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 "What is Goddess?" asks Tom Ford. "A goddess is something that we worship. And although you immediately think of classical and Roman dress, of Ingres and of Madame Recamier, a goddess can mean many things. Marilyn Monroe in that white dress standing over the grill in a sidewalk is a goddess. The woman in a Helmut Newton photograph that I love is very goddess to me—she's half-clad, half-undressed. Goddess dressing has been a recurring and enduring thing because it really celebrates the human body." The Helmut Newton photograph in question (left) appears on the invitation to the gala opening of "Goddess" at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibit, opening May 1 and underwritten by Gucci, celebrates two centuries of perfectly divine clothes. From the thistledown muslin "Roman" gowns of the French Empire to Galliano's bosom-baring Amazonian togas, the dresses on show transcend time and fleeting fashion, reflecting, in the words of the exhibition's curator, Harold Koda, "a classical idea of dress, of clothing that alludes to the natural, unadulterated body." On these pages, Vogue and the deifying Steven Klein prove the eternal appeal of goddess dressing, with a half-dozen of the best contemporary interpretations. Whether it's Alber Elbaz's flaming nymph for Lanvin or Ralph Lauren's glamorous silver-screen siren, these are—and have always been—clothes created for powerful women to wear on the most important nights of their life. The 1930s, according to Koda, "were the heyday of goddess dressing." Classicism was all the rage. Fashion's Praxiteles of the day was Alix Barton, later known simply by her married name, Madame Grès. "For me Madame Grès was really it," says Ford, "the most 'goddess' of all designers." Madame Grès was trained as a sculptor, and her iconic dresses, with their inimitable folds and pleats, were elaborate evocations of simple garments memorialized in stone—the stolas of the Romans, the chitons of ancient Greece. For six decades, their timeless elegance served as a foil to strong-minded style deities from Marlene Dietrich to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. In an echo of the thirties, women designers today are dreaming of their own ideal goddesses, from Barbra Streisand to Patti Smith, to produce more forgiving garments. Ann Demeulemeester's gravity-defying "falling" toga dress from 1996 could transform any mortal, gym-toned or not, into a deity. "The message I send out," she says, "is that every body is 'holy.'" "What is a goddess dress?" Donna Karan asks. "It's like taking a piece of fabric and wrapping it around you; it covers you, yet you're exposed. Women are attracted to this way of dressing because women, since Venus, are born to be goddesses." "Mighty Aphrodite" by Hamish Bowles has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the March 2003 edition of Vogue. Click here for the full article. Get more articles like this delivered to your door each month! Click here to subscribe today.
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