FANTASYLAND
The curators of China: Through the Looking Glass, this years fashion blockbuster at the Met, know that the modern garments they’ve set out among historic Chinese artifacts in the museum aren’t really Chinese. One wall text quotes scholar Edward Said’s savage critique of Orientalism. Another explains, “This exhibition is not about China per se but about a collective fantasy of China.” In the end this collective fantasy – and its attendant racist cliches – are undone, not by the scholarship of the show, but by two extraordinary personal fantasies of China, those of Yves Saint Laurent and John Galliano.
Yves Saint Laurent’s 19977-1978 couture collection was inspired by China, a country he had never visited, and knew only through history, photography and film. The ensembles he sent down the runway were built from luxurious layered separates: quilted peasant jackets in embroidered silks, tilted and tasseled coolie hats, billowing jewel-toned trousers tapering to the ankle, and calf-high suede boots with wide cuffs and fur trim. These clothes spin one man’s dream of China. And it’s such a potent dream – proportionally refined, aesthetically complex, emotionally evocative – that it’s difficult to dispel. I’ve never been to China, but I believe that these clothes (their tempestuous hues, their liquid silks, their hammered gold fasteners, their whirling silhouettes) capture something of the sensuality and mystery of the culture. The small gallery at the Met where the clothes are displayed, on mannequins set in front of a long gold screen, is the heart of the exhibit.
Other modern garments on display reference China, playfully and elegantly, but not deeply. Karl Lagerfeld has, brilliantly, embellished gowns with motifs from traditional blue-and-white porcelain patterns, and tailored dresses in silks printed with traditional floral motifs. And Vivienne Tan has emblazoned smart, striking separates with paintings of the Buddha and portraits of Mao Zedong. These clothes reference China but they don’t give us China. Saint Laurent does, and his fantasy, while simply untrue, is so deeply realized that it makes us believe too. His clothes don’t represent China but, in their imaginative richness, they honor it.
Photography courtesy of Platon and Metropolitan Museum of Art.