Evaluating the Role of Fashion Exhibitions in the Modern Museum
By Taite Stull
While fashion in art museums is not a new concept, its history in the United States and Europe only goes back to the mid 1950’s. Clothing as art displays in museums dates back all the way to the cabinet of curiosities during the time of Rembrandt with clothing focusing on the outfits of the theatre and foreign cultures. While these roots of the modern and early fashion exhibits are the same in theory, the ways that it has been represented has seen frequent and sometimes controversial changes. One such example is the Celebrity Fashion Designer exhibit, which illustrates the different values held by the museum and fashion institutions. This is worded best by the Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago who says “I see artists more interested in the space of fashion to extend the audience of their ideas, while fashion designers are inspired by the freedom and individualism have been able to carve out for themselves.”*1 The audience of fashion and it being one of the only for-profit art forms, has caused many to question the differences between advertisement and expression in the terms of the fashion exhibit. The usage of fashion can also be significant for a community's identity; therefore, the question becomes in the modern museum, what is fashion's role and how can it be used effectively? Through exhibits that focus on the power of a community's aesthetic culture, and famous designers that bring in new crowds, fashion has become a mainstay in the modern museum landscape. Throughout this paper I will be comparing successful and controversial fashion designer exhibits, fashion’s place in academia, the influences that the arts have on fashion exhibits, and the community driven successes of the local cultural exhibit. These topics all culminate in an overarching analysis of the role that fashion has had in the museum and the changes that have been made for its future.
*1- Brara, Noor. “Virgil Abloh Goes for Baroque With a New Line of Caravaggio-Inspired Handbags for His MCA Chicago Show.” Artnet News, 28 Aug. 2019, news.artnet.com/market/virgil-abloh-pop-up-shop-mca-chicago-1637710.
To understand the importance of the successful and controversial fashion designer exhibits, there first must be an understanding of the elements and factors that contributed to a museum space accepting such an exhibit. Before the 1970’s, exhibits would be classified as the term dress museology, these branches of exhibits would be put under the term as coined by Marie Riegels Melchior in her essay Fashion Museology: Identifying and Contesting Fashion in Museums. Dress Museology was the focus on a specific piece of clothing rather than a group of clothes. The innovations were remembered through the intricacies of the clothes rather than the designer.*2 This way of presenting the clothes in an exhibit is not as popular as one dedicated to a designer or era because there is not that same aura attached to it. The aura of a special item, which brings people to a piece of clothing knowing it was associated with a special event is noted by Adair in his essay, Letting Go?: Sharing Authority in A User Generated World.*3 The dress’s importance skyrocketed when put in with their respective era under the guise that they were involved with a moment of importance. The works on their own, as noted by Valerie Steele in Museum Quality:The Rise Of The Fashion Exhibition were “Antiquated” in their chronological ordering and absence of context, the topic of adding fashion to the museum was laughable, as the theme of fashion was looked at more as entertainment than a legitimate art form.*4 The organization did not have any purpose outside of This is a topic that is still being argued and did not receive significant support in academia until Elizabeth Taylor’s book Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity.*5 The topic of questioning fashion as an art form is an argument that can span a whole other paper, but I am mainly only bringing up as a reference point for the thought process of museums. For the sake of this paper, the most important argument from the essay Is Fashion Art? By Sandra Miller is that fashion is art of the everyday and context can be inferred from the viewer and wearer. Which makes it a valuable object to understanding gender, wealth, and cultural identity.*6 The dress museology style of exhibit focuses on the single item and on historical clothing and Elizabeth Wilson’s book helped paved the way for different thinking on the subject of fashion, however the biggest shift for the modern fashion exhibit came from Fashion: An Anthology in 1971 by Cecil Beaton.
*2- Melchior, Marie Riegels. “Fashion Museology: Identifying and Contesting Fashion in Museums.” (2011).
*3- Adair, Bill., Filene, Benjamin, and Koloski, Laura. Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-generated World. 1st American ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, 2011
*4- Steele, Valerie. "Museum Quality: The Rise of the Fashion Exhibition.(Essay)." Fashion Theory 12, no. 1 (2008): 7-30.
*5- Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams : Fashion and Modernity. Rev. and Updated Ed.]. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003.
*6- Miller, Sanda. "Fashion as Art; Is Fashion Art?" Fashion Theory 11, no. 1 (2007): 25-40.
Cecil Beaton’s exhibit took the step to adding specific events to the large collection dresses and was a key figure in establishing modern fashion and creating a multi sensorial experience. Elements including the presentation of clothing through thematic order instead of chronological placing and using all the senses to describe the rooms are now commonplace in the modern fashion exhibit. This exhibit merged the ideas of museum and store display into one and was made through the collaboration of Michael Hayes, who was a display designer in a fashion store. This exhibit laid down the groundwork, or blueprint for what would become the monolith designer exhibit that dominated the 1980’s. It was created by focusing on Beaton’s collection, and creating a specific fragrance for each designer. The collection on display was mainly from the collection Beaton built over his lifetime (Refer to Figure 1), however he also accepted donations from friends and fashion houses. Which in the case of Balenciaga, Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent, left some fashion brands to have their own section. The reviews were as recovered by Judith Clark in Exhibiting Fashion: Before and After 1971 very positive, however, Clark makes sure to also note that while they were positive, this exhibit was the first of its kind and specific criticisms did not exist yet.*7 In the future, discussions of balancing the line between advertorial and curatorial in the case of fashion would arise but in 1971, Beaton’s exhibition was brand new and brought a large audience and desire for similar fashion exhibitions, but with this spotlight comes a responsibility for the museum to uphold their own morals and not veer towards advertisement for the designer. A scenario like this occurred in the case of Giorgio Armani’s: A Retrospective (Refer to Figure 2) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
*7- Clark, Judith, De La Haye, Amy, and Horsley, Jeffrey. Exhibiting Fashion : Before and after 1971. New Haven [Connecticut]: Yale University Press, 2014.
Figure 1: An Anthology By Cecil Beaton. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom (2012)
Figure 2: Giorgio Armani: A Retrospective. Main exhibition entrance. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City (2000)
Giorgio Armani’s exhibit is an example of how to not utilize the popularity of the fashion exhibit as the museum did not publicly announce that they had received a large donation from the Armani house prior to the exhibit, bringing question to the creative ownership and intentions of the exhibition from the start in 2000. As we have understood fashion in the museum space can bring a big audience and the Beaton exhibit left the designers in charge of specific choices related to their dresses. In this same case, there is the check and balance to stop the exhibit from becoming a fashion show, especially when the designer makes a fifteen-million-dollar donation to your museum. Regarding the same issue but on the topic of Yves Saint Laurent, Robert Storr as mentioned in the guardian article, “Shock of the Frock” by Chris Breward, fumed “fusing the Yin and Yang of vanity and cupidity, the Yves Saint Laurent show was the equivalent of turning gallery space over to General Motors for a display of Cadillacs.”*8 This statement raises the question of personal interests and how to make a tasteful exhibit that provides an education purpose on the designers past the need for a material culture. While the Armani exhibit toured in other locations, the question that was posed by Carol Vogel of the New York Times is the availability of the less economically fortunate designer who is equally deserving of an exhibition to have one once a price tag is set by designers such as Armani and Saint Laurent.*9 The modern museum space must adhere to its mission and not be swayed by capital gains. The Metropolitan Museum of Art avoids this controversy by prohibiting exhibits about living artists.*10 The questions of capital interest made it imperative that for fashion to be a museum art form, rules must be set in place and the mission must be followed to create a successful and educational exhibit. These and more were in place for the exhibit Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in 2010.
*8- Breward, Chris. “Shock of the Frock.” The Guardian, 17 Oct. 2003. Breward, Chris. “Shock of the Frock.” The Guardian, 17 Oct. 2003.
*9- Vogel, Carol. "Armani Gift to the Guggenheim Revives Issue of Art and Commerce.(The Arts/Cultural Desk)." The New York Times, 1999.
*10- Bayer, Andrea, and Laura D. Corey. Making the Met, 1870-2020. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020.
The Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit showed the full potential of the fashion monolith exhibit through its usage of storytelling, thematic presentation, and masterful curating. Led by Metropolitan Museum of Art and Costume curators, Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda, the exhibit features one hundred different outfits and accessories sorted into 6 different sections of the museum. The success of the fashion exhibit is determined by how well the ideas of the designer are able to be presented in the museum exhibition space, which is a task that falls equally on the designer’s vision and curators translation. Alexander McQueen took his life in February of 2010, however his artistic vision was apparent and communicated to his close team for his vision to be translated with ease to Bolton, who described his exhibition at TedxMet as “Unapologetically a love note to McQueen.”*11 This exhibit separates itself from the commerce of fashion and pushes it into the high art form through its usage of mainly clothes from the runways and fashion shows compared to the ready to wear line. Bolton presented McQueen’s raw creativity of different lines throughout his career into glass cases and mixed with videos from the runway or art that complimented the vision and what McQueen voiced when he was creating the lines. The ideas of the fashion exhibit can be shown as the art form and with the support of the museum space, be presented in an academic setting. These desires were most thoroughly shown in the Cabinet of Curiosities section’ (refer to figure 3). The title of this room almost brings us full circle to the theatre clothes being shown in a cabinet of curiosities to a cabinet of curiosities describing what inspired the clothes creation.
*11- “Beauty, transgression -- Bringing Alexander McQueen to the Met | Andrew Bolton | TEDxMet”, Youtube Video, 14:59. Posted by “TedxTalks,” December 18th, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bemPoSlIANo
Figure 3: Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty-Cabinet of Curiosities. Victoria and Albert Museum, London,United Kingdom (2015)
While Bolton’s intentions were to let the clothing tell the story, he left very little curatorial text with his clothing lines to describe McQueen’s life through his lines rather than what was going on around him. This decision while giving power to the subject, also left something to be desired as described by Holland Cotter of the New York Times: “If you’re going to deal with fashion as art, treat it as art, bring it to the distanced evaluative thinking, including social and political thinking, that scholars routinely apply to art. Such an approach is standard in exhibition catalogs that accompany most Met shows, but not in the McQueen catalog, which, beautiful though it is, is heavy on pictures, skimpy on text.”*12 This was especially poignant when there was sections of the exhibit like Highland Rape (Refer to Figure 4) that focused on the treatment of Scotland by England but was not realized when on its original fashion show. Valerie Steele does not fully agree with Cotter’s view however she believes that there could have been more work done to link McQueen with other designers.*13 As the singular vision exhibits succeed and are created to establish fashion as an art form to the general public, the connection can be made between multiple designers in future exhibits. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty was a successful exhibit at displaying the individual vision of a designer without advertisement and showing fashion as a high art in a large scale exhibit. While the plight of the large designer exhibit is important in the discussion of fashion's role in the museum, smaller community exhibits such as Native Fashion Now!, Seattle Style, and Collegiate Fashion & Activism:Black Woman’s Styles on the College Campus show how fashion as an art form can give voice to local communities.
*12- Cotter, Holland. "Designer as Dramatist, And the Tales He Left Behind.(The Arts/Cultural Desk)(ART REVIEW)(Alexander McQueen)." The New York Times, 2011.
*13- Steele, Valerie. "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty." Fashion Theory 17, no. 4 (2013): 419-30.
Figure 4: Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty- Highland Rape. (2015) Victoria and Albert Museum. London, United Kingdom, 2015
The Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit exerted fashion as an art form through the presentation of the creative process that went into his fashion lines. Throughout this paper I have covered the art of high fashion and understanding how designers use their vision to create context through their clothes. However, the other way that museums have found to use the context of clothing is through giving voice to communities that have gone unheard or provide their own account of their way of dress in relation to their community. This was done successfully in the exhibits Native Fashion Now!, Seattle Style, and Collegiate Fashion & Activism: Black Woman’s Styles on the College Campus. Graham Black in his essay “Embedding Civil Engagement in Museums” refers to the five levels of civil engagement with the highest form being visitors engaging in discussion fluently through the material provided.*14 In Collegiate Fashion: & Activism: Black Woman’s Styles on the College Campus Dyese Matthews interviewed black women of the college community to share stories on their clothes and how they feel it represented their black identity on campus.*15 (Refer to Figure 5) While this differs from a designers exhibit because they did not create the clothes, the clothes that are presented are with stories. A specific viewpoint that’s meaning can be changed to regard this viewpoint is from Judith Clark, who writes “When worn clothes are divested of their original function (to be worn) and enter museum spaces, they embark upon a new ‘life’ and serve new functions. In the process, what was once intimate can become impersonal.”*16 This quote at the time was examining how the significance of an outfit can be lost when it is donated to the museum, however in the case of community exhibits the switch to impersonal could also be applied to making the story of a piece of clothes part of the community. The story of the clothes stretches that intimacy to the viewer to create a conversation through the clothing piece. This was done with an underrepresented community on the University of Iowa campus; however this approach was also taken to applying the aura of a special event with MOHAI’s Seattle Style exhibit. (Refer to Figure 6) This allowed museum audiences to have dialogues regarding clothing that they wore during events in Seattle or their own personal history.*17 The importance of how someone represents their identity in clothing is important and the exhibit Native Fashion Now! shows the varying levels of how culture can be represented in the everyday.
*14- Black, Graham. "Embedding Civil Engagement in Museums." Museum Management and Curatorship 25, no. 2 (2010): 129-146.
*15- “Collegiate Fashion & Activism: Black Women's Styles on the College Campus.” Apparel, Events, & Hospitality Management, www.aeshm.hs.iastate.edu/tc-museum/mary-alice-gallery/current-exhibit/.
*16- Clark, Judith, De La Haye, Amy, and Horsley, Jeffrey. Exhibiting Fashion : Before and after 1971. New Haven [Connecticut]: Yale University Press, 2014.
*17- Macdonald, Moira. “Does Seattle Have a Distinctive Style? A New MOHAI Exhibit Weighs in.” The Seattle Times, The Seattle Times Company, 2 May 2019, www.seattletimes.com/life/fashion/seattle-shows-its-style-in-new-mohai-exhibit-fashion-function/.
Figure 5: Collegiate Fashion & Activism: Black Women’s Styles on the College Campus (2020). Textiles and Clothing Museum, Ames, Iowa
Figure 6: MOHAI: Seattle Fashion/Function: Museum of History and Industry. Seattle Washington, (2019)
The exhibition Native Fashion Now! Is an example of how fashion can be used in the modern museum exhibit because it celebrates identity and how that was presented in a variety of ways, Native Fashion Now! presented designs going back to the 1950’s from Native designers of all types and sectioned their designs by how they represented their heritage through their style. This ranged from designers who innovate the native style, accessorize and add elements of native fashion, designers who represent political issues in their outfits, and those who push native fashion through visionary designs. These groups are named path-breakers, revisitors, activators and provocateurs accordingly.*18 (Refer to Figure 7) Native Fashion Now! created a community conversation of how to represent one’s own identity and used fashion as the subject. Native Fashion Now! exhibit succeeds at providing new perspectives of the advancement of fashion as the designers featured go back to the early 20th century. It provided space to understand the contributions into the world of design from different voices. It created a space and started a conversation for the audience to share their stories and how they present identity. The exhibits, Native Fashion Now!Seattle Style, and Collegiate Fashion: & Activism: Black Woman’s Styles on the College Campus, all show the evolution of the fashion exhibit and bolster community and dialogue in the modern museum space.
*18- Barbaro, Theresa, and American Indian. “Native Fashion Now Exhibition.” NMAI Magazine, www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/native-fashion-now-exhibition.
Figure 7: Native Fashion NOW! At the Portland Art Museum-Pathbreakers (2016)
Throughout this paper, I have examined fashion’s role in the museum space, which is a role that has evolved greatly as we better understand its usage and role in the arts and community identity. Cecil Beaton’s Fashion: An Anthology showed that fashion establishes a crowd when used as a subject in the museum. This can lead to issues of commerce versus culture as seen by Giorgio Armani’s:A Retrospective. These issues can be controlled through a proper mission and cooperation to present a designer’s vision faithfully as seen in the awe inspiring Alexander McQueen:Savage Beauty .Through providing a voice to their communities and allowing multiple perspectives to share their stories and start a dialogue through clothing, the exhibits Native Fashion Now!Seattle Style, and Collegiate Fashion: & Activism: Black Woman’s Styles on the College Campus all fit in the modern museum. In conclusion, Through exhibits that focus on the power of a community's aesthetic culture and faithfully represent a designers inspirations over their product, fashion has become a mainstay in the modern museum space.
Bibliography/Works Cited List:
Adair, Bill., Filene, Benjamin, and Koloski, Laura. Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-generated World. 1st American ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, 2011
Black, Graham. "Embedding Civil Engagement in Museums." Museum Management and Curatorship 25, no. 2 (2010): 129-146.
Bayer, Andrea, and Laura D. Corey. Making the Met, 1870-2020. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2020.
Clark, Judith, De La Haye, Amy, and Horsley, Jeffrey. Exhibiting Fashion : Before and after 1971. New Haven [Connecticut]: Yale University Press, 2014.
Melchior, Marie Riegels. “Fashion Museology: Identifying and Contesting Fashion in Museums.” (2011).
Miller, Sanda. "Fashion as Art; Is Fashion Art?" Fashion Theory 11, no. 1 (2007): 25-40.
Steele, Valerie. "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty." Fashion Theory 17, no. 4 (2013): 419-30.
Steele, Valerie. "Museum Quality: The Rise of the Fashion
Exhibition.(Essay)." Fashion Theory 12, no. 1 (2008): 7-30.
Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams : Fashion and Modernity. Rev. and Updated Ed.]. ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003.
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