SHAPE SHIFTING
John Galliano designed his 2003 Spring/Summer haute couture collection for Dior after a two-week trip through China, an experience that left him “electrified.” Five gowns from the collection are on display in China: Through the Looking Glass, this year’s fashion blockbuster at the Met, and they serve as its theatrical climax. In the quiet and chill of the museum’s China Courtyard, which has been transformed by sound and lighting effects into a rippling midnight pool, the dresses spring to life like wraiths.
Galliano’s work has always swerved between hedonism and fastidiousness, and his China runway show was heavy on hedonism. It included traditional Chinese circus entertainers: dancers leaping over swords, acrobats spinning plates, and a girl gymnast riding a unicycle around the top of an old man’s parasol. The models, coarsened by clown makeup, could barely see through their frizzy hairpieces, and barely walk in their gilded platforms shoes. The gowns themselves were as big as boulders, constructed from yards and yards of printed candy-colored silks, tucked and draped over asymmetrical crinolines that bumped out in unexpected places. There were continuous wardrobe malfunctions as wide bias-cut collars slipped to the waist, and fishtail hems bunched at the ankle. The models seemed to be carrying the clothes rather than wearing them.
But when seen today, at the Met, in this cordoned-off courtyard, on plain white mannequins set yards apart from one another, lit by small spotlights below, the gowns are ravishing in the complexity and clarity of their construction. They stand free from the body and then return quickly to it, shaping dramatic, exaggerated feminine silhouettes. A powdery pink robe clings at the waist and fans out from the face, projecting monarchic grandeur. A one-shouldered blue evening gown skims the bust and hips before exploding in ruffles just below the knees, fit for a cartoon femme fatale. These are dresses with a stormy, monstrous beauty.