The fall exhibition of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Met) pays tribute to feminine creation. Women Dressing Women It is a declaration of intentions from the first panel of the exhibition. Creative women, artisans and artists, who have covered the feminine universe with their designs and their different visions of women: always making them protagonists, sometimes objects, but never passive subjects in relation to clothing. The more than 80 costumes on display, belonging to the Institute’s permanent collection, cover the fashion industry chronologically, artistically and commercially with two main axes, Paris and New York, in a network of names and houses—what are now called firms. —, which links haute couture and street fashion, the most refined tradition of the Old Continent and the American avant-garde and utilitarianism.
The exhibition, which opens this Thursday and will remain open until March 3, 2024, begins with a selection of black and white photographs, projected in a loop, that show the work of dressmakers, tailors and seamstresses from anonymous workshops between 1907 and 1962. Also the timid fittings for a client or images of the first shows in private salons, when the designers did not have a name, much less the planetary dimension that they have acquired in recent decades (and in recent years, thanks to celebrations such as the The Met’s big annual fashion show and fashion gala, the phenomenon of spring).
In this black and white tribute are the precursors of the more than 70 creators who give life, with a needle and thimble, to dreams. The exhibition traces the lineage of the most influential fashion houses (although Casa is only a couple of them, the House Dior and the House of Chanel) run by women in the last century. Pioneers such as the Venetian textiles of Adèle Henriette Nigrin de Fortuny, the exquisite Madeleine Vionnet, the Spanish Ana de Pombo, one of the last designers of the French house Paquin (1891-1956); or Elsa Schiaparelli, responsible for her own brand, perhaps the first creator with a name and surname and the subject of an exhibition at the Met in 2012, in which the Italian maintained an imaginary dialogue with another famous compatriot, Miuccia Prada. The exhibition does not lack any of the big names (Chanel, the aforementioned Miuccia Prada, Marchesa, Rodarte) but the unknown and those forgotten by time also stand out, such as the selection of ethereal creations from the first decades of the 20th century.
In the workshops where seamstresses, milliners, apprentices and tailors toiled for decades, the figure of the designer with a name and surname was forged. As an introductory panel that accompanies the selection of anonymous photographs recalls, “in the centers of French and European fashion, the right of women to dress other women was a slowly won privilege,” since it was men who dominated the industry. It took a long time, until the deregulation of the unions, for the professionals to gain their ground. In the United States, however, the vocation was seen as a natural, industrious extension of domestic responsibilities: sewing as an inherently feminine occupation.
Because fashion created by women has contributed to empowering women, but also, sometimes, the creators themselves, explained Max Hollein, director of the Met, at the press presentation of the exhibition this Monday. “This exhibition invites us to reflect on the vital contribution of women to fashion from the early 20th century to the present, amplifying historically undervalued voices and celebrating the celebrity they have achieved. The garments on display are an example of the countless women whose contributions were, and continue to be, the lifeblood of the global fashion industry as we know it today.”
The presentation also included the most influential fashion curator in the world, Andrew Bolton, chief curator of the Costume Institute and right-hand man of Anna Wintour, the all-powerful fashion editor of Condé Nast and architect of the Met Fashion Gala. “Women have been fundamental to the success of the Costume Institute since its creation. Among its founders are several inspiring women; That is why the institution continues to dedicate itself to celebrating the artistic, technical and social achievements of women. “They are part of fashion history.”
For Mellissa Huber, associate curator at the Costume Institute, the fall exhibition offers the opportunity to “learn the crucial stories of innovative women designers who played a fundamental role in the conception of fashion as we know it. “Women’s contribution to fashion cannot be quantified, but our intention with this exhibition is to celebrate the Costume Institute’s permanent collection, which represents a rich chronology of Western fashion.” As Hollein emphasized, fashion is a symbol of feminine power, of emancipation, but also the result of a gigantic collective work. Through these three dimensions (chronological, conceptual and commercial), fashion is also the triumph of social progress, the powerful vehicle of social, financial and creative autonomy for women. As Ted Pick, co-president of Morgan Stanley, which sponsors the exhibition’s luxurious catalogue, points out in a statement, “the milestone that, today, three Parisian haute couture houses – Chanel, Dior and Iris van Herpen – are directed by powerful women.”
“The common thread between different generations of professional women reveals how later generations have built and expanded the legacy of their predecessors. The exhibition reflects the intergenerational dialogue, in a temporal perspective, between these designers and the talented women who worked alongside them, from a contemporary approach,” explains Karen Van Godtsenhoven, co-curator of the exhibition. Indeed, to cite just one example of those silent dialogues between the pieces on display, which stand out thanks to the austere scenography, the direct thread between the characteristic Fortuny pleat and the textile origami of Comme des Garçons reveals the continuum to which the specialists who organized the exhibition allude. Just as between the conceptual punk of Vivienne Westwood and the groundbreaking dress with metal pieces inserted in silk with which in 1924 the Vionnet house reinterpreted the syntax of ancient Greek ceramic painting: tradition as modernity, and vice versa; the eternal of fashion and art.
As a detail of this legacy, it is worth looking at the heads of the mannequins that display the dresses in the first room, that of the pioneers: they are topped by the timeless shapes of a classical Greek column.
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