BillyBoy* - Frocking Life: Searching for Elsa Schiaparelli

I n 1978, early in my curatorial career at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, BillyBoy* called for an appointment to see clothes designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. Not knowing who someone named BillyBoy* might be, I was delighted to find a young man (younger, in fact, than I realized) well informed and intensely interested in all things related to Schiaparelli. He was respectful as we looked through the collection and fascinated by the smallest details of Schiaparellis work. He then showed me the pieces of his own Surreal Couture that had become part of the Costume Institutes collection. Over the years, when he came to New York, he would call for an appointment and with each one I would learn a bit more about him and his unfettered energy and enthusiasms. From our early meetings I admired his imaginative ability to express a very personal creativity by dressing up.

He believes that fashion is a means of self-creation and not an end in itself, and that clothing should remind you of the joy in life. Influenced by the work of Schiaparelli, by the work of the designers he chooses to patronize, and by a spontaneous combination of elementsfor example, in vintage couture, with a 1930s Schiaparelli hat, 1950s Chanel costume jewelry, a 1970s Dior top and contemporary Galliano newsprint jeanshe individualizes his personal style and dresses according to his mood. The look is not premeditated fashion, but the creation of an artist approaching a specific moment in timeit is both ephemeral and unique. In Billys view, self-expression trumps any issue of conventional appropriateness or the expectations of those he meets. Dressing imaginatively reveals his sense of humor, his aesthetic sensibility, and his mood. Encouraged from childhood to be spontaneous and creative, he believes in living his life and being himself.

Within the several collections that he has amassed, including his extensive collection of Schiaparelli, Billys personal wardrobe is remarkable. Primarily English and French in origin, many pieces represent the most extreme of the gay underground club scene of the 1970s and 1980s, but equally the most traditional of bespoke English tailoring and classicism appropriate for the most conservative circumstances. There are Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren pieces from their first boutiques, along with a veritable whos who of designer clothes. Vinyl catsuits, printed mini kilts, brothel creepers, and early punk attire also rounded out his style. He wore the most advanced conceptual designers: the colorful whimsies of Kansai Yamamoto, the stark designs of Issey Miyake, the deconstructions of Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garons, Yohji Yamamoto (for whom hed model menswear), and even the earliest work of Kenzo. For one of our early appointments at the Costume Institute, Billy, who is over six feet tall, appeared in a huge Paco Rabanne maxi coat of black fake fur with bleached blonde marcel waved hair and a cigarette holder emulating what only could seem like Cruella de Ville or Jean Harlow. At the opening of the Surrealism exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, he wore a red wool hat, a tailored suit from Westwoods Harris Tweed collection, and shoes by Pierre Cardin with toes molded in the leather of each foot. Although he has carefully maintained his wardrobe, Billy has a refreshing and pragmatic attitude toward it. He writes, Clothes for me are amusing, silly, camp, and to be played with like fire or Tinker Toys. You dress up with them, you have a nice time, you take them off, you forget about them. I collect them to remind myself of this. I keep physical evidence of the absurdity of fashion. Its seriously superficial and creates any reality youd like. Billy is a master at creating his immediate reality through clothes.

It was when I went to visit Billy in Paris in the early 1980s that I discovered that he was a collector: a serious collector with the passionate knowledge of his subjects that only a dedicated collector can have. In his apartment at Place Adolphe Max, I found myself surrounded by paintings and sculpture, Barbie, Bleuette, Alta Moda Tre Esse, and Kamkins dolls, cascades of couture costume jewelry, amazing Schiaparelli accessories. My particular memory is of a Schiaparelli powder compact from 1935 in the form of a telephone dial inspired by Salvador Dal. All of these different groups of objects showed the same kind of all-consuming desire to acquire comprehensivelyto have everything possible. The talent that makes a collector is an exceptional eye for ferreting out the objects of desire from unrelated contexts. In the case of Billys Schiaparelli pieces, for example, it was finding treasured couture garments and accessories in flea markets and thrift stores, and later given to him by those who knew of his passion for Schiaparelli. The reward of this sleuthing is not only the objects themselves, but also the relationships with those who knew Schiaparelli, who were her clients, or who worked with the artisans who created the parts of the whole: the fabrics, the buttons, the jewelry, the hats and gloves, the perfume. Along the way he has acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of all things related to Schiaparelli and an extraordinary amount of original documentation from published sources and private letters, accounts, and oral histories.