When we started out unpacking her 1920s and early 1930s couture wardrobe I had never ever listened to of the Spanish actress who had worn the sensitive Lanvin dresses that emerged from their bins as if they had been embroidered only yesterday. The outfits experienced arrived at Christie's from Madrid to be offered in its November Classic Couture sale, and dress right after gown came out to dazzle.
But who was that lady ? How experienced she managed to afford these kinds of clothing, produced at the top of Paris couture? The story of Cátalina Bárcena's life, which we found by her wardrobe, included really like, adultery, Hollywood stardom and exile from Spain in the course of the Civil War. It was a tale that would have remained buried in the past but for an post in the Spanish each day El Mundo on the anniversary of her death.
A Lanvin archive drawing of Le Diamant Noir cocktail gown, 1923. Sheer black chiffon floor embroidered with silver paste ribbons, all progressively minimizing into a trompe l'oeil vortex at the photovoltaic plexus
Bárcena was born in 1888 into a loved ones of Spanish emigrants who ended up smaller landowners in Cuba. The relatives moved back again to Spain at the transform of the century simply because their pursuits in Cuba failed. They did not prosper in Spain both, and in 1908, when Bárcena was twenty, she was packed off to Madrid, thrown on the charity of a renowned buddy of her mother's, the actress Maria Guerrero. Bárcena became a quite junior member of Guerrero's theatre corporation. Images and a painting completed at the time show a lovely woman with massive green eyes, a piquant encounter, a cloud of dim hair and a curvaceous figure. Inevitably, she caught the eye of Fernando Díaz de Mendoza, Guerrero's libidinous actor spouse, who was, as a afterwards account experienced it, accustomed to working out his droit de seigneur among the youthful actresses in his wife's corporation. Bárcena grew to become pregnant and was swiftly married off to Ricardo Vargas, a different a ctor in the organization, just before obtaining her son, whom she referred to as Fernando immediately after his genuine father.
Bárcena remained with Guerrero's company for a different eight a long time, but by 1916 she had achieved and fallen in enjoy with an even more unsuitable male, and left the theatre company to set up a new venture with her lover, a adore that was to very last her for the relaxation of her life. Gregorio Martínez Sierra was a properly - regarded radical publisher, playwright and producer in Madrid, who was married to Maria Lejárraga, a feminist writer and politician 7 a long time his senior. Lejárraga was an incredibly devout Catholic and the unacknowledged co- author (some said sole creator ) of his extremely effective plays. She refused to give her husband a divorce and the enjoy triangle became general public expertise. For the rest of her lifestyle, Lejárraga referred to herself as Martínez Sierra's widow. Despite the sizeable notoriety in Madrid's intellectual and aristocratic circles, Bárcena and Martínez Sierra produced no top secret of their partnership, the two functioning and living jointly.
Sheer black robe embroidered with white tamboured and beaded vortices to the skirts, the bodice trimmed with coral-pink ribbon streamers
From 1916 until finally 1926 they ran their possess theatre firm based at the Teatro Eslava in Madrid, exactly where they staged some radical productions. They obtained a status, dragging the Madrid theatre scene into the 20th century by placing on international productions by playwrights these kinds of as Pirandello, Ibsen and Shaw, as nicely as Martínez Sierra's personal comedies. They uncovered Federico García Lorca whilst he was still at university in Madrid with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, and set on his initially get the job done, The Curse of the Butterfly. Later, Lorca wrote a poem to Bárcena and in comparison her voice to 'music and glass'.
Bárcena starred in most of these plays - she was Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's Home and Eliza in Shaw's Pygmalion, as effectively as starring in the mild comedy roles created for her by Martínez Sierra. These roles demanded wonderful garments, something Bárcena liked, so in 1923 she went to Paris and requested some items from Jeanne Lanvin. Lanvin was the 'other woman' in Paris couture at the time. Coco Chanel was building a name for herself dressing the liberated, avant-garde girl Lanvin, on the other hand, made incredibly rather, fragile dresses, lavish with lace and embroidery, for debutantes and their mothers. Bárcena's remarkable but fragile splendor suited these confections, which seemed as good on the phase as they did in the road. From 1923 till the finish of the 10 years Lanvin manufactured several dresses for Bárcena. The collaboration amongst these two supremely trendy ladies of the time is exciting because it lasted so long, and so offers us an thought of how c outure for both equally private purchasers and the phase produced season following season by way of the period. Acquiring and unwrapping these creations, hitherto catalogued only by signifies of colored sketches in the Lanvin archive, was very extraordinary.
Cocou working day dress, 1923. Bodice and hem of ivory crepe, bodice and skirt of pleated yellow crepe, trimmed with white buttons bound in black silk twine, the back with yellow crepe tie at the waist
Lanvin, who experienced at first develop into well-known for the charmingly naive attire she experienced produced for her daughter, Marie-Blanche, had obviously identified an additional muse. Youthful and dramatically feminine, Bárcena was the best foil for Lanvin's extremely elaborate robes de model in virtually translucent organzas and lace, above -embroidered, ruffled and trimmed with flowers and bows. These confections were being not typically purchased by non-public clientele since they ended up extremely showy, intended to be an advertisement of the workmanship of the property.
IN Photographs : Lanvin spring/ summer time 2013 in pics
The early 1920s was a time period of great fascination in late-18th-century utilized arts, including couture Bárcena's attire, produced for her in Lanvin's Paris workshops, were being encouraged by the bell- formed, really embellished silhouettes of Marie Antoinette at Versailles and the costumes of the 18th-century ballerina Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo. Bárcena's appearances both equally on stage in these garments and her impression offstage were being so unforgettable that 1 commentator in Paris claimed to her, 'Since your very first go to you have conquered Parisians and now have artistic legal rights of citizenship.'
So great an ambassador for Lanvin's outfits was Bárcena that Lanvin often used her name in her adverts, and manufactured several phase and actual - existence apparel for her that she wore as a going for walks advertisement for the home. Every of these attire is catalogued in the Lanvin archive with a hand- coloured drawing, and numerous of the early parts are in the Christie's sale, as are some of the later on pieces. It is very intriguing to observe the unexpected sea change in 1925 when Lanvin, a main exhibitor with a seriously modernist pavilion at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, abandoned her 18th-century- motivated ribbons and bows and the faux-naif look that had turn into her signature in favour of a modernist strategy, exhibiting cubist- encouraged above -the-knee boyish looks. Bárcena adopted suit, dyeing her hair blond, reducing it short and adopting Lanvin's new flapper attire coated in strong -gold sequins, her tubular evening attire created of gold lamé and lace and her day dresses of fine organza and appliqué. So unfashionable were lengthier lengths that one or two favourites from past seasons in the sale, now much also long, had been shortened we know this from understanding the painting made when the authentic designs were being manufactured.
A stage costume for La Dame aux Camélias in 1924. Ivory paper taffeta gown trimmed with black Chantilly lace and above - dimension cherry-red velvet ribbons
Good results and reputation on the Madrid stage was Bárcena's, but scandal was never really considerably away.
In 1922 she gave beginning to Katia, her daughter by Martínez Sierra. So scandalous was this that in 1926 Bárcena and Martínez Sierra left Madrid and, accompanied by Bárcena's wardrobe mistress, Antonia García, embarked on a about three - yr tour of South America. I can just think about the lovely outfits travelling from just one South American city to one more, wrapped in linen sheets in creaking wickerwork trunks to be hung out and pressed in the primitive dressing-rooms of distant theatres and ghostly opera properties by the devoted Antonia.
Study : Lanvin for Ladurée
Bárcena had usually vowed that she would by no means make films but by 1927 Hollywood was in great crisis as it switched from silent flicks to audio. Numerous of the aged silent motion picture stars had terrible voices, so the market started a frantic look for for phase actors and actresses with very good delivery who could really communicate their lines. Spanish- speaking films were essential, earning huge sums for the studios in South The us, and the recently blond and bobbed Bárcena, collectively with Martínez Sierra as author /producer, were persuaded to indicator up with Hollywood's Fox Studio, which promptly made an really well-liked film of Lullaby, a single of their most popular theatre productions. Naturally Bárcena did not search to the studio wardrobe for her costumes, she wore Lanvin's couture in all her roles, shining in columns of sequins and wrapped in fox fur and lamé. She set up residence in a big and ornate household in the Hispano-Moresque model in the film colony, the lavishness of which demonstrates that she was earning quite significant sums as the initially Spanish- speaking actress to turn out to be an global movie star.
Bárcena created 6 far more movies in Hollywood, but by the mid-1930s other Spanish speaking stars, this kind of as the sultry Dolores del Río and the Mexican firecracker Lupe Vélez, both equally considerably youthful than her (she was now in her early 40s), experienced arrived on the scene and the roles dried up. So she and Martínez Sierra went again to Spain - but not for prolonged. In 1936 at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War they went into exile, passing a miserable 10 many years in Buenos Aires. There ended up no more roles, and no more couture apparel from Lanvin, but Bárcena kept her wardrobe intact and immaculate, presumably as a reminder of past glories. Bárcena and Martínez Sierra finally returned to Spain in 1947 but it was far too late for him he experienced become sick with cancer in Argentina and died a thirty day period after his return. Bárcena lived on in Madrid, practically forgotten as an actress. She under no circumstances built a comeback, b ut in recognition of her profession she was provided the Spanish Nationwide Theatre Award in 1971. She died in 1978 at the age of ninety.
Read : Meet up with Lanvin's eighty two - 12 months - outdated campaign star
Lately I unearthed a last and extremely unexpected tale in a Spanish newspaper report, published not long right after Bárcena's death, about this superb couture wardrobe. Soon after her dying, her father confessor advised her daughter, Katia, to melt away all her mother's clothing simply because they experienced belonged to an adulteress. Instead, Katia hid them all, wrapped very carefully in dust sheets at the back again of her wardrobes. And there they stayed, hidden and protected from gentle and dust. Katia's children made the decision to give the wardrobe on lasting personal loan to Madrid's Museo del Traje, where they remained, unseen, in the archives for far more than twenty several years. Gradually, the relatives determined that possibly the museum need to place the selection on community exhibit or it would go to auction. Now Cátalina Bárcena's magnificent couture wardrobe, created for her by Lanvin just about a century back, sees the mild of working day for th e initially time in almost 40 a long time at the pre-sale exhibition and then sale at Christie's South Kensington.
Vintage Couture sale, November 29, Christie's South Kensington, which includes Hermès bags (020-7930 6074). On the web sale November 19- thirty ( christies.com )
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