Out Of Fashion?

This auction will remain in Martin Kamer's memory. He took part in it anonymously and by telephone from London. Not only did he buy many pieces for a lot of money, he also opened a new chapter in his career: From now on he was no longer interested only in dresses from the 18th and 19th centuries, but also in haute couture.

The biggest enemy of antique textiles and historical clothes is the clothes moth. Martin Kamer also loses some of his collector's items to this voracious insect, but he knows how to defend himself with appropriate measures over time. Kamer also noticed that moths do not touch clothes with certain dyes.

Throughout his career, Martin Kamer has worked with many people on a professional level. With Rita Brown, Jan Reeder, Kumi Sakurai, Judith Clark and Annette Soumilas, he has a longstanding collaboration and special friendship. In this episode, Kamer talks about how the "five main ladies" came into his life and what the collaboration looked like.

The Kamer-Ruf collection also includes some historical sportswear such as riding gear, dresses for tennis players, cycling outfits or swimwear. Martin Kamer reports on the successive emergence of leisure activities and the associated development of leisure fashion.

As a child, Martin Kamer cuts out articles and photos from art and fashion magazines and archives them. As a teenager he comes into contact with old photographs and books. During his art studies in London, Kamer spends every Friday researching in various museums and libraries. That inspires him a lot. Nowadays, Kamer gives various people access to his private library for research purposes. It contains many rare historical fashion magazines and books.

Martin Kamer not only collects historical ladies' dresses, historical men's dresses are also part of his collection. They make up about a quarter of the collection. Luxurious men's dresses from the 18th century have always been in demand, men's dresses from the 19th century less so. This has changed dramatically in recent years. Times have changed. Today, record prices are also being paid for historic men's fashion from the 19th century. Kamer tells of the extremely successful exhibition «Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715-2015» at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 2016.

Go behind-the-scenes and see how the exhibition at LACMA was being prepared: https://vimeo.com/162776397

Martin Kamer tells of an auction in London where disorder reigns and where a dress by Mme Paquin is being auctioned off. Jeanne Paquin was an important fashion designer and one of the first women to run haute couture houses in Paris, London and Buenos Aires. During a visit to the auction house, Kamer discovers a dress without a label (circa 1915). He knows that it must be a dress by the fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin. Both dresses, that of Paquin and that of Lanvin, are incomplete. Elsewhere, Kamer finds loose dresses that he can attribute to Paquin and Lanvin's dresses. And he is absolutely right, as he can prove later.

Martin Kamer reports from an auction in London in 1988, where hundreds of haute couture dresses are auctioned off in one weekend. The label is missing on some of the dresses. Martin discovers dresses by Vionnet and Chanel among them. Years later, he can only prove that these dresses can actually be attributed to these fashion designers. He later sells a dress by Gabrielle Chanel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where it still is. Besides Kamer reports on the dust allergy he has suffered from since this auction.

Annette Soumilas* explains the tasks of a textile conservator and explains the difference between a textile conservator and a textile restorer. For the exhibition "The Vulgar" at the Barbican Museum in London (2017) and for the exhibition "Recent Parades" at the Kunsthalle in Bern (2018), she was taking care of loans from Martin Kamer by preparing them for the exhibitions. For the one in Bern, her skills were particularly in demand for the parasol from the ensemble "The Queen of Sheba" by Paul Poiret (1914).

* Annette Soumilas is an independent costume and fashion designer, specialising in textile conservation and display of historic dress.

Martin Kamer does not only acquire at auctions. The scene of this anecdote is the St. Louis flea market in Paris. In the 1980s, a trader sells Martin Kamer a Turkish dress with harem pants. The yellow coat and the sky-blue trousers do not match because of the different embroideries, Kamer knows that. He bought the two pieces anyway - and two years later, when he goes shopping again at the same dealer, he will be in for a pleasant surprise. A top by Charles Frederick Worth immediately catches his eye.

Annette Soumilas, independent costume and fashion designer, specialising in textile conservation and display of historic dress, talks about the exhibition »Fashion Drive: Extreme Clothing in Visual Arts« at the Kunsthaus Zurich in 2018. Her job was to prepare loans from the Kamer-Ruf collection and from Martin Kamer's private collection at the storage for the exhibition and to dress the mannequins on site. Different work steps were necessary to present the clothes as it was intended. Annette talks about impressions that remain in her memory from this exhibition.

Here and there it happens that Martin Kamer discovers mislabeled objects at auctions. Sometimes he can buy a new dress or accessory for a relatively low price. This requires expert eyes and the necessary bit of luck. In this episode he gives two examples.

Annette Soumilas talks about the professional collaboration between Martin Kamer and her. Soumilas remembers her first meeting with Kamer in Florence, she describes him from her point of view, talks about the basic principles of their collaboration and the similarities between them on a professional level. She also reveals which is her favourite dress from Kamer's collection.

Soumilas is an independent costume and fashion designer, specialising in textile conservation and display of historic dress. She has worked with Australian and international public and private dress, textiles and costume collections for more than 15 years. From 2002 to 2015, Soumilas was textile conservation display specialist at the National Gallery of Victoria (Australia).

Martin Kamer not only collects historical fashion, he also trades in it and repeatedly lends objects from his collection to museums worldwide. In this episode he explains how this process works. With each exhibition new contacts are made and sometimes long-lasting collaborations and friendships develop. Kamer talks about the conditions he attaches to his loans. What is clear is that there is no financial incentive.

In this episode Martin Kamer talks about clothing labels and fraud, which is sometimes committed with labels. Kamer reports on a scandal in connection with an auction in Paris that happened about 20 years ago. It happens that Kamer buys a dress without a label in knowing that it can be attributed to an important designer.

For the exhibition "Smoke and mirrors - The roaring twenties" at the Kunsthaus Zürich (3 July to 11 October 2020), Martin Kamer is making available on loan some 20 exhibits, including five haute couture dresses. In this special episode, which was recorded on location at the museum on 18 September 2020, Kamer focuses on his exhibits and provides interesting additional information.

Martin Kamer gives an insight into the process in auction houses. He talks about how he prepares for auctions, the strategies he uses on site and the excuses he sometimes uses to dupe himself into bidding higher than he originally intended.

Martin Kamer talks about the phenomenon that sooner or later things come to a collector when they have to. Kamer has made the experience that an object not purchased at an auction - for whatever reason - will eventually find its way into Kamer's collection. As an example, Kamer mentions a scarf designed by Raoul Dufy. Kamer also recalls a Spanish dress made of pineapple fibre (around 1860). And he talks about auction fever. Very often, he says, he paid more for an object than planned, but in retrospect he knows that it was worth it.

Just before the lockdown due to the COVID 19 pandemic, Martin Kamer purchased two albums with photographs from the 1920s. The photos, taken at horse races in Paris, show elegant ladies presenting the latest fashion - like a fashion show. Not all photos show who designed the clothes presented. Kamer uses his research material, consisting of other photographs, illustrations and magazines, to shed light on the dark.

In this episode Martin Kamer talks about clothes buttons. Some buttons were functional, others were worn for purely decorative reasons. For a time, steel was more valuable than silver. It was accordingly chic to wear buttons and shoe buckles made out of steel. Kamer bought a man's coat from a dealer in London. This coat comes from Germany (about 1805). The dealer did not buy the box of paste buttons at that time at the auction because he thought that one button would be missing. Kamer did not give up until the buttons belonging to the coat were in his possession.

In this episode, Martin Kamer reports on a gold-embroidered, black satin court gown that once belonged to Maria II da Glória*, Queen of Portugal. Her husband wanted to seize power. This led to the Portuguese Civil War. Queen Victoria sent the British Naval General Sir George Sartorius to Portugal for support. In gratitude, Maria II da Glória gave the Queen of the United Kingdom the court dress as a gift. The dress is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

* Full name: Maria da Glória Joana Carlota Leopoldina da Cruz Francisca Xavier de Paula Isidora Micaela Gabriela Rafaela Gonzaga

Martin Kamer not only collects historical clothes, but also historical accessories. On behalf of the emerging Simone Handbag Museum in Seoul, he is allowed to collect hundreds of handbags. For this he also works together with other dealers. Kenny Park, founder and CEO of the Simone Handbag Museum, appoints Kamer as honorary director.

«Shower Dress», a dress that Karl Lagerfeld designed for Chloé in 1983, finds its way into Martin Kamers collection two years later for 750 British pounds before he sells it to the Kyoto Costume Institute. In 2019, over 30 years later, the dress of the same type changed hands at an auction in Chicago for 32,500 US dollars.

In this episode Martin Kamer tells where he finds and acquires his collection objects. He remembers a red silk and gold embroidered court dress (sack dress) that he bought in Florence. Kamer travels via London to New York, the dress in the bag. He calls his friend, the famous ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who, among many other things, collected historical dresses. Kamer sells the Italian dress to Nureyev before the dress makes a remarkable journey. Today, the dress is in the Fashion Museum in the Residenzschloss Ludwigsburg.

Martin Kamer is primarily interested in the dress and less in the person who wore it. However, he has made an exception for a famous person. Martin talks about the court dress of Empress Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte's first wife. The dress is now at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, where it will be restored over the next few years.

Martin Kamer talks about the beginnings of his collecting activities in the late seventies. He tells where he finds the historical clothes for his collection and he speaks in general about auction houses.

In this episode, Martin Kamer recalls his childhood and youth in Zug (Switzerland) and his training period in London. Even as a young boy he was interested in fashion and, in particular, in historical dresses. At the end of the 1960s, Martin Kamer began working together with the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, a superstar of that time.

This is the trailer of the podcast «OUT OF FASHION?» in which the protagonist Martin Kamer talks about a court dress that was once owned by Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The podcast «OUT OF FASHION?» deals with historical clothes and accessories in connection with the collecting activities of Martin Kamer from Switzerland. From the wealth of knowledge about historical dresses Martin Kamer will present instructive and many amusing anecdotes.

In the early 1980s, Martin Kamer turned his passion for fashion and fashion history into a profession. He began collecting and dealing with historical fashion. 

Fashion reinvents itself again and again, some things go out of fashion and - years later - suddenly become stylish and fashionable again.

Host: Remo Hegglin