Art-world figures join the Obamas on Vanity Fair's Best-Dressed List

It may come as no surprise that fashion-forward first couple Barack and Michelle Obama made Vanity Fair's 2009 International Best-Dressed List.

But Culture Monster is pleased to report that a number of arts figures also made the cut alongside the predictably chic Hollywood stars, politicos, businesspeople and lesser-known royalty.

Those nattily attired artists include American abstract painter Cy Twombly, 81; photographer Bruce Weber, 63; Agnes Gund, former Getty Trust board member and president emerita of New York City's MoMA, and Ike Ude, an artist and founder of aRude magazine, who cites as his fashion influences Edward VIII and Charles Baudelaire. 

There is also one arts leader in the popular lesser-known-royalty category: Count Manfredi Della Gherardesca, 48, a resident of London, who describes his personal style as "classic with many twists."

Here's Twombly, above, in a contemplative mood at Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art in 1995 during a comprehensive survey exhibition of his work. You can see for yourself that the artist looks far more fashionable and certainly less rumpled in Vanity Fair.

Sad to say, Culture Monster did not make this year's list -- but, for the record, we clean up nicely too.

-- Diane Haithman

Photo: Cy Twombly. Credit: MOCA photographer Carol Cheetham / For The Times

L.A.'s Natural History Museum stars alongside ZZ Top

What is ZZ Top doing posing in front of this museum diorama of African elephants and buffalo?

As our friends at the All the Rage blog report, the image belongs to the new Fall 2009 ad campaign by designer John Varvatos that was shot at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Exposition Park.

Photographer Danny Clinch conducted the shoot in the museum's African Mammal Hall and North American Hall during off hours, according to a museum spokeswoman. The photo shoot took place on March 9, says the museum.

The diorama shown above depicts a waterhole near the Tana River in Kenya and is populated by cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) and savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana). The background art for the diorama was created by Duncan Alanson Spencer.

Yard, a creative agency based in New York, conceived the ad campaign, with inspiration coming from ZZ Top’s 1976 World Wide Texas Tour as well as the leather featured in the John Varvatos fall lineup.

ZZ Top consists of Billy F Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard.

-- David Ng

Photo: Members of ZZ Top pose at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Credit: Danny Clinch / John Varvatos

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Free day for Bowers' Rembrandts, if you dress for access

Why is this man frowning?

Apparently, Rembrandt, who engraved this self-portrait in 1630, didn't foresee that the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana would be celebrating his 403rd birthday on Wednesday by offering free admission to anyone who shows up dressed as the birthday boy -- or in any other form of Renaissance period garb.

Those with doublets, tights, plumed hats, flowing gowns, halberts and helmets -- or any other leftover costume from a Shakespearean stage production or the Renaissance Faire -- can pull it out of the trunk and skip the $12 regular admission or the $9 fee for seniors and students.

But those who want to truly dress for the occasion might consider a more raggedy look. The just-opened exhibition at the Bowers -- best known for its cultural history shows of Asian, Oceanic and ancient artifacts -- celebrates the ultimate Dutch master. It's called "Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etchings."

So cheer up, Mynheer van Rijn.  

Obama cocktail dress, from dumpster to fashion runway

Nancy Judd, a 1990 graduate of Pitzer College who heads a company called Recycle Runway, will return to her Claremont alma mater Saturday with a one-day exhibition of fancy garments made from trash and ingenuity.

Judd makes outlandish clothing from castoffs such as phone book pages, junk mail, plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cassettes. But the star of the show at Pitzer's Nichols Gallery is likely to be the "Obama Cocktail Dress." It's a slinky, body-hugging number crafted from the president's campaign posters. As the "fabric" winds around the body, from above the knee to below the armpits, white letters form a crisp graphic pattern on a black background and the name "Obama" pops up over and over.

 The eye-popping dress and other couture fashions in the show are products of a company that aims to transform waste into a valuable resource. With a goal of changing "how the world thinks about the environment," Judd says that "making garbage beautiful, glamorous and sexy" may entice people to redefine their concepts of rubbish.

The Obama dress got its start the day after the election, when Judd harvested armloads of plastic posters from dumpsters. She soon turned the refuse into a line of garments dubbed the Obama Campaign Collection, which debuted at the Green Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C.

The Claremont exhibition will coincide with a ceremony at Pitzer, where the artist will receive the college's 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award. The gallery will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

-- Suzanne Muchnic

Photos: Nancy Judd modeling the "Obama Cocktail Dress." Credit: Pitzer College.

Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

-- Controversial sale: Collection of paintings thought to be early work by Hitler goes up for auction.

-- Liberace, the Musical?: "The Man, the Musical and the Memories" aims for a Broadway run this fall.

-- Caught in the middle: Family's dispute over inheritance leads city of San Francisco to agree to sell Oceanic art pledged to de Young Museum.

-- Stepping down: Longtime director of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to retire. 

-- High fashion design: Prada unveils its $10-million Transformer venturewith Rem Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

-- In the spotlight: Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks to star this summer in her own play at New York's Public Theater.

-- Cutting edge: Artist David Hockney tests a new medium: his iPhone.

-- Lawsuit continues: Art collector sues Louis Vuitton over works purchased at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Murakami exhibition.

-- Updating its look: Natural History Museum modernizes its 1913 building and looks to the future.

-- High-flying ballet: Clear Channel donates billboard space for public art project.

-- Lisa Fung

Images, top and lower: Landscapes believed  painted by Hitler  are up for auction. Credit: EPA

LACMA fashions a new reputation

With a single acquisition — quietly in the works for three years and made public Friday — the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has become a major center for the study and display of 18th and 19th century European clothing.

The new addition of about 250 outfits and 300 accessories created between 1700 and 1915 includes men’s three-piece suits, women’s dresses, children’s garb and a vast array of shoes, hats, purses, shawls, fans and undergarments. Wonders of innovative design, meticulous construction and intricate needlework, they were painstakingly assembled over a quarter of a century by two European dealers.

LACMA bought the collection with funds provided by Los Angeles philanthropist Suzanne Saperstein and other donors. As a matter of policy, the museum does not disclose the cost of acquisitions, but sources familiar with the European costume market said that this was a multimillion-dollar deal. Many of the ensembles would probably bring six-figure prices at auction because of their workmanship, condition and rarity.

“We could never put this collection together, dress by dress, even if we had the money,” said Sharon S. Takeda, senior curator and head of the museum’s costume and textiles department. “We had a very good 18th century collection, but it was strongest in English and American material.”

The new cache — predominantly French, with some items from the Netherlands — is a near-perfect fit that “makes LACMA’s collection incredibly strong,” Takeda said. “We will be able to show fashion history, how the silhouette changed from decade to decade, and talk about other things that happened at the same time.”

The collection also seems likely to prove a valuable resource for Hollywood costume designers.

Christian Louboutin stars in 'The Little Dog Laughed' at the Douglas

There’s a moment in Douglas Carter Beane’s satire “The Little Dog Laughed,” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, when closeted actor Mitchell (Brian Henderson) and hooker boy Alex (Johnny Galecki) realize they actually like each other. They quickly start shedding clothes until there's nothing left to shed. (Yes, that means they're naked.)

Just as they're about to get down to business, so to speak, Mitchell's slick Hollywood agent, Diane (Julie White), bursts into the room. The audience gasps. Culture Monster stares.

Now, stop it, you gutter-minds out there — Culture Monster, at least, isn’t talking about the boys in the buff (that's why you're seeing a photo, right, of Diane with Mitchell after he's dressed again). It's Diane's shoes. And not just any shoes: Christian Louboutins.

For those of you who aren't Shoe Monsters, Culture Monster can tell you that Louboutins generally start at about $500 (if you're lucky) and run into the thousands. In the course of the two-hour play, White slips into four different pairs of the spiky-heeled, red-soled treasures. 
 
Now, everyone knows high style comes at a price — a tab that's generally more than is budgeted for a four-character play that isn’t about fashion. Fortunately, costume designer Jeff Mahshie has connections: He is a big-time fashion guy who just happens to be pals with Louboutin from when the shoe designer did his runway shows.