The Art of Lingerie: Salvador Dali

This week’s Art of Lingerie post was really a challenge. When I asked for artist suggestions, more than one person said they’d really like to see Salvador Dali– I’m hoping this can live up to their expectations! Or at least you might enjoy my floundering.

Dali is best known as a member of the artistic movement ‘Surrealism,’ although he does have a flavor all his own. Surrealism is meant to evoke a dreamlike setting, but one that is often uncanny and disturbing. Dali himself was an eccentric (to put it mildly)– he believed that his beloved mustache was an antenna to communicate with aliens.

In many ways surrealism fits well with lingerie because lingerie often contains aspects of fantasy and dreams– what could be more fitting than combining surrealism with sleepwear? I’ve tried my best to find the lingerie that fits with this darker aspect of surrealism, almost of the complete opposite of last week’s happy-go-lucky Fragonard post.

Interestingly, Dali designed some ads for stockings himself, using his own particular style. I guess maybe any lingerie can be surreal if you try hard enough?

Zana Bayne, The Apparition of a Face and Vase (1938), Black Milk

The eerie face/vase optical illusion of this Salvator Dali painting seemed like a perfect way to start off these lingerie/art pairings. The first piece that I knew I needed to use with Dali was this awesome Zana Bayne harness in the shape of a stylized spine. Although there are no vertebrae specifically visible in the Dali piece, the disembodied face in the center of the painting seems similar to the harness which acts as a bodily addendum. These Black Milk leggings have a print of Jan van Eyck’s The Last Judgment, which has a Northern Renaissance style that you can see as an influence to Dali’s realistic rendering (as well as the work of Spanish artists like Velasquez and El Greco).

Chromat, The Temptation of St. Anthony, Fleet Ilya

Chromat is a great lingerie brand to turn to for surrealist inspiration. The spindly legs of the strange beasts in the Dali painting influenced my decision to include this Chromat hood, as well as this Fleet Ilya cone bra. The theme between these two pieces is the excessive protrusion and enlongation that is part of what makes the animals in the painting so unsettling.

Made by Niki, The Great Masturbator (1929), FYI by Dani Read

The name of this painting is always good for a giggle (it’s call The Great Masturbator), and the painting adds a bunch of disparate items together, to create an incomprehensible machine, that looks like half horse, half woman (and has a cricket attached). The ombre fringe on this Made by Niki tank looks almost like human hair, mimicking the many hair like elements of the Dali painting. The handles on the FYI by Dani Read belt are so completely Dali-esque that I knew I had to include it the second I saw it. The idea of extra, useless parts makes so much sense with this very bizarre painting full of disparate elements.

So, what did you think of this “Art of Lingerie” pick? Does it make you feel like getting a little surreal with your lingerie?