Versace posed and provoked the basic issues of fashion's role. Versace tantalized us with vulgarity. In this, he adapted a strategy from the fine arts in the twentieth century, including elements of the banal and coarse in his sensibility. The collage, smarmy joke, offensive imagery, and ready-made object pertinent in the juggernaut of modern art are evidence of an attempt to be vulgar. Versace…
At the waning of this century, we take the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Christian Dior's New Look to review the magnificent work he created in a little more than one decade at the century's heart. Few occasions in fashion history are as precise, and few are as worthy of consideration and celebration. It is difficult to analyze Dior today: the intervening four decades have irrevocabl…