I was so honored to announce a few days ago that I am going to be a Peanuts Ambassador again this year. I loved working with them last year and sharing all the fun giveaways, reviews, and brand news with you all. I have a great new announcement to make today. Peanuts Worldwide recently announced that international fashion exhibit “Snoopy & Belle in Fashion” will bring its couture style home to the U.S. in 2017 for a multi-city tour that launches on February 14 at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles and culminates in the fall in New York City during New York Fashion Week. “Snoopy & Belle in Fashion” is a completely contemporary reimagining of the inaugural “Snoopy in Fashion” project, which debuted in 1984 with such diverse designers as Karl Lagerfeld, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, Oscar De La Renta, Giorgio Armani, L.L. Bean, Bob Mackie, and Sonia Rykiel. The show premiered at The Louvre, and went on to tour The L.A. County Museum, and throughout Europe and Asia, and inspired both paperback and hard cover art books.
Many of the Peanuts Ambassador’s was given the great pleasure of speaking with Jill Schulz, the daughter of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz and Melissa Menta, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Peanuts Worldwide LLC, and the producer of the Snoopy and Belle In Fashion Exhibit. I was super sick that day so I did not get to take the call but I did get to hear all about it from my blogging friends and see a transcript of what all happened. I missed out on a great call and I am so sad. They got to ask Jill Schulz about her dad and what he would think of the exhibit. She said that he would love but he never liked to travel. She mentioned that he said he would go anywhere as long as he could be home by noon. That sounds so much like my own dad. She said it was a great feat when he went to the 1984 exhibit in Paris at the Louvre. She said he would not be considered fashion forward. He was a slacks and sweater guy but that he cared about fashion becuase he always tried to dress well. She called him a ‘closet fashion guy.’ It was nice to see an inside glimpse into the amazing Charles Schulz.
On the call they asked if they could tell them how the exhibits came to be. Here was Melissa’s response:
Melissa Menta –Sure! We’re really proud of this exhibit. It’s a re-imagination of an exhibit that first premiered in 1984. A woman who was in charge of spearheading Peanuts merchandise in Japan went to Charles Schulz, or Sparky as he was called, and asked if she could do this exhibit. He said “yes” and she pulled off this amazing feat of getting all the major designers in the world to design outfits for Snoopy and his sister Belle.
The original exhibit was called “Snoopy in Fashion.” They were plush dolls dressed by famous designers like Chanel, Betsey Johnson and everyone you could possibly imagine. Those dolls have been travelling the world ever since.
In 2014 we decided to reimagine the exhibit and got all new designers plus some from the original exhibit. Since then, we’ve been showing the exhibit around the world, and adding new designers. There were 25 designers in 2014, but the current exhibit on display at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles has close to 50 sets of dolls representing almost 50 designers. The new dolls in LA come from designers like Rachel Zoe and Academy Award winner Colleen Atwood.
I’m actually standing at the exhibit right now and it’s absolutely beautiful, so I hope whoever is local can come see it.
They also asked about the overall goal of the exhibit because we are all really excited about it:
Melissa Menta – What’s interesting about Peanuts is that it speaks to people in different ways. Whether you go to an amusement park or see the Peanuts movie, but it’s also a fashion brand. If you talk to people in Europe, they see Peanuts as a fashion brand so this is a new way of showing Peanuts to be fashion forward and allowing people to enjoy the characters
Its really awesome to me that they said the designers could do whatever they wanted as long as they didnt use real fur in the exhibit. Melissa said that some of the designers like Betsey Johnson and Diane Von Furstenberg were part of the original exhibit and others they just asked to be a part because they knew they had an affinity for Peanuts. She said that several of the dolls look like the designers and some have some really fun stories behind them.
Melissa Menta – J. Mendel came to the exhibit in 2014 and we took a photo of him next to his Snoopy doll. It’s kind of amazing that the same doll can be given such a unique look and personality as to match the designer. Betsey Johnson’s doll oozes her personality. The designers Costello Tagliapietra are a team of two men and look exactly like their dolls. It’s been a lot of fun to see how much fun the designers are having. They get so excited to see the finished product, especially alongside the other designs…Colleen (Atwood is an Academy Award winning costume designer who did Alice in Wonderland. Her doll looks exactly like Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter from that film. The cloth used on Snoopy is from Depp’s original costume. For Belle, Colleen created a dress reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha.
We were also wondering what happens to the dolls when the exhibit was over and she told us that the 1984 dolls are housed in Japan and Italy. The 2014 dolls dont have a home yet but they are traveling still. She said that after the US tour they will take the exhibit abroad again. That is so cool to me. These dolls have seen so many cities and countries.
THE EXHIBITION WILL VISIT THE FOLLOWING CITIES:
- Los Angeles/Beverly Center: February 14-March 12
- Denver/Cherry Creek: March 17-April 11
- Sarasota/The Mall at University Town Center: April 17-May 13
- Nashville/The Mall at Green Hills: May 17–June 11
- Fairfax/Fair Oaks Mall: June 23-July 18
- New York/Brookfield Place: September 7-October 1
Make sure you take the family to see the “Snoopy and Belle In Fashion” exhibit when it comes to a city near you. It looks to be so magical!
