The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced its latest fashion exhibition, which will be a follow-up to In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.
In America: An Anthology of Fashion will look at the genesis of American style, focusing on the 19th century to the latter part of the 20th century. Opening in May at the New York art museum, it will provide the theme and dress code for the Met Gala this year.
If the focus sounds academic, the exhibition is sponsored by Instagram and the presentation of more than 100 items brings a modern, social media-friendly lens. Eight different films directors – including Tom Ford, Sofia Coppola and Judy Dash, who directed 1991’s influential Daughters of the Dust – will create three-dimensional cinematic “freeze frames” featuring the clothes. Rather than a sterile white-walled gallery, these will be set up in the period rooms of the museum – which range from a 19th-century parlour to a living room designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Andrew Bolton, the head curator of the Met’s Costume Institute, explained that the focus was on designers and dressmakers who were not household names, those who had become “the footnotes in the annals of fashion history”.
“It is through these largely hidden stories that a nuanced picture of American fashion comes into focus,” he said, “one in which the sum of its parts are as significant as the whole.”
This exhibition is designed to give these forgotten talents a long-overdue spotlight. They include Ann Lowe, the African American designer who learned dressmaking from her grandmother and went on to make Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding dress in which she married John F Kennedy in 1953, and Elizabeth Hawes, a kind of Elsa Schiaparelli of America. A 1937 dress displayed here – which Hawes called “the Tart’s Dress” – featured arrows pointing to its wearer’s breasts and bottom. In addition to this, gowns by Charles James, Halston and Stephen Burrows will be displayed.
Six case studies of specific items will provide talking points too. They include a jacket thought to be worn by George Washington to his inauguration in 1789, and two Brooks Brothers items – one worn by Abraham Lincoln, the other a livery worn by a an unidentified enslaved man, from around 1857-65.
There has been some criticism around In America: A Lexicon of Fashion since it opened in September. Korina Emmerich, who has an outfit included in the exhibition, spoke out about the fact that she was the only indigenous designer included. “I’m half-white and urban – I didn’t grow up on the reservation. I know I’m more palatable in situations like this,” she told the Cut. “But there are people who have been doing couture for a lot longer than I have: celebrated elders in our community.”
Emmerich‘s outfit was a protest – the stripes reference those on the Hudson Bay blanket that were given out or traded to indigenous people, and spread smallpox among their population. In America: A Lexicon of Fashion displayed this outfit next to one using similar stripes by André Walker. While the captions explain the problematic history around these stripes and Emmerich‘a intentions, Walker’s design is labelled “comfort”.
When the Met shared Walker’s cape on Instagram in September, with the caption “This cape by André Walker will represent the qualities of warmth and comfort” it received a backlash. “A symbol of genocide and colonialism, not warmth and comfort,” read one comment.
The Lexicon exhibition will run concurrently with Anthology. Bolton said 30 more garments will be added to the current exhibition at the end of March, focusing on new designers. “These additions will reflect the vitality and diversity of contemporary American fashion,” a press release said.
