Modern Living: Museum Fashions

Cleopatra got decked out in a rug, and Scarlett O’Hara, fresh out of frills, went to town in Tara’s velvet draperies. Contemporary women can now be almost as enterprising. They can pick from Designer Jenny Bell Whyte’s new collection of “Museum Pieces,” which gives proof that some of the best fashion around has for years been underfoot, on walls and over windows.

Not just any walls and windows, of course. Jenny Bell’s long skirts, coats and dresses are made from venerable fabrics. Most of them—18th century Russian Orthodox deacons’ vestments, Oriental silk wall hangings, early American quilts—were rescued from museum basements or bargained for at antique auctions. They were cleaned, reworked, cut and designed for contemporary use.

The idea for museum fashions occurred to Jenny Bell in January when she heard that the Brooklyn Museum was having a housecleaning and went to have a look. She returned home with a 56-year-old embroidered Egyptian silk scarf and an 81-year-old American patchwork quilt. With scissors, thread and a bit of black velvet trimming for the quilt, two handsome evening skirts emerged. A few more finds and Jenny Bell had enough to sell to Saks Fifth Avenue. Mindful of her 13 successful years as a Seventh Avenue designer, Saks bought the lot at first sight. Displayed in the store’s windows last month, the first collection (priced from $95 to $200) sold so well that Saks asked for more.

Wrinkles and Wisps. The new series of Museum Pieces, due for sale at Saks by the end of May, took even more scouring. One piece, an 1860 Chinese silk wall hanging from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, commemorates the 50th anniversary of a noble marriage; the figures are complete with embroidered wrinkles and fine wisps of hair. Jenny Bell backed the hanging with two layers of silk and cut it into two skirts (about $700 each).

The most prized finds were a group of ornately embroidered bishops’ robes made of brocade, suede and velvet, bought from the Lavrosky Museum in Kiev, U.S.S.R. “I was ready to put scissors to the material immediately,” Jenny Bell says, “when I was told they were consecrated. I called the Russian Orthodox Church to have them deconsecrated because I thought people might feel a little strange wearing them.” To play it safe with both God and woman, she has agreed to hand over her favorite piece, an 18th century black brocade deacon’s robe, to Manhattan’s Ukrainian Institute. Explains Jenny Bell: “I gave away my prize piece for absolution.”