Oleg Cassini (New York), White Stag (Portland)
Blouse, c. 1958. Trousers, 1950s. Necklace with enamel flowers, s. XX
Pieces such as the blouse by Oleg Cassini, creator of Jackie Kennedy’s iconic look, are a reflection of Gala’s particular style. The muse wore the blouse in and around Portlligat and at special events that took place there in the late 1950s and early 1960s. For example, on special occasions with illustrious visitors such as Umberto II of Italy or friends such as the photographer Man Ray. She also wore it for one of the few interviews she granted to the press, and in television reports in she Gala actively contributed to the construction of her public image through fashion.
The embroidery of the blouse is particularly striking. The pattern, created with threads in gold and different shades of blue, is reminiscent of the protective eyes painted on Phoenician ships and a line by the poet Paul Éluard evoking Gala’s incisive gaze, keen enough to pass through walls.
Ken Scott – Loewe (Madrid)
Trouser suit, c. 1972
A jacket and trouser suit designed by Ken Scott for Loewe and worn by Gala in the early 1970s. Ken Scott, known as ‘the gardener of fashion’ for his characteristic flower prints, recreates plant and architectural filigrees in this outfit in a bas-relief that is almost imperceptible at first glance.
G. Sinigaglia (Venezia)
Marinière, 1950s
The marinière or sailor-style shirt is a typical element of Dalinian iconography. A similar design appears in works from the 1930s such as The Specter of Sex Appeal (c. 1934), in which we see a young Dalí dressed as a sailor. During the seventies, it was Gala, the artist’s alter ego, who wore the shirt in works such as Dalí Seen from the Back Painting Gala… (1972-1973) or L’Immortalité (1976).
In the exhibition The Awakening of the Myth: Gala Dalí, a photograph by Jordi Bernadó establishes a very evocative dialogue between the shirt and the painting The Road to Púbol (c. 1973), which is hung in one of the rooms of Púbol Castle.
Salvador Dalí
Dress with trompe-l’œil print by Salvador Dalí, c. 1948
In August 1948, on Gala and Dalí’s return to Europe after living in the United States for eight years, their friend and patron Arturo López held a welcome party for them in Paris, attended by personalities such as Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Bérard and Carlos de Beistegui. Press coverage of the event noted Gala’s remarkable entrance to the soirée in this splendid dress with a trompe-l’oeil print designed by Salvador Dalí.
The choice of this outfit was quite clearly a statement of intent. Showcasing and publicising the work of Salvador Dalí, of whom she was the most fervent admirer, Gala was parading the success the artist had achieved in America. A triumph that she felt to be also her own.
El Dique Flotante (Barcelona)
Oriental-style dress, 1960s
On their return from the United States, and especially during the 1950s and 1960s, both Gala and Salvador Dalí were frequent customers of Barcelona fashion house El Dique Flotante.
The firm had participated in 1940 in the creation of the Cooperativa de Alta Costura Española and, together with Asunción Bastida, Pedro Rodríguez, Pertegaz and Santa Eulalia, was one of the ‘big five’, the name given to the five labels at the forefront of Spanish fashion design during at least the first two decades of the Franco regime.
Hubert de Givenchy (Paris)
Cocktail dress, c. 1952
This design by Hubert de Givenchy takes us to the haute couture collection presented by the designer in 1953, which was remarkable for the original motifs of its prints: grapes, pineapples, oysters… The collection was a tribute to female beauty and inspired by such legendary women as Cleopatra and Salome. Gala also wished to become a legend, which is why she chose to wear dresses like this, which were most likely Dalí’s taste. We might recall here that in the 1930s he had designed, together with Elsa Schiaparelli, the iconic Lobster dress.
Imagining Gala in this dress, we can’t help but think of a phrase that Salvador Dalí addressed to the Spanish painter Maruja Mallo and that defines Gala so well: ‘Half angel, half shellfish.’ Gala, hard on the outside and soft on the inside.
Pierre Cardin Boutique (Paris)
Blouse and skirt ensemble, c. 1967
Gala and Salvador Dalí’s first contacts with the couturier Pierre Cardin most likely took place in or around 1950. At that time Cardin was working in the Dior studio and was immersed in the elaboration of many of the costumes intended for the memorable ball that Carlos de Beistegui was to give in Venice the following year. Among the new creations were the outfits designed by Dalí and Dior for the occasion.
Both Gala and Salvador Dalí kept in their wardrobe pieces by Pierre Cardin, the famous designer who in 1959 revolutionised the world of fashion with the presentation of his first prêt-à-porter collection of ready-to-wear clothing, which breached the border that had long separated haute couture from the street.
Dior Boutique (Paris)
Blouse and skirt ensemble, c. 1970. Necklace, s. XX
An outfit with an oriental air from the house of Dior, then directed by Marc Bohan. Gala must have felt a particular fondness for this dress, because she often wore it during the 1970s, for photo sessions and on special occasions such as Christmas Eve.
Dalí too was fascinated by this design, ‘made up of tiny scales of all colours, the most difficult thing to paint in the world’, and expressed his desire to portray Gala in the outfit, in what would be ‘the most expensive painting in the world’.
Elsa Schiaparelli (Paris)
Evening jacket, fall/winter 1936
During the 1930s, Gala largely opted for the designs of Elsa Schiaparelli, following a strategy designed to publicise Salvador Dalí’s collaboration with the Italian couturier. From then on, the muse wore dreamlike designs resulting from this union, such as the bureau-drawer suit (1936) and the shoe hat (1937-1938), which is currently in the collection of the Palais Galliera in Paris.
Pieces such as this evening jacket from 1936 testify to Gala’s fondness for Schiaparelli’s creations, discreet in appearance but also rich in surprising details, such as the coloured metal spangles inserted among the passementerie, which were designed to catch the light as the wearer moved.
Cristóbal Balenciaga – EISA (Madrid-San Sebastián-Barcelona)
Evening bolero, c. 1965-68
An haute couture design by one of the most influential designers in the history of fashion, Cristóbal Balenciaga. Considered by Christian Dior as ‘the master of us all’, Balenciaga was noted for his technical mastery, for his perfectionism and for his reinterpretation of Spanish styles, as well as for the purity of his lines and his sheer inventiveness. By way of iconic pieces such as the sack dress and the baby doll, he reinvented the female silhouette, often giving it an almost sculptural appearance.
This evening bolero jacket from the 1960s is a design by Balenciaga for his Spanish label, EISA. The attention to materials and the embroidery subtly anticipate the industrial modernity that were to characterise Paco Rabanne’s creations.
Jean Dessès (Paris)
Cocktail dress with print of a Salvador Dalí lithograph from the series Pages choisies de Don Quichotte de la Manche (1957), c. 1959
In the course of the fifties and early sixties, Gala wore different creations by Jean Dessès, known above all for his evening dresses inspired by Classical Greece. Among the haute couture designs created by Dessès and conserved in Gala’s personal archive, this cocktail outfit with a Salvador Dalí print is of special significance, based as it is on a lithograph from the Pages choisies de Don Quichotte de la Manche (1957) and dated from around 1959. In the absence of any document that testifies to the process of its creation, the dress is the only tangible evidence of the collaboration between Dalí and the designer, who was of Egyptian Greek origin.
Gala, a great admirer and promoter of Dalinian ideas, wore this set on very special occasions, those on which the artist seems to have acted as an ambassador of Spanish culture while at the same time legitimate his claim to be its greatest exponent in the field of art.
Elsa Schiaparelli (Paris)
Evening coat, fall-winter 1935
Gala wore this evening coat or deshabillé from 1935, designed by Elsa Schiaparelli, to make her entrance on the scene in an interview with Salvador Dalí recorded by French television in 1961. In the broadcast, the muse is seen in various settings at Portlligat, accompanied by the artist who, who wears a coat he attributed to Coco Chanel. The choice of outfits was clearly meant as a tribute to the great names of French haute couture, because immediately afterwards we can see, in a different shot, the couple’s costumes for the Beistegui ball designed by Christian Dior with input from Salvador Dalí.
Unknown designer
Blouse, c. 1942
In June 1943, Vogue devoted most of a two-page spread to ‘Madame Salvador Dalí’. For the occasion, Dalí conceived a collage in which two shots of Gala by the prestigious fashion photographer Horst P. Horst were superposed on his painting The Triumph of Tourbillon (cat. no. 572), from the same year. The composition highlights Gala’s ability to bring order and structure to the swirling maelstrom of Dalinian creation.
Gala was keenly aware of Vogue magazine’s international projection, and chose the outfit in which she wished to present herself to the American public with great care. At once daring and sophisticated, this tulle and sequin fitted blouse, which she paired with a full-length skirt, shows her to be an empowered modern woman, the inspirational muse of Salvador Dalí and, even more, his spiritual collaborator.
Christian Dior (Paris)
Saint-Ouen coat, spring-summer 1949, Trompe-l’œil line
Very much aware of the new stylistic shift led by Christian Dior at the end of the 1940s, a Gala who was already a fully mature woman opted for those of his designs that would best accentuate her figure and reflect a renewed cult of femininity. With the Saint-Ouen coat—‘the colour of poppies’, as it is described in the programme of the 1949 haute couture collection in which it features—Gala took heed of Dior’s advice that a good red coat brings warmth and colour to the austerity of winter.
Gala wore this design at various events related to Dalí’s first retrospective exhibition in Italy, which took place in Rome in 1954. For a party in honour of Salvador Dalí hosted by Palma Bucarelli, director of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna de Roma, Gala combined the coat with an animal print dress. Her strikingly modern outfit must have enabled her to stand out from the rest of the guests, who opted for more formal, discreet looks.
Christian Dior (Paris)
Musée du Louvre ensemble, spring-summer 1949, Trompe-l’œil line
The Musée du Louvre evening dress is part of Christian Dior’s Trompe-l’oeil line, the spring-summer 1949 haute couture collection with which he paid tribute to the capital of fashion. In the words of the designer, ‘the atmosphere of Paris is undoubtedly that of haute couture’, and the creations he presented are named after emblematic locations of the French capital.
Gala mostly wore this ‘museum piece’ in black and white—the quintessential colours of the Dior brand—in the early 1950s and at various locations in New York City, such as the Carstairs Gallery or the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. The ensemble projects an enchanting femininity and surely made her the centre of attention. In various graphic materials that have been preserved, Gala can be seen wearing it alongside Salvador Dalí, the actor Kirk Douglas and the designer Jacques Fath, among other well-known personalities of the time.
Jean Dessès (Paris), Mimi di Niscemi
Evening dress, c. 1956. Necklace, 1960s
This evening outfit in red, the work of Jean Dessès, is one of the jewels of Gala Dalí’s personal collection. The piece is very much of the 1950s, the heyday of the designer, who was noted for his draped evening dresses inspired by the hang of Ancient Greek and Egyptian tunics. Dalí’s muse favoured this dress on many occasions, as witnessed by several photographs from those years, but it is particularly interesting to note its presence for the shooting of Jean-Christophe Averty’s film Autoportrait mou de Salvador Dalí (1966). At the beginning of this cinematic self-portrait, part biographical documentary, part happening and part video art, Gala and Dalí stage their own birth by emerging from an egg.
In this way the artist and the muse are identified with Pollux and Helena, the immortal children of Leda, the queen of Sparta, who, according to classical myth, had been impregnated by Zeus in the form of a swan, and the outfit chosen by Gala for the occasion is no less immortal. On the one hand, the colour red alludes to the legendary beauty of Helen of Troy and the passion she embodied. On the other hand, the drapery and acanthus leaves of the necklace transport us to antiquity while also reminding us of the jewelled dresses, a hallmark of Daniel Roseberry for the Schiaparelli firm, in which fabric and metal, the soft and the hard, merge into one.