Fashion fans rejoice: as you may have heard, the title of next year's Costume Institute exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art has been announced, it is "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion" (May 10 - September 2, 2024).
Contrary to the fairytale-like title, the exhibition explores rare garments that, once acquired by the Costume Institute, become dormant treasures in its archives, unable to be worn again and often too fragile to be displayed as well.
Spanning 400 years of history, the exhibition will include around 250 items from the Costume Institute's permanent collection among the others many evening gowns, including the Elizabethan bodice and silk satin ballgown by the American couturier Charles Frederick Worth from 1877 (the show's original inspiration) and Christian Dior's iconic Venus and Junon designs.
Other pieces featured include designs by Elsa Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent and Hubert de Givenchy. Contemporary fashion fans will instead be able to admire new acquisitions by Phillip Lim, Stella McCartney and Loewe (one of the sponsors of the event).
Nature will be the thread behind the exhibition that will develop around three main themes or zones - "Land", "Sea", and "Sky". This path will guide visitors to discover also some of the natural materials employed to create the designs on display (so there will be emphasis on sustainability and regenerative forms of production) and ponder more about the cyclical themes of rebirth and renewal.
In the galleries historical designs will be juxtaposed to contemporary fashions in an immersive environment engaging sight (Nick Knight, founder of SHOWstudio, is the creative consultant on the visual presentation of the exhibition), smell (the scents accompanying the objects are courtesy of smell researcher and artist Sissel Tolaas, known for her work at Balenciaga), touch, and hearing.
Some of the walls will be decorated with vegetal and insectoid embroidery inspired by an Elizabethan bodice; floors will be animated with snakes borrowed from the neckline of an early 20th-century sequined dress, while projection-mapped ceilings will feature Hitchcockian visuals of a swarm of black birds that call to mind the bird motif on a black tulle evening dress designed by Madeleine Vionnet just before the outbreak of World War II and a black bird print on an Alexander McQueen's jacket from the S/S 95 season.
Fragile "sleeping beauties" garments, unable to be displayed on mannequins, will be showcased in glass "coffins" for closer inspection, allowing visitors to analyze their various states of deterioration as if under a microscope. This could actually be the most interesting part of the exhibition that may prompt some visitors to develop a passion for forensic fashion studies. In addition, the press release also states that technologies including augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence, computer-generated imagery and x-rays, will be employed to bring back these masterpieces to life.
Other "sleeping beauties" will be revived through the illusion technique known as Pepper's ghost, originally relaunched by McQueen during his Autumn/Winter 2006 show "The Widows of Culloden" to materialise a ghost-like apparition of Kate Moss on the runway.
The exhibition is sponsored by TikTok (possibly to win the approval of millions of young TikTokers...) with further support by Loewe and Condé Nast.
So far, so good, however, it's disheartening to note the recurring struggle with exhibition titles at the Costume Institute reminiscent of past instances like "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" and "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty" (that echoed another book and exhibition with similar titles).
While the title of the exhibition is not connected with women frozen in a magic spell awaiting a prince to wake them up, it will trigger another type of association for horror enthusiasts who may recall the title of Stephen King and Owen King's book. In their novel, "Sleeping Beauties," women become enveloped in a cocoon-like gauze when they enter a state of slumber. By disturbing or violating the gauze surrounding them, they transform into feral and violent beings. During their sleep, they enter an alternate realm - a utopian place where harmony prevails, and conflict is scarce.
As highlighted in that previous post, nobody stops you from titling an exhibition like a novel or a book already on the market, technically this is not a matter of copyright infringement, but it shows a surprising lack of imagination that you wouldn't expect from a major museum, a faux pas that may prove confusing for consumers especially while searching for information on it on the Internet or while buying a catalogue of that exhibition from online retailers. Sure, consumers are clever and can discern what they are buying, yet doing a more in-depth research about possible titles and searching for more unique alternatives is always possible.
Besides, while it is good to see the Costume Institute exploring more the contents of its archives, the theme of the exhibition is incredibly safe. Visitors can only hope that technologies will offer a new angle and perspective on these designs, yet it would have been even more intriguing to push things further, maybe looking also at the science and chemistry behind fashion. We have all learnt to make juxtapositions and establish connections between designers, and some of us are well-versed in spotting plagiarisms. We should now demand more from such exhibitions also on a scientific level and be able to discover more about the most technical aspects of a garment.
So will "Sleeping Beauties" be a genuine reawakening of some hidden fashion treasures or will these items end up being like the proverbial "girlfriend in a coma", suspended between life and death? Time will tell, in the meantime you can shiver and shudder thinking at the dress code for the Met Gala: it hasn't been announced yet, but let's hope it is not sleep related to avoid seeing a new chapter in the long history of bed dresses and pillow frocks.
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