In western Harju County, Keila-Joa’s Schloss Fall celebrates 100 years of Art Deco fashion, featuring vintage 1920s–30s pieces from sequined gowns to lavish accessories.
The exhibition, “Art Deco: 100 Years of Fashion,” highlights how European style evolved between the two World Wars.
Curator Evelina Vedom said visitors will find everything “from beaded evening gowns to theater jackets.”
The show also includes pieces from Egypt in a nod to the “Egyptomania” of the 1930s, which joined the broader Asian influences on fashion of the previous decade.
The garments and accessories come from the collection of fashion historian and collector Alexander Vassiliev. His archives include some half a million items collected over 50 years from auctions, flea markets and antique shops around the world.
On display in Keila-Joa are 56 historical costumes and over 200 accessories, photographs and works of art.
The end of World War I brought significant changes to Europe’s political landscape as the great empires — Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and German — collapsed, giving rise to new nations such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Baltics. These young countries directly influenced the development of fashion, including inspiring a fascination with Eastern European national folklore.
Vassiliev said Art Deco emerged in the interwar years and reflected a shift in the emancipation of women. Women could vote, smoke in social settings and drive, and the rise of electrical lighting allowed nightlife to really flourish.
“The end of the war saw women fall in love with parties and nightclubs,” he said, adding that beads, sequins and shimmering stones soon became signature embellishments.
According to the organizers, the exhibition at Schloss Fall can be viewed as a two-act production.
The first act, running from December through March, focuses on Art Deco winter fashion while the second act, open from March through next summer, will showcase spring and summer fashion of the 1920s–30s.
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