THE DOLL AS A LINK BETWEEN FASHION, ART AND CULTURE
200 years of History, Culture, Society and Fashion Dolls
The project of this exhibition is to show, through a vast and exceptional collection of fashion dolls, haute couture garments and contemporary art, the interactions between fashion dolls and their times, all worlds which are rarely curated together.
What is exactly a fashion doll? This impressive collection gathered during more than fifty years by BillyBoy* will feature dolls ranging from the mid 19th-century until today, with relevant pieces of haute couture and associated representations of decorative art, design and contemporary art. The exhibition can include key iconic human-scale haute couture fashions such as YSL Mondrian dresses, Dior New Look, classic Chanel, Space Age Cardin and eccentric innovator Schiaparelli.
Who is BillyBoy*?
BillyBoy* is a contemporary artist who has been a doll collector since his childhood and as a teenager he created many Barbie doll prototypes in New York and also founded the first club for collectors of fashion dolls.
He is also an acclaimed an haute couture collector and renowned expert, a historian and author of many books and articles of the subjects of historic and contemporary fashion, design and dolls. He is also a multi-facetted artist and forms an artistic duo with his partner Jean-Pierre Lestrade a.k.a Lala. BillyBoy* and Jean Pierre Lestrade, a.k.a Lala met in Paris in 1982. Lala was a songwriter, a performer and artist. They have been partners in life and creativity ever since. They have been living in Switzerland since 1997. Though each one of them has his own personal artistic expression, they have officially signed as BillyBoy* & Lala the artworks they create together since 2000.
A few significant dates:
In 1982, BillyBoy* started asking French, British, German, Italian and Japanese couturiers, designers and artists to dress the Barbie and other dolls and named the resulting exhibition The BillyBoy* New Theater of Fashion. This was already after having started in the early 1970s with an already established collection.
This exhibition sponsored by Mattel toured France in the TGV train and later on the USA with an overwhelming success and raving media coverage. It was at this time that Andy Warhol created his very last portrait, one of BillyBoy* as a doll. It now is considered an iconic painting, especially as it was painted in “BillyBoy* Blue” a colour named after BillyBoy* by the artist which now is a Pantone colour reference.