By Robert Lewis III
The hot new exhibition “Grand Divertissement a Versailles,” also known as “Battle of Versailles,” shot by the well-known photographer Bill Cunningham, has just hit SCAD FASH. In this exhibition, there is a variety of vintage black-and-white photographs taken by Mr. Cunningham. These photos consist of behind-the-scenes looks into the fashion event as well as images of famous Americans during their time spent in Paris.
This exhibition is based on the great fashion battle that took place at the Palace of Versailles in 1973 to raise funds for the restoration of King Louis XIV’s palace and to determine who were better designers. This duel took place between American designers Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston, Stephen Burrows and french designers Yves Saint Laurent, Hebert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro and Marc Bohan of Christian Dior.
During this time the French designers were considered the best in the world, but the American designers showed that they were better creatives by winning this heavyweight fashion duel. Some of the things that separated the American designers were the limited undergarments that designers used for their models and the special fireworks Stephen Burrow, a famous African American designer, put into his models’ hair before they took the runway. Mr. Burrow, as well as the rest of the American designers, used mostly African American models for his line, which was very rare in the 1970s. His leading model for this event was a very well know international model named Pat Cleveland.
To give even more insight on this event, Stephen Burrow and his lead model Pat Cleveland spoke about some behind-the-scenes details at the 2013 SCADstyle event. They reminisced about the fun-filled plane ride to Paris and about how both the dressing room and restrooms were freezing cold.
This full exhibition showcases the original photographs that Mr. Cunningham gave to his good friend Nancy North, who happened to be one of the American models in this show. This exhibition will be available to SCAD students and the public until August 21st and I highly recommend you go take a look at it.
