Paper Magic.

I am completely blown away by Isabelle de Borchgrave and her paper dresses! Everything is perfectly historically accurate, handmade and hand painted. Her latest project was in association with Versailles Palace where she recreated several of Marie-Antoinette's dresses (and some of her maids as well) that are currently part of a permanent exhibit called The Livingroom of Marie-Antoinette.

Isabelle de Borchgrave – Eleanora of Toledo (Details), 2006

“Isabelle’s favorite Medici painting, is this Bronzino portrait of Eleanora of Toledo and her son. She was particularly enthralled by the richness of the jewelry, noting that “all the jewelry created by Fulco di Verdura for Chanel in the 1930s was inspired by the dress in the Bronzino portrait.” Eleanora was Duchess of Florence in the 16th century, and is credited as having been the first modern consort.

A pervasive myth tells that this exact dress served as Eleanora’s shroud, or burial gown. When her body was exhumed in the 19th century, the dress was quite similar to the one in Bronzino’s portrait. New research has found that it was a different dress, but that Eleanora was buried wearing a nearly identical pearl encrusted hairnet.

The story begins in a little house in Sablon, which Isabelle turned into a studio. There, she gave drawing classes to her friends’ children and other neighbourhood children and, thus, was free to think about her own designs. It was the seventies and, so, La Tour de Bébelle was set up there. Processions of hand-painted clothes, rolls of fabrics strewn about, pigments, brushes, gouaches, canvasses, pastels and travel journals. Everything alongside each other in a friendly, colourful and modern setting.

Journeys followed, one after another, all over the world. Isabelle discovered different cultures and began to see the world in a new light.

Following a visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1994, Isabelle dreamed up paper costumes. While keeping her brushes in hand and her paintings in mind, she worked on four big collections, all in paper and trompe l’œil, each of which set the scene for a very different world. “Papiers à la Mode” (Paper in Fashion), the first, takes a fresh look at 300 years of fashion history from Elizabeth I to Coco Chanel. “Mariano Fortuny” immerses us in the world of 19th century Venice. Plissés, veils and elegance are the watchwords of that history. “I Medici” leads us through the streets of Florence, were we come across famous figures in their ceremonial dress. Figures who made the Renaissance a luminous period. Gold-braiding, pearls, silk, velvet … here, trompe l’œil achieves a level of rediscovered sumptuousness. As for the “Ballets Russes”, they pay tribute to Serge de Diaghilev. Pablo Picasso, Léon Bakst, Henri Matisse, … all designed costumes for this ballet company, which set the world of the 20th century alight. These dancing paper and wire figures play a very colourful and contemporaneous kind of music for us.

It’s true that, today, Isabelle de Borchgrave has become a name that is readily associated with fashion and paper. But her name is also closely linked to the world of design. By working together with Caspari, the potteries of Gien, Target, and Villeroy and Boch, Isabelle has turned her imagination into an art that’s accessible to anyone who wants to bring festivity into their home. Painted fabrics and paper, dinner services, curtains, sheets, decor with a personal touch for parties and weddings,… All this tells of the world in which she has always loved to move.

Gilet d'homme, 1760. (It's not actually a gilet, more like a justaucorps.)

Men's cardigan in paper created for the exhibition Papiers à la Mode in Japan in September 2001.

Détail de la robe de Madame de Pompadour, 1755.

Detail of the dress of Madame de Pompadour.

Dress created in September 2001 inspired by a painting by Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1755).

Isabelle de Médicis (1542-1576) et Henri II de France (1519-1559)

Paper costumes of Isabelle de Medici (daughter of Cosme I and Eleonora de Toledo) and of Henri II (King of France and husband of Catherine de Medici). After two portraits respectively painted by Alessandro Allori and François Clouet (both in Palazzo Pitti, Firenze).

La Reine Polyxène d'Assie (+1737) et le Marquis d'Ormea (vers 1730).

Paper costumes realised after the portraits painted by M. van Meytens and Madame La Clementina (La Venaria Reale, Turin, Italy, October 2007).

Les filles de Charles Emmanuel III, vers 1730.

Two paper costumes of Charles Emmanuel III 's daughters, part of a series permanently exhibited at the Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy), October 2007.

Source of the first 2 pictures and text:
http://ornamentedbeing.tumblr.com
All other images and text from http://www.isabelledeborchgrave.com/en_home.php