Couture Pattern Museum hosts Chanel in Vogue launch

By Grace Kim

Operating since 2022, Santa Barbara’s Couture Pattern Museum calls itself “the only dedicated fashion museum on California’s Central Coast,” according to the museum’s website. It occupies the third floor of 1525 State Street and receives visitors by appointment and during selected First Thursday openings. The museum stands a few blocks north of Santa Barbara’s small toy train museum, one specialist institution in a local collection that also includes large and medium-sized museums.

At a select event two weeks before publication, on a clear October afternoon, patrons and guests, including a few journalists, gathered in the compact museum and its ocean-view patio. The program centered on a book release and signing with British authors Susanna Brown and Rebecca C. Tuite. Their two coffee-table books share the title Chanel in Vogue and address different phases of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s life and work in relation to Vogue magazine.

Before Brown and Tuite delivered illustrated lectures, Adrien Frier, the Consul General of France in Los Angeles, and Adele Autelin, a Chanel technical designer and draper based in Paris, delivered video greetings. The authors then explained their research, including the access they received from Chanel in Paris and the Conde Nast archives.

Tuite, a Brit based in Los Angeles, and Brown, a Londoner, brought different vantage points to the project. Brown flew from London for the event and said she welcomed the contrast with the rain and wind at home. She focused on more recent history, drawing on memories from surviving Vogue staff, especially designer-photographer Karl Lagerfeld, and interviews with photographers and artists.

Tuite said of the project:

“It’s been a really extraordinary experience”

She credited:

“The level of access that we were so fortunate to have from Chanel in Paris and from the Conde Nast archives. It doesn’t always happen that way.

“Sometimes, it can be a real challenge to get the sources that you want and with a brand like Chanel, you want to feel like you are finding something new and really being able to bring something new to the table.”

Tuite also described the project’s premise:

“I always like to begin talking about this project with this quote (from Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel), ‘those on whom legends are built are their legends.’

“And I think what really became clear early on is that we’re talking about two brands, two cultural powerhouses who really have come up together through the 20th century and who have a reputation and they’ve become bigger than themselves.”

Brown addressed the difficulty of researching recent fashion history:

“As historians, it can be incredibly frustrating when researching more recent history. But on the flip side of that,

“I was in a fortunate position of having many living people to discuss their memories of working with the latter staff at Vogue, particularly (important designer-photographer) Karl Lagerfeld.

“It was my pleasure to also speak with many of the photographers and artists who contributed to Vogue in the more recent decades.”

The cultural program came with high tea beforehand and champagne afterward. The tea included:

• Lobster Vol-au-Vent and Mini Croque Monsieur from Chef Laura Desmond.
• Fruit Verrine and Mini Mont Blanc from Rosewood’s pâtissier Yannick Dumonceau.

Founder and managing director Cara Austine-Rademaker identified Mini Mont Blanc as Coco Chanel’s favorite dessert.

A specialist museum’s expanding public role

The museum has existed since 2022 and is run by Austine-Rademaker and her husband, RJ Rademaker, its director of operations and key adviser. The museum says Women’s Wear Daily has covered it. According to its website, the collection preserves “an extraordinary, comprehensive collection of haute couture patterns, original designs, and costume pieces from legendary designers who shaped fashion history.”

Book events predate the Chanel launch. In 2024, a larger event at the University Club celebrated the release of Maria Kublin’s Balenciaga – Kublin: A Fashion Record, which recounts photographer Tom Kublin’s documentation of Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga’s work.

What does this change for scholars and visitors?

Images from both Chanel in Vogue books now hang on the museum walls, extending the October launch into a public exhibition. Austine-Rademaker said a fascination with couture’s working methods led her to start the museum, and she treats its patterns as significant historical works rather than disposable templates.

She explained why:

“(these patterns) hold the information from the great master couturiers. As scholars re-create and learn from the masters, each piece gets interpreted differently, because you cannot eliminate the human hand from the piece. Making a couture dress is truly an art form.

“That is how I see the role of these patterns for the future. Students and scholars are able to follow the footsteps of the masters themselves to learn historical techniques.

“What was once an oral tradition, these patterns captured the tradition on paper for the first time in history, during the Golden Age of couture. And this will likely never happen again.”

The practical change is access. Scholars can use a paper record of techniques once transmitted orally, while visitors can see the books’ images during museum appointments and selected First Thursday openings. Visit details appear at couturepatternmuseum.com. For students and future couturiers, the stakes are practical: founder Cara Austine-Rademaker believes the museum is preserving a form of knowledge that may never be documented this way again.