Night in the Period Rooms 4 December 2007 - 12 April 2008 Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
Find a package of educational activities www.gemeentemuseum.nl

What do you wear for wild nights?

Night dressing changes with the fashion rhythm and with the impact we give dreams to our daily life. Some cultures such as the Native Americans think that the night dream is a foresight to the next day; Sigmund Freud believed that dreams reveal the unconscious. At Freud's times the night gown of the Viennese elegant woman was similar to the Reform Dress (Rational Dress), which was worn day through by the "Avant-garde". In the 20ies the pyjama (pants designed after the Indian and Persian inspired costume with jacket; first worn by men around 1850) became fashionable for women in Europe.

At the Gemeentemuseum’s six Period Rooms present six different aspects of the night. They are illustrated through paintings, clothing, sculptures, musical instruments and centuries-old objects from a magnificent nineteenth-century four-poster bed right through to work by artist H.W. Mesdag (1831-1915). This exhibition invites you to make a nocturnal journey: "... a candle burns at a window and people prepare for the night ahead. Some reach for their pyjamas, pull on a nightcap and retire to bed, while others select their most glamorous glad rags and head off out into a night of wild revelling and music...".

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fig. left: Negligee set, England, ca. 1960-1965, Nylon, silk satin ribbon.
fig. right: Christian Dior, Negligee set, France, ca. 1960, nylon, pleated frills of same material.