This spring there is a fashion revolution taking over The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Daniela Bonetto investigates what all the clamour is about.
adies and gentlemen brace yourselves for a roller-coaster of art vs. fashion; PUNK: Chaos to Couture is coming to the MET. Organized by The Costume Institute, the exhibition examines punk’s impact from its birth in the 1970s through its continuing influence on high fashion today. “Punk’s signature mixing of references was fuelled by artistic developments such as Dada and postmodernism,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The MET. “Since its origins, punk has had an incendiary influence on fashion,” continues Andrew Bolton, Curator in The Costume Institute. “Although punk’s democracy stands in opposition to fashion’s autocracy, designers continue to appropriate punk’s aesthetic vocabulary to capture its youthful rebelliousness and aggressive forcefulness.”
The exhibition, which boasts photographer Nick Knight as the creative consultant, will feature approximately 100 designs for men and women. Original punk garments from the mid-1970s will be juxtaposed with recent, directional fashion to illustrate how haute couture and ready-to- wear have borrowed punk’s visual symbols, with paillettes being replaced with safety pins, feathers with razor blades, and bugle beads with studs. Focusing on the relationship between the punk concept of ‘do-it-yourself’ and the couture concept of ‘made-to- measure’, the exhibition will be organized around the materials, techniques, and embellishments associated with the anti-establishment style. Presented as an immersive multimedia, multisensory experience, the clothes will be animated with period music videos and soundscaping audio techniques. Organized thematically, gallery sections will include Rebel Heroes, which will evoke the New York and London music scenes of the mid-70s, focusing on iconic punk bands such as The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and The Clash.
The Couturiers Situationists gallery will examine Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s visual codification of punk through the merging of social realism and artistic expression, featuring fashion and graphics they produced for their boutique on King’s Road in London, including Let it Rock, SEX, and Seditionaries. Pavilions of Anarchy and Elegance will juxtapose punk designs with haute couture creations, focusing on customization and hand craftsmanship. Punk Couture will explore high fashion’s engagement with punk hardware such as studs, spikes, chains, zippers, padlocks, safety pins, and razor blades. D.I.Y. Style will highlight the impact of punk’s bricolage ethos on high fashion, including the use of recycled materials from trash culture. La Mode Destroy will examine the effect of punk’s rip-it-to-shreds attitude via torn and shredded garments associated with deconstructionist fashions. Designers in the exhibition will include Azzedine Alaïa, Christopher Bailey (Burberry), Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby (Boudicca), Hussein Chalayan, Christophe Decarnin (Balmain), Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana (Dolce and Gabbana), John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Nicolas Ghesquière (Balenciaga), Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren (Viktor & Rolf), Marc Jacobs, Christopher Kane, Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), Karl Lagerfeld (Chanel), Helmut Lang, Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Franco Moschino, Thierry Mugler, Gianni Versace, Alexander Wang, Junya Watanabe, Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood, and many others
Exhibition dates: May 9–August 11, 2013 metmuseum.org