Reviews

The intersection of surrealism and fashion dates back to Max Ernst's mechanistic fantasies of mannequins and Rene Magritte's delving into the eroticism of clothes. Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, made surrealistic dresses that shocked her clients. Illustrators A. M. Cassandre and Marcel Vertes borrowed surrealist imagery, while fashion trend-setters Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld got into the act. Photographers Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst and Andre Kertesz experimented with surrealist techniques, and today, of course, surrealism is everywherein print and television ads, window displays, rock singer David Byrne's latest costumes. The book is broader in scope than its title suggests. Martin, editor of Arts magazine, brings a heavy-handed, academic approach to what should have been fun, but the study is an eye-opener nonetheless. (December 28)

The influence of Surrealism on fashion and its ancillary arts lasted decades longer than the movement itself. This catalog, accompanying a 1987 exhibition at Fashion Insitute of Technology, explores the extravagances of visual language as social and political comment, a revolution in perception. Excellent photographs, more lucid than the pretentious text, trace a path through the displacement of familiar objects which is the essence of Surrealism. With special emphasis on Schiaparelli as well as photographs, illustrations, and advertising influenced by the movement, Martin describes the use of Surrealist imagery in contemporary design, linking Dali with St. Laurent, Ernst with Mugler. An attractive, interesting book, useful for popular as well as fashion collections. Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Mus. Lib., New York