What is the theme of this year’s Met Gala?
Part one was “In America: A Lexicon in Fashion”—marking the Costume Institute’s 75th anniversary and establishing a “modern vocabulary of fashion,” according to the organization’s press release. Part two, the release continues, is called “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” and will “present sartorial narratives that relate to the complex and layered histories” of the American Wing period rooms.
But what does “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” include?
This is the final part of the Costume Institute’s period room trilogy (the first was in 2004 in the French period rooms and the second was in 2006 in the English period rooms). According to the Costume Institute’s press release, this exhibit will be dedicated to men’s and women’s clothing from the 18th century to today and will be showcased through vignettes produced by American film directors in specific rooms.
The release notes there will be a “Shaker Retiring Room from the 1830s that explores the defining characteristics of American sportswear…through the work of Claire McCardell,” a “19th-century parlor from Richmond, Virginia” that will highlight the designs of dressmaker Fannie Criss, an 1819 mural of Versailles that will serve as the backdrop for a “re-creation of the the historic 1973 ‘Battle of Versailles’ that pitted American designers against their French counterparts,” a “20th-century living room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright [that] will highlight the architectural gowns of Charles James” and more.
“The interiors present a survey of more than 300 years of American domestic life,” the release states, “and tell a variety of stories—from the personal to the political, the stylistic to the cultural, and the aesthetic to the ideological.”