronique-Cbranquinhos-bront-fashion-heroines. Accessed 1 May 2019. Alston , Isabella , and Kathryn Dixon. Coco Chanel . Charlotte : TAJ , 2014 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Balzac , Honoré de. Treatise on Elegant Living . Trans. Napoleon Jeffries. 1830. Cambridge, MA : Wakefield , 2010 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Barthes , Roland. The Fashion System. Trans. Matthew Ward and Richard Howard. 1967. Berkeley : U of California P , 1990 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bernstein , Sara T . “‘In This Same Gown of Shadow’: Functions of Fashion in Villette.” The Brontës in the World of the Arts . Eds. Sandra Hagan and Juliette Wells. Farnham : Ashgate , 2008 : 149 – 68 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bowen , Elizabeth. “The Dress.” Collected Impressions . London : Longmans , 1950 : 111 – 15 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Brontë , Charlotte. Jane Eyre . Oxford : Oxford UP , 2008 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC ———. Villette . Oxford : Oxford UP , 2008 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Brontë , Emily. Wuthering Heights . Oxford : Oxford UP , 2009 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC ———. The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë . Ed. C. W. Hatfield. New York : Columbia UP , 1995 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Carlyle , Thomas. Sartor Resartus . 1836. Boston : James Munroe , 1840 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Derycke , Luc , and Sandra Van de Veire, eds. Belgian Fashion Design . Ghent : Ludion , 1999 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hollander , Anne. Seeing through Clothes. Berkeley : U of California P , 1993 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Hughes , Clair. Henry James and the Art of Dress . London : Palgrave , 2001 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Huston , Megan . “Veronique Branquinho: To Be Free.” StyleZeitgeist . 30 July 2015 . https://www.sz-mag.com/news/2015/07/veronique-branquinho-to-be-free/. Accessed 1 May 2019. James , Henry. Washington Square . Oxford : Oxford UP , 2010 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Preview WorldCat COPAC ———. The Portrait of a Lady . Oxford : Oxford UP , 2009 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC ———. The Wings of the Dove . Oxford : Oxford UP , 2009 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Menkes , Suzy . “Milan Fashion: Hip Styling to Beef Up the Basics.” The New York Times. 7 Oct. 1998. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/07/style/IHT-milan-fashion-hip-styling-to-beef-up-the-basics.html. Accessed 1 May 2019. Middleton , William . “A Quirky New Individuality.” The New York Times . 13 Oct. 1998 . https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/13//IHT-a-quirky-new-individuality.html?searchResultPosition=4. Accessed 1 May 2019. MoMu . “Moi, Veronique Branquinho TOuTe NUe.” https://www.momu.be/en/exhibitions/moi-veronique-branquinho-toute-nue. Accessed 1 May 2019. Muret , Dominique . “Veronique Branquinho Terminates Eponymous Label” Fashion Network . 19 June 2017 . https://uk.fashionnetwork.com/news/Veronique-branquinho-terminates-eponymous-label,840695.html. Accessed 1 May 2019. Regis , Amber K. , and Deborah Wynne, eds. Charlotte Brontë: Legacies and Afterlives . Manchester : Manchester UP , 2017 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Ribeiro , Aileen. The Art of Dress . New Haven : Yale UP , 1995 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Rubik , Margarete , and Elke Mettinger-Schartmann, eds. A Breath of Fresh Eyre: Intertextual and Intermedial Reworkings of Jane Eyre. Amsterdam : Rodopi , 2007 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Google Preview WorldCat COPAC Singer , Maya . “Pre-Fall 2016: Veronique Branquinho.” Vogue . 6 Jan. 2016. https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/pre-fall-2016/veronique-branquinho. Accessed 1 May 2019. Singer , Olivier . “Veronique Branquinho on the Power of a Whisper.” AnOther . 24 Mar. 2015 . https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/7195/veronique-branquinho-on-the-power-of-a-whisper. Accessed 1 May 2019. Spooner , Catherine. Fashioning Gothic Bodies. Manchester : Manchester UP , 2004 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Steele , Valerie , and Jennifer Park. Gothic: Dark Glamour . New Haven : Yale UP , 2008 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Stoneman , Patsy . Brontë Transformations: The Cultural Dissemination of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights . London : Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf , 1996 . Google Scholar ———. Jane Eyre on Stage 1848–1898 . Aldershot : Ashgate , 2007 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Thawley , Dan . “Conversations: Veronique Branquinho and Dirk Van Saene Reflect on Antwerp, Reinvention and Fashion’s Exhausting Pace.” Document . 11 May 2016 . https://www.documentjournal.com/2016/05/veronique-branquinho-and-dirk-van-saene-reflect-on-antwerp-reinvention-and-fashions-exhausting-pace/. Accessed 1 May 2019. Van Godtsenhoven , Karen . “The Birth of Belgian Avant-Garde Fashion: Breakthrough and Careers of the Antwerp Six +1.” The Belgians: An Unexpected Fashion Story . Eds. Didier Vervaeren et al. . Brussels : Bozar Books , 2015 : 55 – 72 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC “Veronique Branquinho Pre-Spring 2016 Collection.” Crash. 12 Jun. 2015 . https://www.crash.fr/veronique-branquinho-pre-spring-2016-collection/. Accessed 1 May 2019. “Veronique Branquinho.” https://www.veroniquebranquinho.com/about. Accessed 1 May 2019. “Veronique Branquinho.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronique_Branquinho. Accessed 1 May 2019. “Veronique Branquinho.” https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronique_Branquinho. Accessed 1 May 2019. Vomera , Petula Tuohy. Contemporary Belgian Fashion: An Analysis of Innovative and Conceptual Ideologies within the Work of Belgium’s Foremost Designers . Saarbrücken : Lambert Academic Publishing , 2012 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Wilde , Oscar . “The Philosophy of Dress.” Oscar Wilde on Dress. Ed. John Cooper. 1885. Philadelphia : CSM , 2013 : 61 – 81 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Wilson , Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. London : I. B. Tauris , 2013 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Windels , Veerle. Young Belgian Fashion Design. Ghent : Ludion , 2001 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC ———. “Life after the Six.” The Belgians: An Unexpected Fashion Story . Eds. Didier Vervaeren et al. . Brussels : Bozar Books , 2015 : 73 – 89 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Woolf , Virginia . “The Duchess and the Jeweller.” A Haunted House and Other Short Stories. New York : Harcourt Brace , 1944 : 94 – 102 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Adaptation Oxford University Press

The Brontës in Haute Couture: A Sartorial Adaptation of Literary Texts

Adaptation , Volume 14 (1) – Mar 5, 2021

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Oxford University Press
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1755-0637
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1755-0645
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Abstract

Abstract This essay elucidates the ways in which Veronique Branquinho, a contemporary Belgian avant-garde fashion designer, appropriates the literary heritage of the Brontë sisters. A well-read, intellectual visual artist, she has presented collections marked with literary references. Her recent works tap into some key aspects of the Brontë oeuvre, re-envisioning them into highly original sartorial forms. The influence of the Brontës manifests itself in the ethos of Branquinho’s craftsmanship as well as in the individual artefacts that she has created. The designer’s Brontë-inspired dresses with their formal beauty and distinctive aesthetics could be viewed as an intermedial ode to the British writers, her enduring muses, attesting to the universal appeal of the sisters across disciplines. The Brontë sisters, literary heritage, sartorial adaptation, Veronique Branquinho, fashion design The cultural legacy of the Brontë sisters abounds. Their works, established as canonical texts in world literature, have inspired generations of creative minds in literary, visual, and performing arts. Although a great deal of attention has been paid to transmedia afterlives of the Brontës in the fields of film, theatre, music, and dance (Regis and Wynne; Rubik and Mettinger-Schartmann; Stoneman), their influence on the applied arts and, especially, on fashion remains virtually untouched. Literature and fashion, if seemingly disparate, are intimately associated with each other. The fashion historian Aileen Ribeiro contends in The Art of Dress that fashion is ‘the only art that relates so closely to the narrative of our lives’ (3). The phrase, which could be equally applicable to literature, indicates the affinities between the two art forms. Writers probed the notion of fashion at literal and metaphorical levels (Balzac; Carlyle). They also employed dress imagery in their texts as a social, aesthetic, or psychological index of manners, morals, and sentiments (Hughes). The Brontës, who were alert to the expressive power of costume in the fictional world, would serve as prominent examples themselves (Bernstein; Hollander 439; Spooner). They made informed references to clothes in their novels as a means of narrating diverse issues including identity formation, gender awareness, class relations, and material culture. More specifically, dress performs a central role in the heroine’s perception of selfhood in Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853). In the latter novel, it also functions as a telling indicator of urban bourgeois lifestyle and consumerism. In Wuthering Heights (1847), fashion is deployed to signify class division and social mobility. Later writers like Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, or Elizabeth Bowen were more concerned with fashion as a cultural phenomenon of modern society, addressing the subject in conjunction with wider discourses of their times. Fashion designers, in turn, drew inspiration from literature. Some of them even pursued writing as a new creative channel in parallel with their own medium, exemplified by such designers-cum-authors as Sonia Rykiel, Elizabeth Hawes, or Emily Wilkens.1 As Gabrielle Chanel observed, ‘fashion is not something that exists in dresses only’ (qtd. in Alston and Dixon 82). It is, like literature, richly semantic and is involved with ideas, beliefs, values, and modes of life (Carlyle 72; Wilson 9). In a sense, as Roland Barthes daringly asserts, fashion is a literature (12). In this context, Veronique Branquinho, a contemporary Belgian fashion designer, claims particular attention. Literature has been a long-standing creative catalyst for the couturière, whose recent collections feature an intriguing sartorial appropriation of Brontë classics. Born in Belgium in 1973, she graduated from the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1995.2 She made a debut with her women’s collection in Paris in 1997, founding her eponymous brand in the following year. Her unique, unusual look, as seen in the combination of ‘Victorian governess’ blouses and masculine tailored jackets, immediately drew attention of the fashion world, critically acclaimed by fashion journalists of the illustrious press like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, or the New York Times (Windels, Young Belgian 122). Critics defined her as a designer ‘on the cutting edge of fashion’ (Menkes). They recognized in her a ‘quirky new individuality’ and particularly commended her inventive synthesis of modern sensibility and classic craftsmanship, which manifested itself in ‘the clean silhouettes and modernist proportions of precise tailoring’ of her pieces (Menkes; Middleton). In 1998, she was awarded the Best New Designer prize by VH1 in New York, an honour which further raised her profile in the transatlantic press and retail market (Windels, “Life after the Six” 74). In 2003, she extended her label to menswear line and opened her flagship store in Antwerp. Branquinho had to discontinue the business in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis but after a three-year hiatus, made a successful comeback, relaunching her brand in partnership with the Italian manufacturer Gibò Co., now Onward Luxury Group. In 2019, she entered into a new collaboration with the Belgian retailer, Veritas. Apart from the aforementioned career, Branquinho has built varied experience in the field. She served as a designer in the prestigious Italian house of Ruffo Research; the artistic director of the Belgian brand Delvaux; a guest editor of the fashion journal A Magazine; a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2008, MoMu, the Fashion Museum of Antwerp, held a retrospective solo exhibition entitled ‘Moi, Veronique Branquinho TOuTe NUe’ to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the designer’s label. The signature look of Branquinho’s collections is, as indicated above, at once traditional and innovative. It can be defined as a classic, timeless style with Romantic and Gothic twists (Muret). Her clothing, simple and sophisticated, is noted for its understated chic, impeccable tailoring, and quality material. Her design is to be placed in the context of the new wave of contemporary Belgian fashion. Belgium emerged in the fashion world in recent years as its second largest city Antwerp established itself as a new style hub. Prior to the 1980s, Antwerp was far from a readily identifiable world-class fashion capital like Paris, Milan, or London. Yet things began to change with the international success of local designers and, most notably, the Antwerp Six, Belgium’s most influential avant-garde fashion collective. The Antwerp Six refers to six graduates from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, who played a pivotal role in placing Belgium on the international fashion map: Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, and Marina Yee.3 They studied fashion under the supervision of Linda Loppa and received their diplomas in 1980–82. The designers set out to revolutionize the notion of fashion. They took ground-breaking approaches to fashion, combining traditional craftsmanship with avant-garde ideas and experimenting with radical design aesthetics such as the conceptual or the deconstructive. The group thus represented an iconoclastic attitude towards the fashion establishment. Their ‘anti-glamour’ fashion challenged the Parisian fashion of the late 1980s, which was characterized by glamourous power dressing of Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler (Godtsenhoven 55). The group launched an international career with the presentation of their first collections in the 1986 British Designer Show in London, where the UK press noticed the enterprising new talents and publicized them as ‘the Antwerp Six’. Thereafter they disbanded to work individually, each of the members evolving a distinctive style and trademark of his/her own. In the course of the next three decades, their cutting-edge designs brought up to date catwalks worldwide and transformed the international fashion scene. It is noteworthy that the Antwerp Six attained their reputation with their design philosophy as well as with the artefacts that they produced. In spite of their commitment to ‘fashion as idea’, they were pragmatic and sober-minded in their designing practice. They were socially aware and were alert to the ethical aspect of fashion, taking a critical view of the capitalist fashion system. They pursued ‘slow fashion’ with sustainability in mind, working at their own pace at a distance from the hectic rhythm of the fashion industry. Their ecological concern meant that they took a less-is-more approach. They thus flouted the norms of the Parisian fashion system, organizing their shows in alternative venues rather than in fancy hotel salons; using models recruited through street-casting; and eschewing large-scale public-relations campaigns (Godtsenhoven 58). All these were at odds with the standard business practices set by major luxury couture houses of the day and, therefore, could be construed as the trail-blazing designers’ reaction to the dictates of the fashion industry. Petula Vomera summarizes the group’s hallmark features: The most significant factor is that personal expression and artistic integrity is favoured over commercial success and financial gain. Their disregard for the predominant trends from season to season illustrates this. […] While major marketing strategies are often ignored, this increases the emphasis on the process of design and manufacture. […] Collections often start from highly abstract concepts, employing classic ideals of craftsmanship whilst always remaining wearable. Much of the garments are labour-intensive; the use of traditional and couture principles are applied […] the Belgians have pioneered fashion concepts like Deconstruction, Component dressing and Reconstruction. Their styling methods like Bohemian-chic and Eccentric-eclectic have inspired whole new directions and images in contemporary fashion. (8–10) The Antwerp Six set the example for younger Flemish designers including Branquinho, Raf Simons, A. F. Vandevorst, and Bernhard Willhelm, who continue to cause a stir in the global fashion arena, redefining the concept of fashion and interrogating the prevailing business practices of the fashion industry. Branquinho, as mentioned above, stands in the continuum of Belgian avant-garde fashion, and her work with its focus on creativity, minimalism, and sustainability is essentially informed by the design philosophy pioneered by the Antwerp Six (Olivier Singer). Recently, she addressed her abiding sartorial concerns through literary inspirations from the Brontë sisters. Although she is engaged in fashion or a visual art form,4 Branquinho is wary of potential pitfalls inherent in our image-saturated culture, seeking to move beyond mere image-making. For her, a conceptual vision is paramount: ‘It’s certain that the whole world is very busy with images. I cannot work like that; I’m still concerned about content, intensity and integrity. I cannot just do images’ (qtd. in Thawley). Like all great artists, she is dedicated to the essentials of her medium, constantly calling into question what fashion is and should be. ‘Fashion for me is a language and I want to tell a story’, she states (qtd. in Ahmed). Branquinho’s creative reframing of the Brontës set in motion with her autumn/winter 2015 collection, which exhibited, among other things, items inlaid with Emily Brontë’s poems. For instance, a checkerboard jacquard sweater (Figure 1) subtly incorporates the poet’s verse of 1839, ‘That Wind, I Used to Hear It Swelling’ (Brontë 135): That wind, I used to hear it swelling With joy divinely deep; You might have seen my hot tears welling, But rapture made me weep. I used to love on winter nights To lie and dream alone Of all the rare and real delights My early years had known; And oh, above the rest of those That coming time should bear, Like heaven’s own glorious stars they rose Still beaming bright and fair. Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. Branquinho notes that she came across the poem while reading Emily Brontë. The designer relates to her literary-inspired garment: ‘I saw this poem I really loved and that for me really captured the essence of the woman I’m designing for. And I wanted to include it, in a way, but I’m not one who wants to have a slogan’ (qtd. in Huston). Therefore, the verse makes its way into her design in such a way that the text seamlessly merges into the geometric motif of textile. That is, the words constitute the decorative mosaics of the intarsia pattern of the sweater while clearly legible in their own right. The colour scheme of the outfit—toned-down vermillion, mint, beige, black, and grey—is beautifully evocative of the visionary romanticism of the poem. Another lyric piece of Emily, ‘I’m Happiest When Most Away’ (1838, Brontë 63), has been knitted into a Fair Isle sweater (Figure 2): I’m happiest when most away I can bear my soul from its home of clay On a windy night when the moon is bright And the eye can wander through worlds of light— When I am not and none beside— Nor earth nor sea nor cloudless sky— But only spirit wandering wide Through infinite immensity. Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, autumn/winter 2015, © Kim Weston Arnold. In an interview with a fashion magazine Branquinho articulated that the whole conception of her autumn/winter 2015 collection, from the overarching theme to the details of coiffure and make-up, was indebted to Emily Brontë: The A/W15 invitation was a poem by Emily Brontë … in fact, all of the poetry in the collection was. I took it from a really beautiful book I have called Poems of Solitude. […] I think that the hair and makeup was the most dark-romantic part, very Emily Brontë. It’s a little bit like an image of a haunted woman in the forest, running away from something […] like little birds escaping and dreaming away. (qtd. in Olivier Singer) The influence of Emily Brontë continues to be perceived in the designer’s creations for the subsequent season. Her pre-spring 2016 collection, entitled ‘Forever Wild at Heart’, seems to revisit, by dint of the sartorial language, the powerful, enigmatic, and imaginative world of Wuthering Heights, in which an array of larger-than-life ideas—nature, instinct, raw emotions, freedom, and civilization—are tackled. Branquinho designed fifteen dresses, all in black and white, which were presented with a romantic or surreal note in the forest by the photographer Ronald Stoops. The models, paired with their alter ego, embody the drama of good and evil within the mind and the universe (Figure 3). In their movements, they look free-flowing, uninhibited, and almost weightless with the dividing line between reality and unreality blurred (Figures 4–6). The designer explains that the collection was motivated by her desire to go back to the basics and to the core of humanity: ‘The images of the collection shot in the woods express total freedom and beauty; that always has been an inspiration to me. Forever Wild at Heart’ (qtd. in Crash). The simple, unadorned dresses made of natural fabric speak volumes for themselves, brilliantly conveying the wild, elemental, and unchained spirit permeated in Emily Brontë’s novel. Figure 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 3. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 4. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 5. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 6. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-spring 2016, © Ronald Stoops. Branquinho’s pre-fall 2016–17 collection is more explicitly ‘Brontë-esque’, as Vogue puts it (Maya Singer). It features a Victoriana wardrobe with capes, trailing flounced skirts, velvet-trimmed ponchos, and leather Wellington boots (Figures 7–8). The Gothic aesthetics which cut across Charlotte Brontë’s novels such as Jane Eyre or Villette are palpable in the sublime, introspective, and supernatural qualities of the collection (Steele and Park 10–11), but the apparent historicism of fashion is counterbalanced by modern, practical-minded items like oversize sweaters or shirtdresses with masculine tailoring. ‘It’s a darker mood’, the designer elaborates, ‘I like that there is a twist between what is elegant and feminine but also very controlled and styled. It’s the balance between those things that I like’ (qtd. in Ahmed). Branquinho’s vision of femininity here revealed is distinctive. In effect, she represents the only female voice of the second wave of Belgian fashion talent, and femininity constitutes one of the central themes which she has been intent on exploring through her art since her academy days (Windels, Young Belgian 120). A curator of the MoMu recounts the designer’s intricate configuration of women: Figure 7. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 7. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 8. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Figure 8. Open in new tabDownload slide Veronique Branquinho, pre-fall 2016–17, © Ronald Stoops. Both in its imaging of women and in its use and combinations of materials, Branquinho’s work displays duality on different levels. In her creations, women come across as both innocent and erotic, playful and severe, mysterious and always complex. Her early work foregrounded the transitional period from girl to woman and the emotional complexity of the rites of passage in the lives of all women. (MoMu) Intriguingly enough, the womanhood which she envisions recalls that of Brontë heroines like Jane Eyre or Lucy Snowe, as is affirmed by the designer: ‘I think that is part of my women; they’re independent and strong, but at the same time they’re fragile and I can imagine they get lost in romantic fantasies of solitude’ (qtd. in Ahmed). In sum, her women, equivocal, complex, and subtly drawn, defy any monolithic interpretations; ambiguity and mystery are crucial to her iconography of femininity (Derycke and Van de Veire 84). Although there have been a considerable number of studies on the reworkings of Brontë texts in a variety of genres, little has been written about their influence on fashion. The sartorial artworks of Branquinho stand out in this respect. A remarkably well-read, intellectual designer with a particular penchant for nineteenth-century British literature, she has presented collections imbued with literary sensibilities. Her recent works, as discussed above, tap into some key aspects of Brontë classics, refashioning them into highly original sartorial forms. The influence of the Brontës manifests itself in the ethos of her craftsmanship in general as well as in the individual artefacts she has created. That is, she seems to share with the sisters a balanced view of tradition and innovation; critical distancing from mainstream cultural values; and a commitment to artistic integrity. In conclusion, the designer’s Brontë-inspired dresses with their formal beauty and idiosyncratic aesthetics could be regarded as an intermedial ode to the British writers, her enduring muses, attesting to the universal appeal of the sisters across disciplines. 2016 Footnotes 1 The French designer Sonia Rykiel (1930–2016) published several books about fashion, novels, and a collection of children’s stories. Elizabeth Hawes (1903–71) was an American fashion designer, writer, and union activist. Fashion is Spinach, her memoir of 1938, offers an astute critique of the fashion scene during the inter-war period. Emily Wilkens (1917–2000), an American children’s wear designer, was also a published author. 2 For her biography, see https://www.veroniquebranquinho.com/about; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronique_Branquinho; https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronique_Branquinho. 3 For a detailed study of the Antwerp Six, see Van Godtsenhoven; Vomera; Derycke and Van de Veire. 4 Fashion is ‘a form of visual art, a creation of images with the visible self as its medium’ (Hollander 311). References Ahmed , Osman . “Veronique Branquinho’s Brontë Fashion Heroines.” AnOther . 5 Dec. 2016 . https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/9337/veronique-Cbranquinhos-bront-fashion-heroines. Accessed 1 May 2019. Alston , Isabella , and Kathryn Dixon. Coco Chanel . Charlotte : TAJ , 2014 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Balzac , Honoré de. 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