A Thin Wall of Air: Charles James

The Menil Collection presents the exhibition A Thin Wall of Air: Charles James. May 31 – September 7, 2014.

Panel discussion with Harold Koda and others, May 31 at 7pm.

Charles James (1906-1978) is considered by many to be America’s first couturier. Starting as a hat milliner, by the 1940’s he established himself as a premier fashion designer for an elite clientele including Millicent Rogers and Gloria Swanson.

John and Dominique de Menil were introduced to James in the mid- to late-1940s, and Dominique de Menil began to buy pieces from him soon thereafter. As the relationship deepened, the couple became great champions of James, commissioning both furniture and couture, collecting his sketches, donating examples of his work to museums, and hiring him to dress the interior of their home, his only residential commission.  A Thin Wall of Air: Charles James explores the work of James in relation to some of his most committed patrons and clients, John and Dominique de Menil.

As couturier, James was known for his virtuosic design and construction. His clothes fuse a Victorian aesthetic with forms derived from nature and are defined by dramatic curves and metamorphic extensions from the body. The silhouettes are further accentuated by unusual color choices that heighten their sculptural dimension. For James, the true possibilities of design lay not in the human form or in the material, but in the space between the body and fabric, which fashion photographer and close friend Bill Cunningham described this as “a thin wall of air.” Such a design theory connects James’s fashions to sculpture and architecture, where the body is transformed by the engineered structures surrounding it.

After the completion of their Philip Johnson-designed home in 1950 in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston, John and Dominique de Menil hired James to dress the interior. James’s style was the opposite of Johnson’s minimal and sparse modernity. He introduced felt and velvet covered walls in butterscotch and fuchsia, hand mixed paint colors in mauve, aqua, grey, and blue while installing sweeping curves through custom furniture and other selected pieces.

As in his fashion designs, the juxtapositions often have a surreal undertone that dovetailed with the de Menil’s artistic interests and collection. James’s only residential commission, his intervention in the de Menil home results in a multitude of rich tensions, where the exterior structures of international modernism are paired with the voluptuous fluidity of James’s interior design.

A conversation between wardrobe and interior, this exhibition presents a selection of evening gowns, suits, coats, and daywear from Dominique de Menil’s personal collection complemented by furniture James designed for the de Menils and wall colors that evoke their home. Several of James’s sketches for furniture and sculpture reveal his working process, and a carefully curated selection of works from the Menil Collection reflect James and the de Menils’ mutual affinity for the surreal.

This exhibition is generously supported by The Brown Foundation, Inc./Allison Sarofim; David and Anne Kirkland; Anne and Bill Stewart; Michael Zilkha; Accenture; Lazard Frères & Co. LLC; Diane and Mike Cannon; Sara Paschall Dodd; Peter J. Fluor and K.C. Weiner; Gensler; Tootsies; Lynn Wyatt; Jerry Jeanmard and Cliff Helmcamp; Carol and Dan Price; the City of Houston; and an anonymous donor.

Image:  Charles James, Dress Form for Dominique de Menil, ca. 1950. The Menil Collection, Houston. Courtesy of Charles James, Jr. and Louise James. Photo: Adam Baker.