Exhibit examines American fashion, frame by frame
NEW YORK — Even for a legendary film director like Martin Scorsese, the assignment was a daunting one.
Take one of the famous American period rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and make essentially a one-frame movie with no camera. Your actors are mannequins, and the costumes have been chosen for you.
“Create a one-frame movie in a period room? A great opportunity and an intriguing challenge,” the director writes in a statement next to his creation in the museum’s striking Frank Lloyd Wright Room.
Eight other directors, including Regina King and Chloe Zhao, are also putting their stamp on the period rooms, for “In America: An Anthology of Fashion,” the Met’s spring Costume Institute exhibit that launched with the Met Gala on May 2, and officially opened May 7. Guests at the gala were among the first to see the displays. Also among the first: Jill Biden. The first lady toured the exhibit at a preview recently and spoke of how she’s learned, in her current job, that language isn’t the only means of communication — fashion is, too. “We reveal and conceal who we are with symbols and shapes, colors and cuts, and who creates them,” Biden said.
The first lady spoke of how the history of American design is full of unsung heroes — some of whom the new exhibit is now celebrating.
The exhibit is the second part of a broader show on American fashion to mark the Costume Institute’s 75th anniversary. Masterminded as usual by star curator Andrew Bolton, the new installment is both
sequel and precursor to “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” which opened in September.
If the new “Anthology” show is meant to provide crucial historical context, it also seeks to find untold stories and overlooked figures in early American fashion, especially female designers, and especially those of color.
The nine directors were tapped to enliven the storytelling. In addition to Scorsese they include two of the Met Gala’s hosts — actor-director King and designer-director Tom Ford. Also contributing are Radha Blank, Janicza Bravo, Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Autumn de Wilde, and Zhao.
For King, the Richmond Room, depicting early 19th-century domestic life for wealthy Virginians, provided a chance to highlight Black designer Fannie Criss Payne, who was born in the late 1860s to formerly enslaved parents and became a top local dressmaker.
Filmmaker Blank looks at Maria Hollander, founder of a clothing business in the mid-19th century in Massachusetts who used her business success to advocate for abolition and women’s rights. In the museum’s Shaker Retiring Room, director Zhao connects
with the minimalist aesthetic of 1930s sportswear designer Claire McCardell. De Wilde uses her set in the Baltimore Dining Room to examine the influence of European fashion on American women. Dash focuses on Black dressmaker Ann Lowe, who designed future first lady Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress but was barely recognized for it.
In the wing’s Gothic Revival Library, Bravo looks at the works of Elizabeth Hawes, a mid-20th century designer and fashion writer. And Coppola, given the McKim, Mead & White Stair Hall and another room, teamed with sculptor Rachel Feinstein to create distinctive faces for her “characters.”
Ford transforms the museum’s Versailles room into a depiction of the “Battle of Versailles” — a major night for American fashion in 1973, when five American sportswear designers “faced off ” against five French couture designers at a show in Versailles and showed the world what American fashion was made of.
“In America: An Anthology of Fashion” opened to the public May 7. Part one, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” remains open at the Anna Wintour Costume Center. Both close in September.