Blogging Woolf

The New York Times is calling Virginia Woolf a fashion muse. Why? Three reasons.

Reason 1: She inspired the Met’s Costume Institute exhibit

She is the inspiration for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s coming Costume Institute blockbuster and gala, “About Time: Fashion and Duration.” The May 7 – Sept. 7 exhibit explores how clothes generate temporal associations that conflate past, present, and future, with Woolf serving as the “ghost narrator” of the exhibition, according to the Met’s website. It will feature 160 pieces of women’s fashion from the last 150 years, and beyond.

Reason 2: She inspired an opera

Her novel Orlando is the basis of a new production at the Vienna State Opera that premiered Dec. 8, 2019, with costumes by Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons. Fittingly, its the first opera commissioned by a woman composer in the 150-year history of the company. As Kawakubo said in The New York Times, “And also I have always been interested in Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury circle and “Orlando” in particular because of its central concept of ignoring time and gender.”

Reason 3: She inspired a Givenchy couture show

Her garden at Monk’s House, her relationship with Vita Sackville-West, and Orlando were the inspiration for Clare Waight Keller’s Givenchy couture show this week in Paris.

Woolf and contemporary fashion

Woolf’s connection to the fashion world is nothing new. Over the years she has inspired designers on both sides of the pond. Here are a few worth noting:

• In 2008, one New York style newcomer tied a silk scarf around a worn copy of Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and sent it as a stylish invitation to her fall 2008 fashion show.
• In 2009, Hannah Teare, a London-based fashion stylist, created a series of five fashion shots named after Woolf.
• In 2011, a number of designers created spring 2012 collections at least partly inspired by Woolf.
• In 2016, she inspired Burberry’s fall collection.

Woolf’s relationship to fashion

Woolf herself had a complicated relationship with clothing and fashion, one that has been much discussed in academic settings and online.

Catherine Gregg explores this theme in her Bloomsbury Heritage monograph Virginia Woolf and ‘Dress Mania’: ‘the eternal & insoluble question of clothes’ (2010). In it, she discusses Woolf’s “delight in clothes and interest in conceptions of fashion and femininity” as well as her sense of being an outsider when it came to fashion, as well as her loathing for its artifice (7).

More on Woolf and fashion

Since we started looking, we have noticed numerous references that connect to the topic of Woolf and fashion. Some are documented in the following posts:

• Five fashionable views of Virginia
• Did Woolf carry a handbag when street-haunting?
• Would Virginia have a penchant for pendants?
• Would Woolf wear a modern-day Burberry trench?
• Would Woolf wear Nicole Farhi? Take the poll
• Woolf shoes hold porcelain stones and meaning
• Every girl needs a Virginia Woolf dress
• Jewelry offers new take on the Woolf whistle
• The Virginia Woolf Collection: Jewelry in honor of the 20th