In the 1960s and ’70s, the fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, his model and muse Peggy Moffitt, and Moffitt’s husband, the renowned photographer William Claxton, were a dynamic and inseparable trio. “Rather like the characters in the film ‘Jules et Jim,'” Moffitt recalled recently. Gernreich designed bold, and often daring, clothing that has come to epitomize the swinging ’60s. Moffitt inspired him and became the face, body (and hairdo) that we identify with his work. And Claxton brought it all to life in fashion shoots and in the film “Basic Black,” which today is recognized as the first of its kind: a proto-fashion video, if you will.
“The Total Look: the Creative Collaboration Between Rudi Gernreich, Peggy Moffitt and William Claxton,” a new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Pacific Design Center satellite in West Hollywood (coincidentally not far from the original location of Gernreich’s design studio), celebrates the work the three created together. The exhibition is the brainchild of Cameron Silver, a fashion historian and the founder of the vintage haute couture boutique Decades in Los Angeles. Silver, who first met Moffitt and Claxton more than 15 years ago “on Day 1 of Decades,” explained that he “wanted to focus on the collaborative aspect of this influential moment in fashion history in a show that is a fusion of art and fashion.” And just in time for the Oscars, too.
All of the wild and wonderful ensembles in “The Total Look” are from Moffitt’s own collection and many have never been exhibited. “They are the model’s clothing and the muse’s clothing,” Silver says. “Pieces designed for Peggy to wear in the photographs and film footage on display.” Silver formed his own creative collaborative, working closely on the exhibition not only with Moffitt — who was there dressing the mannequins in her clothes the day I visited — but with the architectural firm Marmol Radziner and with Moffitt and Claxton’s son Christopher, who today oversees his late father’s archive. For the installation, Ron Radziner dressed MOCA PDC in the same tones, hues and shapes that Gernreich used in his fashion designs. From the black box space on the ground floor to the explosion of color and form up above, “The Total Look” is just that: a total look at the brilliant vision of Gernreich, Moffitt and Claxton. “Rudi and Bill were geniuses,” Moffitt said, “and I hope this exhibition is a fitting tribute.” It’s also a tribute to the trio’s third genius: Moffitt herself.
“The Total Look” is on view at MOCA PDC from Feb. 26 to May 20.