Walking past the world’s most famous political address of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Wednesday morning and the rustling of progress was almost as audible as the autumn leaves underfoot. Democrats may not have flipped as many states from red to blue in the midterm elections as they would have liked, but the record number of women – more specifically liberally minded women of colour – who successfully ran for office was enough to permit just a moment of elation.
Their victories made arriving at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, DC – the only major museum in the world solely dedicated to championing women in the arts – for the preview of the Rodarte exhibition feel even more momentous. Established in 2005 by sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the brand name alone – reinstating the “e” of their mother’s name Rodart, which was changed in the US citizenship process when her father emigrated to the US from Mexico – is enough to deliver a powerful message. Spanning the first 13 years of their career, the exhibition is not a retrospective, the designers insist, but an opportunity to reflect on their oeuvre to date in an industry notorious for its relentless pace.
“In fashion, we are still in this habit of only looking at the latest collection and deciding straight away whether or not you’re into it – it’s about instant gratification,” 39-year-old Kate tells Vogue. “That’s the nature of our world, but I think taking the time to look at this work collectively shows the larger story of who we are and the fact we have remained independent for 13 years.”
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She has a point – with hallowed brands such as Versace and Dries Van Noten having sold majority stakes in their businesses this year, the independent designer is a truly rare breed these days. Add to that the woeful statistic that only 14 percent of major brands are helmed by women, and that Rodarte defies many of the profiteering rules of fashion (the label shows two rather than four collections a year, and its pieces are labour-intensive and expensive, taking up to 150 hours to produce with dresses from the autumn/winter 2018 collection retailing at more than $9,500) – and you realise just how exceptional this brand is.
Away from the catwalks of the “big four” fashion capitals, Rodarte occupies the entire second floor of NMWA. On entering the space, you are greeted by the painstakingly engineered garments from the Mulleavys’ autumn/winter 2009 collection. Hand-marbled leathers and complex knits that fuse mohair, felted wool and metallic threads into a single dress make the case for fashion that can be classed as art.
Taking centre stage in the exhibition are the Odette and Odile tutus worn by Natalie Portman in her Oscar-winning role as Nina Sayers in Darren Aronofsky’s film Black Swan – showcasing the sisters’ passion for channelling their creativity into costume design. “You know, when I look back, there has always been something in us that wants to create narrative,” explains Laura, who is a year Kate’s junior. “If you’re watching Alfred Hitchcock films from a young age as we were, you realise how important fashion is in communicating a story.”
Alongside the Black Swan tutus are costumes from the sisters’ own debut feature film Woodshock, which premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival. It comes as no surprise that the designers have branched out into directing – “I could watch my favourite films without any sound because so much, for me, is communicated through these visual signifiers,” says Kate.
The Mulleavys first engaged with costume through their grandmother, who was an opera singer, and their mother, an artist. It was she who instilled in them their love of film – on one occasion encouraging them to take a week off school to finesse their Hitchcock repertoire. Their work has, at times, drawn criticism for artistry at the expense of functionality, but “wearability”, Laura argues, is not a “universal concept”. Kate defines fashion as a “visual language”, a way of expressing one’s individuality, and Rodarte provides one way of doing that.
The costumes from Woodshock are perhaps the most literal example of how fashion can be used to externalise emotions. The distressed silk slips worn by Kirsten Dunst’s character, Theresa, range in their level of “damage”, the lace eroding in places and some designs violently slashed to reflect her character’s inner state as she grieves for her mother. Set in California’s redwood forests, similar to where the Mulleavys grew up in Santa Cruz, the term “woodshock” describes the sensation of becoming lost and disoriented among the trees.
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The cinematic quality of Rodarte’s designs feeds into the way the exhibition has presented the 94 looks on display. Rather than order them chronologically, Rodarte’s guest curator Jill D’Alessandro – curator in charge of costume and textile arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco – arranged them thematically across eight rooms. In Magical Beautiful Horror, fluorescent tubes spotlight dresses from the autumn/winter 2008 collection; constructed from hand-dyed tulle pintucked into sinewy formations, they could be the product of Dr Frankenstein’s laboratory.
In The Garden, which acts as a grand finale to the show, a yellow column dress from the designers’ first catwalk collection stands harmoniously next to pieces from the spring/summer 2018 collection presented during Paris couture week, bringing the visitor full circle. Perpetuating the sisters’ longtime love of nature (their father was a botanist who discovered a new species of fungus), gypsophila flowers cascade from the mannequins. Framing the heads like a lion’s mane – the work of French hair stylist Odile Gilbert – the flowers have become an almost indelible Rodarte signature.
Rodarte is the first fashion exhibition to be held at NMWA in its 30-year history, but on initial visits to the museum, the Mulleavys were empowered by the institution’s extensive collection of textiles, which includes works by the late German-American printmaker and master weaver Anni Albers. It’s Albers I think of as I speak to the sisters. Contrary to popular reporting, they don’t finish one another’s sentences; rather, conversation, and their working process as they describe it, passes from one to the other – like a shuttle navigating the warp and weft – ultimately weaving into something bigger and better than their own individual ideas.
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Albers famously took up weaving at the Bauhaus school because – much to her frustration – it was the only workshop open to female students. A century on, the Mulleavys express similar chagrin towards the reductive vocabulary used to describe their work and that of other women designers and artists. “Women’s work shouldn’t be talked about with language that’s less powerful than our male counterparts; if we change our language, that’ll change everything,” says Laura. “Crafty” is a word that she finds particularly problematic; why, she wonders, wouldn’t the word “couture-like” be used instead to describe the metallic chantilly lace, appliqué sequin flowers and dramatic Thomas Gainsborough-inspired rococo silhouettes of the spring/summer 2017 pieces on display in Rodarte?
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“It’s not that women aren’t out there working, it’s that there’s a disconnect between the recognition men and women receive for their body for work,” Kate adds, expressing her disappointment that, including Rodarte, only around a fifth of the designers showcased in the Heavenly Bodies exhibition at the MET were female. “I’d like that to change. It’s about time.”
Rodarte is at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC until 10 February 2019
