The Ball

Start Date 15 July 2021

End Date 11 December 2021

Venue The Design Museum

Location Holon, Israel

Curator Yaara Keydar Artistic and Shmuel Ben Shalom

Designer

Artistic Display and Mannequin Sculpting: Victor Vivi Bellaish

Exhibition display of dressed mannequins

Does seeking an escape from reality during challenging times attest to an inability to confront difficulties or, is it itself, a survival skill? In the modern age, especially in the aftermath of war, crises, and dark periods, sumptuous celebrations became an existential need designed to forget what had transpired and celebrate what remained, especially the future to come.

Throughout history, balls and the fashions created in their honor were reserved for the elite, yet the stories written about them made them accessible to all social classes. Fairy tales helped transform the ball into a gateway for escaping reality into a world of fantasy and imagination, and for overcoming social divides and barriers. Dreams are accessible to us all, together with the hope for a happy ending.

The exhibition “The Ball” is concerned with fashion’s ability to transport us into a magical world in which anything is possible, if only for one night. Extending throughout the entire museum, the exhibition features some 120 ball gowns representing both historical and contemporary designs, and some 50 accessories created especially for the exhibition by Israel’s top designers.

The Lower Gallery features a historical timeline of garments designed with historical accuracy, demonstrating the dramatic changes in the design of ball gowns and evening wear – as they evolved from the 18th century up to the 1980s. The Upper Gallery displays “The Modern Ball: Israeli Couture”, offering a glimpse into Israel’s evening-wear industry through dresses and gowns made by leading designers in the country. The display in the Peripheral Corridor, “Heart of Glass: A Journey in the Footsteps of Cinderella’s Slippers”, reconstructs the various cultural incarnations of Cinderella’s slipper, including both its feminine and masculine versions, using 3D-printed models. The Margalit Gallery features the work 11:59PM by Idit Barak, which brings together ball gowns familiar from fairy tales with thoughts about a new form of couture, using 10,000 meters of fiber optics. As the “last course” in the journey through the exhibition, the Design Laboratory becomes “The Whipped-Cream Room and the Mad Hatter”, bringing together the works of the designer Maor Zabar and the pastry chef Alon Shabo.

You are invited to immerse yourself in an unforgettable, multisensory experience that combines sound, set design and lighting. The creative dialogue between festive and everyday elements, and between the fantastic and the real, raises questions concerning the role of fashion in everyday life, escapism, exaggeration, and dreams of both riches and happiness.

Designers on display:

Special Thanks:

Image courtesy of The Design Museum, Holon, Israel. Photo: Elad Sarig.

Keyword

The Ball