CHARLES JAMES

Charles James evening coat 1939 which looks “quite conventional in structure [from the front], from the side an extraordinary profile is revealed. Stiff fins extend from the back and the arms creating an aggressive dehumanized shape. The coat transfigures its wearer into automaton- part machine, part human- recalling the Surrealist fascination with automatons and their elision of the organic and inorganic man and machine”. 

Wood, G 2007,’ Surreal Fashion”, in The Surreal Body: Fetish and Fashion, First edition, V& A Publications, South Kensington, PP77.


Nadia