Spring 2022 Style Muses

ANNA MAY WONG

Wong Liu-Tsong, known professionally as Anna May Wong, was the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star. Born in 1905 in Los Angeles’s Chinatown district, Wong starred in over 50 films. But frustrated by Hollywood’s typecasting her to play the racial trope of an exoticized Asian woman, she left the US for Europe. In 1951, Wong made history again as the first Asian American to lead a television series, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, where she starred as a gallery owner and detective. This season, we pay homage to her fearless style with sophisticated shapes and tailored pieces that speak to her strength and conviction: flutter sleeve cocktail dresses with high-low hems and abstract floral-printed A-lines with sharp contrast lace collars.

JOSEPHINE BAKER

Josephine Baker was an entertainer, French Resistance agent, and civil rights activist. Her signature look—an Eton crop, a bold red lip, and large earrings—pairs with our most luxurious and extravagant looks. Ornate embellishment, light-catching sparkle, and fringe that exaggerates fluidity and makes a style more animated. We imagine Baker in the season’s most luxurious pieces to match her sensational style: the head-to-toe sparkle of a glittering diamante gown, an abstract watercolor printed draped gown with a one-shoulder, diaphanous cape sleeve, and the faux empire gown that juxtaposes a close-to-body fit with fullness, so the silhouette is more flattering to wear than a traditional empire-waist. These styles, infused with extra glitz and glamour, are for the woman who took Paris by storm in the 1920s and went on to become one of the most popular music hall entertainers in France.

POLA NEGRI

Pola Negri was a Polish stage and film actress and the first European actress to be contracted in Hollywood. Her chic, eccentric, femme fatale style inspires ultra-flattering looks that elegantly cling to curves, and dresses constructed with arced piecing that radiates from the waist to create a flattering effect by elongating and shaping. Her glamourous ease is reflected by sinuous draping. Crepe gowns pair elegant draping with modern cuts, including a Twenties fountain dress reinterpreted as an off-the-shoulder gown with a fountain-inspired drape and a leg-lengthening slit. Her style embodies a seductive sophistication. We envision her arriving at Grauman's Chinese Theater for a film premiere in which she stars, stepping out onto Hollywood Boulevard in our black chiffon and crepe gown with its architectural bodice, raglan-cut sleeves, and see-through shaped blouson.

LOUISE BROOKS

Louise Brooke was a film actress, dancer, and Jazz Age icon. She embodied flapper style with her iconic bob. Likewise, we envision playful, new shapes and modern silhouettes for our Jazz Age muse, such as the Twenties-era robe de style, reimagined for a new century. Brooks’s fluid, dazzling vision of 1920s femininity inspires dresses that evoke a confident, unapologetic, and rebellious sensibility, including Tadashi Shoji’s sparkly, banded fringe cocktail dresses, sleek silhouettes that boast halter-cut necklines with v-plunge illusions, and a crisscross-seamed, strappy midi with a high-low ruffle hem designed for dancing the night away.