60s fashion art7/4/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, San Jose, CA. Left: Katherine Westphal, A Fantasy Meeting of Santa Claus with Big Julie and Tyrone at McDonalds, 1978. “It was as much a lifestyle as as business, and all of those people who were my extended family for many years, I lost touch with.” Despite a hugely influential run, Dale was unable to continue operating the gallery after her lease expired in 2013. Her 13-by-30 foot space served as the premier destination for wearable art for nearly 40 years, making Dale a trusted collector, cherished patron, and figurehead of a movement. “My mandate was: do the piece you always wanted to do, not the piece that’s going to sell tomorrow. People who I had never laid eyes on before came in with black garbage bags and out came these extraordinary things,” says Dale. Here, garments were canvases, and artworks could be animated by the body. Dip-dyed silk and crocheted kimonos hung from the walls next to custom capes, sculptural coats, and elaborately adorned masks. Knowing there was no existing market for these works, Dale chose a location with as much visibility as possible, to let the market define itself.ĭale says the work shown in Artisans’ Gallery was “kaleidoscopic in its visual range.” Each piece was made with painstaking processes, over the course of months or years. Now a beacon of corporate chains, fast fashion, and luxury brands, it’s difficult to imagine that Madison Avenue was once an epicenter of art, fashion, and culture. ![]() She opened Julie: Artisans’ Gallery in 1973, on the corner of 62nd street and Madison Avenue. Immediately after her discovery of this “national body of handmade, one of a kind clothing,” Dale knew her next step. Photography by Otto Stupakoff ©Julie Schafler Dale. Promised gift of The Julie Shafler Dale Collection. Right: Joan Steiner, Basement Vest, 1977. Stitched, appliquéd, and quilted rayon satin and cotton found objects. Promised gift of The Julie Schafler Dale Collection. Molded, stitched, and glued feathers, sparterie, wire, jersey, and velour. Left: Bill Cunningham, Griffin Mask, 1963. “The idea was to get art off the walls and out of museums and into our daily lives”. “It was made by people who had something to say, who cared about the world around them and who were trying to make a difference,” says Dale. It was wearable art, an entirely new form pioneered by a generation who came of age in the ’60s and ’70s. Though the pieces were wearable, it wasn’t fashion. “I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” Dale recalls. Dale, who had a longtime interest in the art of body adornment, approached the American Craft Council with a pivotal question: were there any artists using clothing to express themselves? They gave her access to slide files and catalogues of work made by artists across the country who were painting and sculpting with fabrics and fibers, and using the body as armature. She wanted a career in the arts that was more hands on, that would allow her to engage with the vivacious arts of her generation she wanted to focus on something new, young, and exciting. In the early ’70s, an art history student named Julie Schafler Dale admitted to herself she didn’t want to be an academician. ‘Off the Wall: American Art to Wear’ remembers the woman-led rebellion against social conformity and the elitist art establishment. ![]()
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