Charles and Ray Eames - Short films

Here's an interesting not-fact from Charles and Ray Eames's Wikipedia page:

Charles briefly studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis on an architecture scholarship. After two years of study, he left the university. Many sources claim that he was dismissed for his advocacy of Frank Lloyd Wright and his interest in modern architects. He was reportedly dismissed from the university because his views were "too modern."

Sounds oddly familiar.

Thinking about what I wrote earlier about The Fountainhead and the way Rand kept pushing the idea that innovative designers were being universally maligned, I thought the video of the Eameses on The Today Show was interesting for what it revealed about design as high-concept as opposed to design as experienced by the majority.

Compare the H and eiffel based and wire backed chairs with the outfits the women are wearing. To me, it was like watching time travel. How could these objects, so clean and elegant in their lines and carefully contoured to the body, possibly have found popularity of this kind in a time when women still wore shin-length petticoats and corsetry? 

The Dior 'New Look' Bar Suit - 1947

Designed at the same time as Dior's New Look, an extremely flattering but not remotely natural triumph of boning and padding, (a fascinating look into the interior of these clothes, if you're into that sort of thing, can be found on Gertie's New Blog) the Eames chairs seem to belong to a different way of life. The Dior suit is most definitely architecture for the body, but maybe more architecture in spite of the body rather than in service of it. In making women resemble buildings or cakes, this fashion was restrictive, complicated, and completely altered the natural shape of the body. Odd considering Dior claimed his dresses were "molded upon the curves of the feminine body". According to this sewing blog:

If re-created accurately, New Look garments should nearly stand up by themselves; the interlining, linings, interfacings, bonings, and stiffenings Dior used all but supported his garments on their own.

Bit scary, no? (Although I have heard the argument that if women still relied on structured undergarments to create the ideal body shape, instead of diet and exercise, they wouldn't feel so much pressure to alter themselves and there'd be less of an epidemic of eating disorders and such. I get it but I also enjoy the free and easy motion of my ribcage and NOT dying of consumption.)

There's something asynchronous in the development trajectories of fashion and art in the middle of the century - design moves swiftly towards the sleek, the streamlined and the efficient, while fashion dawdles behind, aside from a brief flirtation with the look in the twenties. It seems incongruous to me that THOSE skirts would sit in THOSE chairs. Perhaps that's just me, and to other eyes the two styles seem harmonious. Or maybe it's that the designs of the chairs are so ubiquitous today that I tend to see them as distinctly modern things, whereas the Today Show presenter's background dress (it's called a background dress, don't ask me why) is emphatically From The Past. To me though, it seems an example of the disparity between the design ideals of the few and the actual lived experience of the majority - it takes a while for the latter to catch up with the former, or for the former to condescend to take the latter into consideration. This idea is probably still influenced more by Rand than by the Eames's films.

In a similar vein though, while I was watching the films, particularly Toccata for Toy Trains, and wishing the camera would just back up a little so I could see how the thing was done, I never wondered why. It wasn't until other people in the class said the same thing that I started considering it. Watching King Kong I never had any desire for the trick to be revealed and the illusion spoiled. My theory was that maybe in watching these short films we're constantly aware that it's just Charles and Ray playing with toys, filming it all in their office or their home. The sense of professionalism is lacking, and as a result we see it more as a kind of handicraft than a polished, commercially produced artwork. But I'm certainly not set on that point. Maybe it wouldn't matter who produced it, we'd still have that curiosity about the way it was done.