Museum finds: 1947-1957 French Fashion

Kaixo everyone!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had the chance to visit the Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao last week before I met up with my dorm friends. It was a national holiday in Spain so all stores were closed (RIP my heart), but my mom knows me well and knows I'm a museum freak fan, so she told me I could go visit the Fine Arts museum (for the umpteenth time).

The museum has a huge collection of Basque and Spanish art, and they usually have a couple or three  temporary exhibits as well. This time I was lucky enough to find one of my favorite exhibitions in the world and planet and in history ever. I'm not exaggerating. It was a collection of French fashions from the 1950s, which is known for those gorgeous flared dresses, tiny waistlines, ladylike accessories and for making every single woman on earth look like Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly (well maybe I'm exaggerating a little here, but seriously, I couldn't stop thinking about them).

Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, the 1950s haven't been back in style. We may have to "blame" the extension of the "radical chic" on Coco Chanel, the rise of prêt-à-porter (ready to wear) and the democratization of fashion (disclaimer: this is a direct quote from the exhibit, prêt-à-porter is my mantra, I would be dead without Zara and H&M and Coco is my homegurl), but in any case, we are still waiting for its return. Meanwhile, we can admire the beautiful work of Christian Dior (the absolute star of the exhibit), Yves Saint Laurent, Cristobal Balenciaga (he's from my area, proud moment), Balmain, Carven and Hèrmes.

For real, they had all these 50s dresses from these designers. It was like heaven.

Dior

Such a fun piece!

Pink Balenciaga Babydoll dress and Yves Saint Laurent for Dior pieces

Fancy stockings

Yellow Hèrmes sundress

My favorite: This Carven suit dress

I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures. It isn't great, I only have my poor iPhone with me, and I wasn't 100% sure if I was allowed to take pictures so I went full YOLO and became that tourist that everyone hates and took pictures discretely. I just couldn't pass it up!

In fact, while I was walking around I imagined going to the Oscars in one of these dresses (a girl can dream), and I decided I would either wear the green one shoulder gown or the white dress with black velvet and pearls! Which one is your favorite dress? If you could wear one, which would you choose?  Let me know in the comments! :)
Love,

- Ane