Garments and accessories, ranging from affordable ready-to-wear items to exclusive Haute Couture creations, are intimately connected to the people who wear them. We can all relate to this connection: when we remove our clothes or shoes, we recognize in them our shape and silhouette; when we lose someone dear, we often seek solace in their clothes, hoping to catch their scent one last time, reminisce about happier times and find the strength to get on with our lives.
However, when designs end up in museums, they often lose their original purpose. Removed from their wearers, they become static objects stored away in clinical environments, at times hidden from view due to their fragility. The new exhibition at the Met Museum's Costume Institute, titled "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion" (May 10 - September 2, 2024), hopes instead to inject new life into designs from its collections.
Curated by Andrew Bolton, chief curator in charge of the Costume Institute, and his team, the exhibition features 250 garments and accessories, including 75 new acquisitions, all unified by the theme of nature, a metaphor for the cyclicity and ephemerality of fashion and its continuous rebirth and renewal.
Divided into three main sections - Earth, Air, and Water - and further subdivided into themes like flowers, insects, birds, and marine life (just to mention a few of them...), the exhibition engages visitors' senses through sight, smell, touch, and hearing, incorporating science and technology in creative ways.
Throughout the galleries (designed by architectural firm Leong Leong), visitors encounter "sleeping beauties," that is fragile garments displayed horizontally in glass cases, as they cannot be showcased on mannequins. These garments are brought to life through computer-generated imagery (CGI), video animation, light projections, and soundscapes.
At the entrance of the exhibition, Constantin Brancusi's 1910 "Sleeping Muse" bronze welcomes visitors (keep it in mind as we will find a connection with it at the end of the exhibition).
One of the first garments on display is instead the 1887 silk satin and chiffon "Cloud" ballgown by Charles Frederick Worth. Next to it there is a reimagined version of the ballgown on a form seemingly dancing in its "Pepper's ghost" version (creating this digital version was a bit like making a Haute Couture gown as it took more than six months and 40 different renderings...), while Alessandro Michele's A/W 2017 cape for Gucci is juxtaposed to the original Worth gown to show how the historical piece was reactivated in more recent times.
Floral motifs abound in the show, with intricate embroideries inspired by Van Gogh's Irises on a Yves Saint Laurent couture jacket, digital prints on a Loewe dress or Loewe's S/S 23 anthurium dress (the Spanish house is a sponsor of this year's show).
Another Loewe design, created in collaboration with biodesigner Paula Ulargui, incorporates live grass that will eventually wilt, symbolizing natural cycles (after a week on view, the garment will have to be swapped, though, with a dried version for the duration of the show's run).
Insects also offer great inspirations: buprestidae beetles walk all over Dauphinette's silk organza dress; a dress by Alexander McQueen appears to be made of butterflies, while two example of Charles James's "Butterfly" ball gown - one in pristine condition, the other a "sleeping beauty" with extensive damage, reveal to visitors construction issues such as damage to the chiffon surface caused by the exuberant voluminous bustle skirt of nylon tulle.
The exhibition praises designers creating sustainable pieces, like Conner Ives' "Couture Girl" dress (2020) made from dead-stock fabric donated by Carolina Herrera's creative director Wes Gordon and recycled PET paillettes by the Sustainable Sequin Co.;
and Phillip Lim's 2021 "Algae Sequin" dress, made of biodegradable rayon mesh derived from bamboo and seaweed and paying homage to mermaids.
The "Seashells" space features instead Iris Van Herpen's 3D-printed Haute Couture ensemble with spiraling shell forms, as well as a row of shell-shaped handbags by Judith Leiber, and Alexander McQueen's iconic Spring 2001 sleeveless sheath dress made from razor clamshells. A recording made in an anechoic chamber allows visitors to hear the sound of this gown and of Marni's dress from its S/S 24 collection in motion.
Sound recordings play a significant role in the exhibition, including ASMR soundscapes for fashion fans like the scroop, that is the name for the sound that silk and rayon taffeta make as they swish, a recording that can be heard beside a display of grand gowns.
Besides, there's poetry to discover in some galleries with readings by actor Morgan Spector reciting John McRae's 1915 poem "In Flanders Field," honoring World War I soldiers, and galleries with CGI and digital avatars created by the exhibition's consultant, Nick Knight of Showstudio.
The exhibition also encourages "forbidden museum behavior," allowing visitors to touch certain objects. For instance, visitors can feel a 3D-printed plastic version of the embroidered pattern from Raf Simon's 2013 "Miss Dior" dress and a 3D replica pattern of Dior's 2014 "Mini Miss Dior" dress.
Besides, an area showcases an interactive embossed wallpaper inspired by the intricate embroidery of a 1615-20 waistcoat, designed to be accessible to those who read Braille.
Another fascinating aspect of the exhibition lies in the four galleries infused with molecular smell recordings. Sissel Tolaas, a smell researcher and artist, translated fragrances from dresses into scented paint applied to sections of a wall, allowing visitors to experience each scent by rubbing the wall. The "Scent of a Woman" section recreates instead fragrances using peak molecules from various dresses and hats worn by specific women, such as Denise Poiret, the wife and muse Paul Poiret, and New York socialite and heiress Millicent Rogers.
A Fall 1938 House of Schiaparelli blue silk crepe evening dress that belonged to Rogers allowed to recreate the fragrance she wore, but Tolaas also extracted from molecules found on the displayed dresses and hats Rogers' natural body odors, affected by what she ate, drank and smoked. Visitors can engage with this sensory experience using nearby plastic tubes to smell the molecules extracted from Rogers' garments.
This innovative use of science showcases a departure from traditional fashion exhibitions, here science isn't indeed just an inspiration but a tool to enhance the experience also for people who may have disabilities (this is probably the first exhibition about fashion that makes a significant step towards inclusivity). The layout of the show itself resembles a molecular formula when viewed from above, emphasizing the integration of science into the exhibition's design.
In much the same way technology enters the event in an active way: in 2016, the Costume Institute's exhibition "Manus x Machina" juxtaposed the concepts of hand-made and machine-made in the creation of Haute Couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear. Here instead technology is at the service of the exhibition.
The final gallery features indeed a striking Callot Soeurs’s 1930 liquid satin wedding gown worn by Jazz Age-era socialite Natalie Potter. The train of the dress seems to melt over the steps and the dress is donned by a mannequin with a head calling to mind Brancusi's "Sleeping Muse". Besides, the installation is accompanied by a custom AI chatbot, designed by OpenAI.
Demonized for the impact it may have on jobs and national security, but also seen as a state-of-the-art technology capable to help scientific and medical discoveries, Artificial Intelligence shows here its potential in the creative world of arts and the possibility to use technology in a clever way.
The chatbot, custom built by OpenAI with its GPT-4 technology, was trained with data gathered from letters provided by Potter's family, newspaper articles and other historical documents that allow the chatbot to answer visitors' questions about Potter's life and the dress. A QR code takes the visitors to a webpage where they'll be able to chat with her via text.
While walking through the exhibition, between a sensory overload and an AI chatbot, a shiver will go down the back of many visitors, who will wonder if the ghosts of the people who wore all these gowns are still hanging around them. Who knows, maybe they are, but they will be visible only to those visitors willing to suspend their disbelief and maintain their faith in the wonderful, deceiving, enigmatic and bizarre world of fashion.
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