SHOWTIME
The Met Costume Institute’s blockbusters are, typically, hot stuff. They lead visitors through a maze of small chambers tricked out with theatrical sound and light effects, luring them in another world: the streets of 70’s London, Nan Kempner’s closets, or the dreams of Alexander McQueen. Stepping back out into the museum at the end is a bit like stepping out of a movie matinee, a bit disorienting and sad.
In contrast this year’s show, Beyond Fashion, devoted to the work of Charles James, remains super-cool. The exhibit was designed by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS +R), who are best known for their high-concept work, and for the Highline in Chelsea.
DS +R break the display into two large galleries, one in the basement with day dresses and coats, and one on the ground floor with evening gowns. The garments are displayed conventionally, on raised platforms and pedestals. Small video cameras on robotic arms buzz and whir about them and broadcast real-time details to giant screens along the perimeter of the basement gallery, and monitors on the pedestals in the ground floor gallery.
The exhibit is a handsome one. The organization of the rooms is generous and lucid. Display stands and cases have been crafted subtly, so that they don’t distract from the garments, and meticulously, to honor James’ dressmaking ethos. There’s a gorgeous, cube-shaped, clear acrylic vitrine that holds a quilted white silk bolero. Its sides are fitted with jewel-like precision, held together by tiny embedded silver screws.
But when I saw the exhibit, early on a Sunday morning, visitors were gathering around the screens rather than the dresses. If the seam at the lower back of a gown is divine, then why not draw attention to that seam, instead of sending a live video stream of it to a screen just below it? The whole experience is a bit a little like going to Yankee Stadium and watching the game on the Jumbotron. Sometimes the videos shows us things about the dresses that we can’t see. There are dazzling animations to explain how these complexly constructed garments are pieced together, and x-rays showing the layers of materials they are assembled from. But video technology is so central to this exhibit that it holds us one step away. Why can’t we turn off the screens and look at the dresses?
Image of Beyond Fashion courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum.