This year marks The Met's 150th anniversary, and the exhibition reflects this time span. In
essence, the show is a meditation on fashion and temporality, drawing out the tensions
between change and endurance, and ephemerality and persistence. Recently, time has dominated
discussions within the fashion community. And these conversations have centered around the accelerated
production, circulation, and consumption of fashion to meet the commercial demands of an
interconnected and digitally synchronized world. We're realizing that these demands are having a
detrimental effect, not only on creativity, but also on the environment. We thought it might be
a good time to explore the temporal character of fashion from a historical perspective. The
exhibition presents 150 years of fashion culled almost exclusively from The Costume Institute's
collection, along two parallel timelines. The first feature 60 ensembles arranged
in chronological order, from 1870 to the present. It focuses on the forward-moving
and progress-oriented nature of fashion that's governed by novelty, ephemerality,
and obsolescence. The second timeline interspersed is a series of 60 interruptions
that pre- or post-date the first timeline, but relate to them in terms of shape, motif,
material, technique, or decoration. The 60 ensembles in each timeline
are primarily in black to emphasize their changing silhouettes and interconnection.
The exhibition has been designed as two enormous clocks with 60 illuminated tick
marks that reference the number of minutes in an hour. Each tick contains two ensembles.
The front object represents the linear chronological timeline and the back object,
the non-linear fragmented timeline. Together, the timelines express the
concept of duration, as outlined by the French philosopher, Henri Bergson, in which time exists
as a continuous flow, and the relationship between the past and the present is one of coexistence, rather
than succession. And viewed from this perspective, each pairing achieves a kind of temporal autonomy through
its union of the past and the present, a vision of time that's freed from the confines of chronology.
Virginia Woolf serves as the ghost narrator of the exhibition. Her writings on time are read aloud
in the galleries by Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore, who starred in the 2002 movie,
The Hours, which was based on Michael Cunningham's novel inspired by Mrs. Dalloway.
[music] It is a difficult business this time keeping.
Nothing more quickly disorders it than contact with any of the arts.
Charles Frederick Worth introduced the princess line in 1876. The princess line was basically a
one-piece dress and it was formed without a waist seam. Vertical seams were to continue from the
shoulders through to the skirt, which created a very form-fitting hourglass silhouette. Typically,
the princess line wasn't worn with a bustle, but back interest was maintained through a series
of puffs. We've paired it with Alexander McQueen's famous Bumster Skirt from 1995.
The McQueen's Bumster Skirt, basically, is a radical re-interpretation of the princess line.
He cut the skirt so low that it showed the base of the spine but also, the top of the buttocks.
McQueen felt that the base of the spine was the most erotic part of the body,
both for men and for women. Worth reintroduced the bustle in the early 1880s. We've paired it
with a coat by Yohji Yamamoto from 1986. What Yohji's done is cut away the back of the coat
and inserted a pouf of nylon, which has the same extension as the bustle from the mid-1880s.
The early 1890s saw the introduction of the gigot sleeve,
which was also known as the leg-of-mutton sleeve, which you see in this
dinner dress by Mrs. Arnold, who was a Brooklyn dressmaker. We've paired it in the disrupted
timeline with an ensemble by Rei Kawakubo, from 2004. It's basically comprised of two
1890s-inspired jackets. One used as a jacket and one as a skirt. As you can see from the jacket,
it's asymmetrically cut. The closures are misaligned and it's also displaced the
gigot sleeve to the center of the jacket. The jacket, which has been made into the skirt, has
been twisted around. The gigot sleeves are at the front and the back, almost like elephant trunks.
This is a riding jacket from 1902 and it was made for Princess Alexandra,
queen consort to Edward the seventh. This particular jacket was inspired by
men's formal suits, French formal suits from the 18th century. The scale of the embroidery and the ribbon work,
along with the puff sleeves, are very much located within
fashionable women's dress of the early 20th century. We've paired it with an ensemble by
Nicolas Ghesquière for Louis Vuitton, from 2018. For this collection, Nicolas and his design team
came to the Met to be inspired by our 18th century formal menswear. Again, he's combined
both historical and contemporary details. Instead of embroidering the floral pattern,
it's woven. It creates a kind of a flatness that seems to be computer-generated. He has also styled
it with a pair of athletic shorts, which suggests a sporty ease, very atypical of the Ancien Régime.
We're jumping ahead 25 years in the timeline to 1927 and the chemise dress,
which created a very planar or tubular silhouette. This is an example of Gabrielle Chanel’s
little black dresses. It's arguably the dress of the decade, if not dress of the century.
Typical of her very modernist aesthetic, she combines both formality and informality,
softness, and severity. We've paired it with a dress by Virgil Abloh for Off-White, from 2018,
with “little black dress” in quotation marks. It's the idea of looking at ordinary objects
and elevating them to the level of art. In this particular case, he's used the little black dress,
really, as a wry gesture, as an homage to the enduring appeal of Chanel's little black dress.
Now, we're jumping ahead in the timeline, again, to 1938 with an ensemble by Schiaparelli. The
mid to late 1930s, evening suits comprised of a decorative jacket and a long skirt or
dress became very fashionable. They were popularized by Schiaparelli.
In this particular one, she's used broken mirrors, hand mirrors, to frame the breast
of the wearer. The inspiration actually came from the salons of war and peace
in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. It was made just before the war. These broken mirrors
took on the symbolism-- almost, they became talismans, I suppose, of hope, courage, and
even determination for the war that was to come. We've paired it with an ensemble by Yves Saint
Laurent. It's called his broken mirrors jacket and he's used the back of the actual jacket
as one frame for the mirror. The mirror is made from silver foil that he's fractured
with crystals and outlined in gold foil. He felt that Schiaparelli's clothes lent self-assurance
and confidence to the wearer, which are also traits that you see in this particular piece.
Harper's Bazaar, in 1943, commissioned the dressmaker, Bertha Black Lewry, to
reconstruct a late-1920s men's tailcoat. This is actually originally a men's tailcoat from 1929
and we've paired it with a tuxedo by Martin Margiela, who's known for
upcycling. In this particular piece, he's used a man's tuxedo and oversized it instead
of refitting it to the female form. It's actually a resizing of a man's tuxedo,
rather than a refitting of it. [music]
An hour may be accurately represented on the timepiece of the mind by one second.
This extraordinary discrepancy between time on the clock and time in the mind is less known than it
should be, and deserves fuller investigation. We've arrived in clock two, the second half
of the exhibition. We've jumped forward in the timeline to the 1960s -- to 1968. The '60s saw
a reprise of the chemise silhouette from the 1920s. This is an example by Rudi Gernreich.
The only decoration you see on the dress is a zipper that starts on the back of the neck and
spirals around the body to the hem, very similar to Charles James's "Taxi" dress from the 1930s.
He named it the "Taxi" dress because he liked the idea of a modern woman undressing in a taxi.
This dress had a similar feel for quick, speedy dressing or undressing. We've paired it with a
floor length version by Azzedine Alaia, from 2003. Again, the sole decoration is a zipper spiraling,
again, from the top of the bust to the hem. Alaia began experimenting with zippers around the
1980s. In this particular piece, he's used it almost like an integral seam to trace
but also, to enhance the contours of the body. Punk introduced the language of deconstructivism
into fashion, which was enthusiastically embraced by Kawakubo and Yamamoto.
Kawakubo and Yamamoto burst onto the French, the Paris, fashion scene in 1981 and their
shapeless and seemingly shapeless, oversized garments usually in black, very much radicalized
and revolutionized Western notions of beauty and style. This particular dress was made in 1983.
It's cut on the bias, but it also has these rips and tears that show the matte
and lustrous side of the fabric and t's very typical of a deconstructivist's tendencies.
We've paired it with a dress by Marc Jacobs that dates to 2008. This particular dress,
is comprised of a nude, pink slip, on top of which has been draped black fabric with embroidered in
bugle beads. It gives the illusion that the dress is just about to fall off the wearer.
This dress dates to the same year as Rei Kawakubo's deconstructed dress, but it's going
to be more antithetical to her poverty de luxe aesthetic. It's made by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel.
It was actually his first couture collection for Chanel in 1983. It references the heritage of the
house with this trompe l’oeil jewelry that references the costume jewelry that became
part of Chanel's signature. It was embroidered by the House of Lesage very intricately with
beads and pearls, and crystals. The actual necklace serves a structural, as well as a
decorative detail. It's actually a halter neck. It actually supports the weight of the dress.
We've paired it with a dress by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, from 2019, and it's basically
a hyperbolic interpretation of Karl Lagerfeld's dress. She used a very simple shift dress and
embroidered it with a field of crystals. The inspiration actually came from the chandeliers
in the gilded ballrooms in Blackpool in the North of England. It was where Sarah was raised.
We've jumped, again, ahead of in timeline to 2006 with this piece by Undercover, Jun Takahashi.
Takahashi is very influenced by Rei Kawakubo and Maison Margiela's deconstructivist aesthetic,
and very unconventional techniques. In this particular piece,
he's used vintage tuxedos, ripped off the sleeves, and left the seams unfinished.
He's wrapped them around the body, end to end, almost like a straitjacket.
We've paired it with a much more refined example of a designer reinterpreting the
tuxedo. This is Christian Dior from 1949. Like Takahashi, Dior has taken components
of the tuxedo. In this particular case, the silk fille lapels and the cumberbund, draped it around
the waist. Instead of confining the body, he's buttoned the silk fille at the back and let it
fold gently around the ankles of the wearer.Two very radical reinterpretations of the tuxedo.
This dress is by Iris van Herpen. It dates to 2012.
Iris's innovative use of 3D printing technologies has very much placed her at the vanguard
of fashion. This dress was inspired by the artist Philip Beesley's installation,
Hylozoic Ground, which you can see in the biomorphic silhouette that she's created.
The very fitted bodice contrasts with the skirt, which is all made out of layers of plastic PVC,
which have been initially laser cut and hand-applied,
but it gives a feeling of a living organism. We've contrasted it, or paired it, with a
dress by Charles James from 1951. As you can see, the soft poufs of the skirt very much reference
these lobed effects of Iris van Herpen's dress. James was well-known for refining endlessly
his designs. This particular design was originally conceived in 1941,
but it reached its greatest extension and most hyperbolic form in 1951, which you see here.
We end the exhibition with this piece from Viktor & Rolf's Spring 2020 Haute Couture collection,
which was a direct response to the temporal acceleration that's come
to define fashion in the 21st century. Like many designers, Viktor & Rolf have
begun to embrace conscious creativity and move toward slow fashion with this emphasis
on value and quality, and longevity. Since 2016, Viktor & Rolf's haute couture designs
have been produced with surplus fabric from past collections. For their Spring-Summer 2020
collection, they created a series of patchwork dresses from their archive of fabric swatches.
This dress is made up of samples of floral and geometric lace.
It celebrates handcraft and shared labor, and its simple silhouette recalls the preindustrial era.
We ended the exhibition with the dress because the patchwork design
seems to serve as an apt metaphor for the future of fashion and the importance of community,
collaboration, and sustainability. [music]
What the future might bring, heaven only knew. Change was incessant and change, perhaps,
would never cease. High battlements of thought, habits that seem durable as stone, went down like
shadows at the touch of another mind and left a naked sky and fresh stars twinkling in it.
[music]