GOWN & OUT
The Met boots her for costume
A COSTUME BUFF says she was denied entry to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because she was wearing a masterpiece of a dress.
Eliza Vincz, 26, told the Daily News she showed up at the Fifth Ave. museum Saturday afternoon wearing a handcrafted 18th century-style robe à la française made from blue silk taffeta with vintage details and lace dating to the 1850s.
Vincz, who designs and gives demonstrations on 18th century fashion, trekked 80 miles to perform a showand-tell for a private tour group focused on historical standards of beauty.
But she never made it beyond the Met lobby.
“One of the security ladies rudely came up to me and was badgering me, saying I can’t have art pieces in the museum,” recalled Vincz, who lives in the central New Jersey town of Burlington.
Vincz said the woman even accused her of stealing the dress from the museum’s Costume Institute.
“I was really, really angry,” said Vincz. “I spent a good amount of time getting into this clothing, doing my hair. I had to do a good amount of research.”
Just like women from the 18th century, Vincz’s locks were dressed with pomatum and powder carefully sculpted around a wool and horsehair high roll.
The Met security insisted she and her really old-school haute couture leave the premises.
Andrew Lear, an author and historian who was leading the Shady Ladies’ “Fashion and Beauty Tour,” rushed over and asked for an explanation why Vincz was getting dressed down by security.
Lear had invited Vincz to speak to his group of seven as they toured the museum learning about pre-Columbian nose rings and tightly laced corsets.
Lear said a security official told him that the Met had a policy barring entry to anyone wearing a costume.
“I understand why they would do that, but at the same time, it seems a little exaggerated,” Lear said.
“It’s not as if she was going to do a performance art piece.”
Vincz said she gave a rushed brief talk to Lear’s tour group there in the museum’s lobby. Then she and her husband took off for the parking garage via the Greek sculpture garden.
But before leaving in a huff, she had one final exchange with her nemesis.
“(The guard) said I had to leave, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’m leaving and I’m never coming back,’ ” Vincz recalled.
A Met spokesman didn't return a request for comment.
For her part, Vincz said the ordeal left her feeling torn up and traumatized.
“It was the most humiliating experience of my life to be kicked out of a place that I hold so dear,” Vincz said.
“I got kicked out for sharing my love of history.”