An exhibit at the Costume Institute

Yesterday, my friend Joan, took me to the latest exhibit at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan museum. The Museum was open in the evening only for members and their guests.

I had seen this video about the exhibit a while back . The video made me want to avoid the exhibit. But when my friend asked me to join her of course I wasn't going to refuse. Joan has an excellent eye and is such great company. Of course I agreed to join her.

It felt so swanky to be ushered in and be allowed to forgo opening up your bag for security to check to be sure that we weren't bringing in anything dangerous.

The theme of the exhibit is the fragility of the garments owned by the Costume Institute. Some garments were displayed laid out flat because they were too fragile to display on a mannikin.

Here you can see that the underlayers are starting to rot away.

I loved this print.

The exhibit also wanted the convey how some of the garments actually smell. Yes, that aroma familiar to any of us who thrift was pumped into some of the exhibition areas. There were some areas of museum wall that were scent activated when you touched them. I have done enough laundry in my life to choose to avoid those bits of the exhibit. There were even tubes that one was encouraged to hold up to your nostrils to fully experience centuries old B.O. Joan whiffed up a bit more than she had expected to and needed a few minutes to recover.

The exhibit was filled to the gills with wonderful garments.

The connection of some of the garments to the theme of the exhibit often seemed tenuous at best. This is also the first time in years and years that the Costume Institute has actually done a good job exhibiting the clothes so the viewer could actually look at the clothes. I found it better not to pay too much attention to the wall notes.

I was particularly charmed by these 1940s cocktail aprons.

You could pop one over your little black dress and suddenly be REALLY dressed up. I could see playing with this idea.

There was a charming section about bugs.

These are not beetles but custom made plastic sequins made to look like beetles.

There was a fabulous selection of hats made to look like vegetables.

There were dozens of hats that looked like flowers.

I'm not sure why all of the yellow dresses were in the exhibit, but they were pretty.

There was a section on ocean and seashells.

I have seen this Dior evening dress at too many fashion exhibits to even count.

The Met owns this black and white Worth dress and another ( without the black bodice) in the same cut velvet. The curators LOVE it and they show it any time there could possibly be a reason to show it.

The dress on the right was designed by Norman Norell in the 1960s. The one on the left is a recent Marc Jacobs copy of the Norell. These two dresses were shown side by side in a recent Costume Institute exhibit.

I totally get getting inspired by a designer. A line for line copy though seems to cross the (forgive the expression) line into something not quite kosher.

A great example of taking inspiration from the past and turning it into something quite different is this wonderfully daft Thom Browne mashup of an uptight Chanel suit and a mermaid costume. I couldn't get a good enough photo but this looks like quite the ensemble for making a dramatic entrance.

I wish that the curators of Costume Institute hadn't worked so hard on trying to hang everything on such a flimsy intellectual concept. They would have avoided some of the tortured connections if they simply titled the exhibit "Stuff we love but didn't quite know how to fit into an exhibit---have fun looking at the clothes".

We did both have a wonderful evening.

After stopping off for a bite to eat, we walked home across Central Park.

Joan turned south and I walked home.

I took photos of stuff that caught my eye.

You may recognize this gate from "Only Murders in the Building"

A local antique and salvage store has an impressive collection of chandeliers.

A fruit vendor reflected in a bank window.

Today I woke up to

masons taking a break from remortaring the building outside my kitchen window. Seeing workers just outside my sixth floor window always feels like an event.

So, see the exhibit, skip the smello-vision and don't pay too much attention to the tortured intellectual gymnastics.

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sarah in nyc

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