In its just-released January issue, Vanity Fair featured a photograph of Ms. Blume, donning a rather opinionated hat.
The picture was snapped at the Whitney Museum Art Party in October, at which “Art Chic” was the dress code.
Ms. Blume’s lobster hat was an homage to the 1930s collaboration between Surrealist artists Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dalí, who together crafted the iconic lobster dress worn by some of the era’s preeminent tastemakers, including art collector Peggy Guggenheim and the Duchess of Windsor, as shown in the following portrait:
Below is Dalí‘s famed “Lobster Telephone” (1936). According to the Tate Collection, “Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for [Dalí], and he drew a close analogy between food and sex. He made Lobster Telephone for Edward James, the British collector who was the most active patron of Surrealist artists in the 1930s.”
You can read more about Schiaparelli, Dalí, Guggenheim, and many other fascinating art- and fashion-world figures in Ms. Blume’s soon-to-be-released book, Let’s Bring Back.
