A place where hit fashion labels like Devota & Lomba or Victorio & Lucchino meet with internationally loved and acclaimed designers such as Kati Zoób, Tamás Náray, Michael Guerra and Katrien Van Hecke. And it doesn’t even involve a catwalk. How could that happen?!
Breathtaking and thought-provoking, the 20 haute-couture dresses displayed in the Petőfi Literature Museum are the fruits of the joint efforts of the Budapest Cervantes Institute and the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. And the choice of the location wasn’t a mistake. The dresses were inspired by European literary masterpieces by the likes of Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Hugo Claus, Magda Szabó or Sándor Márai so as to go beyond both geographical borders and the borders of artistic forms to encourage cultural dialogue among the people of Europe.
All designers, driven by their instincts, their styles and the impact of the literary piece on them, tried to come up with a dress that rhymes with the little universe created by the authors. The exhibition aims to prove that the moments, feelings and atmospheres that we thought only literature was able to produce can be interpreted into other languages, specifically here the language of fashion design; thus creating a Babelian tower of senses.
Heading to the exhibition, I was especially curious about how my personal interpretation of Magda Szabó, my fave childhood writer, compares with the ones of a great designer. To level with you, I wasn’t surprised when the otherwise gorgeous and inspiring dress by Náray didn’t have anything to do with Magda Szabó, at least for me, at least according to how I interpreted the novel in question.
On the other hand, I was taken by the harmony oozing from the loving couple (yes, this is deffo the right expression) formed by Kati Zoób’s flowery coat and Sándor Márai’s The Confessions of a Haut-Bourgeois (Egy polgár vallomásai) extract.
Then it occurred to me, that books are like wines, we don’t necessarily experience the same taste. That’s why it was interesting to see both an interpretation far from my own and one similar to it.
The more difficult part, though, was to understand the relationships between dresses and literary pieces that I wasn’t familiar with. The extracts are not exactly long, and even though the artists may have tried to choose the most relevant part, sometimes it’s just not enough to experience the connection between the two artistic forms. Six of the dresses were inspired by poetry and even if I haven’t read them before, I personally found the dress interpretations to be more easily understandable. One favorite was Hannibal Laguna’s shiny silky dress inspired by José Ángel Valente’s Latitude.
This initiative of criss-crossing national borders and classical art forms proved to be a great adventure. One that made me feel how great it is when you realize that you actually share your personal interpretation with a stranger, but more importantly one that helped me understand that the greatest thing is the diversity of human thinking and emotions.
Maybe it’s not by chance that the project was supported by the Eurotrio, the current triumvirate of EU presidents, Spain, Belgium and Hungary.
Texts only available in Hungarian, Spanish and Flemmish.
Author/ Designer
Gabriel García Márquez / Devota & Lomba
Álvaro Mutis / Agatha Ruíz De La Prada
Juan Gelman / Victorio & Lucchino
Carmen Martín Gaite / Miguel Palacio
Carlos Fuentes / Jesús Del Pozo
José Ángel Valente / Hannibal Laguna
Miguel Delibes / Carmen March
Dulce María Loynaz / Purificación García
Antonio Gamoneda / Davidelfín
María Zambrano / Amaya Arzuaga
Antonio Muñoz Molina / Roberto Torretta
Rosa Chacel / Lydia Delgado
Émile Verhaeren / Michaël Guerra
Hugo Claus / Katrien Van Hecke
Amélie Nothomb / José Enrique Oña Selfa
Stefan Hertmans / Anna Heylen
Magda Szabó / Tamás Náray
Miklós Bánffy / Miklós Pazicski
Sándor Márai / Kati Zoób Zsuzsa Takács / Natália Gyulai
Through May 30
Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum / Petőfi Literature Museum
1053 Budapest, Károlyi Mihály utca 16.