Coins - From 1968 Fashion week to TLV's 2012 FW & "Israel Fashion Art" Book.

Dorit Bar Or, "Dodo". Photo: Avi Valdman
TLV Fashion Week for s/s 2012

Tel Aviv Fashion Week organised and produced by fashion shows' director and TV producer Motty Reif and by Ophir Lev of the Israeli Textile and Fashion Association brough an air of glam to the country's cultural capital last week. Guest of honor Roberto Cavalli showed his s/s 2012 fabulous collection and fashion reporters from the international arena arrived to cover 16 fashion shows of local Israeli designers. One of the new designers who inaugurated her catwalk experience during the TLV FW was Dorit Bar-Or of "Dodo". Bar-Or was also one of the few designers whose collection was inspired by Israel's cultural heritage. Her main motive being golden coins - she concluded her show with a short performance by a profesional belly dancer.

All this brought to mind my album-book "Israel Fashion Art"  "שיכרון עיצובים - אמנות האופנה בישראל"
and its chapter: "Coins - from Mobile bank to the Sexiest Sight on the Beachfront". In this chapter I trace the source of the use of the coins element in clothing from the times coins were integrated in Yemenite womens' hoods and in Beduine women's veils to whom they served as a means of survival till modern times in which they are used as a purely decorative element.

The use of coins in modern day Israel had a special significance. If I may quote my own words in my book: 'coins that turned up in archeological digs...exposed the biblical past and helped create a unifyng national identity for citizens of Israel who were gathered from exile, and also confirmed our ancient claim to the land of our fathers." Through the designs of Fini Leitersdorf of "Maskit" and her followers coins became one of the most exciting components of the new original Israeli style both as a unique, exotic ornament and as a medium that bridged the past and the present.

A 1968 Fini Leitersdorf creation for "Maskit". Photo (exclusive to "Israel Fashion Art" album-book by Nurit Bat-Yaar): Peter Hertsog

Above, you can see the use of coins in a "Maskit" creation shown in 1968 Fashion Week. In some of my previous posts I've uploaded other coins images from "Israel Fashion Art" book such as the Yemenite coins hood worn by singer Ofra Haza (Nov. 9, 2010 post) and the 1997 red-carpet style coins gown of Shay Shalon (July 28, 2010 post). Dorit Bar-Or whose design image is at the top of this post manifests yet another exciting interpretation of the subject. In her design the element which corresponds with Israel's cultural heritage is combined with the current geometric trend which gives it a whole new perspective.

Dorit Bar-Or's finale, describes above, also corresponded with some the book's coins-chapter opening lines: "...there's nothing more intoxicating...than the site of gold coins twirling, glinting, delicately chiming, when they're wrapped around the silky curves of an exotic dancer."