Titled Costume Art, the exhibition explores the relationships between body, garment, and art form.
Is fashion art? The question has been debated since long before the Costume Institute was recognized as a department within the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1946. This year’s exhibition, titled Costume Art, makes its case.
The exhibition places garments—from custom gowns by Madame Grès to subversive Vivienne Westwood T-shirts and contemporary designs by Alexander McQueen and Rick Owens—alongside objects and artworks drawn from across the Met’s vast collection. It also inaugurates the new Condé M. Nast Galleries—a nearly 12,000-square-foot space just off the Great Hall, relocating the Costume Institute from its longtime basement quarters to a footprint roughly double the size. The exhibition’s opening will be celebrated at the Met Gala on May 4, with the dress code “Fashion Is Art.”
“When you walk around the museum, you see these wonderful examples of the dressed body, but it’s just a representation of the dressed body. I think where fashion has the edge over art is the fact that it’s about our lived and embodied experience,” Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge at the Costume Institute, told Vogue. “I very much wanted the exhibition to focus on that distinction between the representation of the dressed body and also fashion as this living art form that expresses very complex ideas about identity.”
Costume Art examines how standards of form, modesty, and exposure have changed across history and cultures. One section of the exhibition begins with the classical body—the ideals of Greek sculpture, painted nudes, and sample-size measurements that dominate the fashion industry. As viewers continue through the gallery, the body becomes more exaggerated: women’s figures are distorted by corsets, bustles, and crinolines to meet the beauty ideals of their era. Finally, the body is reclaimed by designers like Rei Kawakubo, Duran Lantink, and Michaela Stark, who challenge conventions of beauty.
In another section, organized around what Bolton calls the “Anatomical” and “Mortal” bodies, “it’s all about universality and commonalities—everything we all share.” Physical traits like skin, anatomy, and blood are paired with universal experiences like aging and mortality.
Throughout the galleries, classical mannequins are joined by others representing bodies that are pregnant, plus-size, disabled, or otherwise non-conforming. Many are modeled after real people, like writer and activist Sinéad Burke, model Aariana Rose Philip, athlete and actress Aimee Mullins, and singer-songwriter Yseult. In place of a face, the mannequins, designed by artist Samar Hejazi, have an oval of polished steel, reflecting viewers’ own faces back at them.
Costume Art opens to the public on May 10.
