If you’re planning a trip to NYC this fall, this is the one fashion exhibit you have to see
Are all jeans created equal? According to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the answer is…complicated.
MoMA is putting on its second fashion exhibition ever on October 1st, and the exhibit will answer this question and more. “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” comes 70 years after its predecessor, 1944’s “Are Clothes Modern?” This fall’s exhibit will categorize 111 items, which include everything from the little black dress to the leather jacket, into groups. These groups are then divided into seven broader categories that explore fashion from a larger perspective.
This fall, @MuseumModernArt will open its first show on fashion since 1944 https://t.co/tpztO23q5o
— NYT Fashion (@NYTFashion) July 20, 2017
These seven categories are: “the changing body and silhouette,” “the quest for new technologies,” “ideas of rebellion, emancipation, and modesty,” “messaging through clothing,” “athleticism and fashion,” “everyday uniforms,” and “power.”
Instead of viewing fashion through the fast-paced, trend lens we’re used to, this exhibition aims to tell the story of style with a broader scope. The exhibit will feature more than 350 pieces, including some iconic staples. Vivienne Westwood’s “God Save the Queen Shirt” made with creative partner Malcolm McLaren will be there, alongside Prada’s Vele backpack, Jane Birkin’s Hermes Birkin Bag and Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking suit, among others.
According to Vogue, in a press release from the museum, Paola Antonelli, a senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design, explains,
“A powerful form of creative and personal expression that can be approached from multiple angles of study, fashion is unquestionably also a form of design, with its pitch struck in negotiations between form and function, means and goals, automated technologies and craftsmanship, standardization and customization, universality and self-expression."
Whether you live in New York City or plan on being there this fall, we’d say you better pencil this down on your “must do” list.
