![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Last week, i went to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art's current Costume Institute exhibition, "Charles James: Beyond Fashion."
The short version is: if you are at all interested in unusual structure, tailoring, creative draping, and couture construction, find a way to go. I seriously think that if all i had done was fly to NYC, go to the exhibit, and fly right back home, it would have been worth it. The exhibit has been SO well-planned and well-executed. It's probably interesting to people who know nothing about how clothes are made, but boy, if you DO know anything about patternmaking and construction, you'll just lose your mind at how well-done it all is.
Not only are the garments displayed on forms, but there are robotic arms with cameras showing you seam placement details in parts of the garment that you cannot physically see, like the back of a displayed coat or up under the skirt of the cloverleaf gown. There are videos that explode and deconstruct the patterns of the gowns in 3D animation, and which show you all the different understructural layers, x-rays showing where the bones and hoops go, and so forth. Just fantastic.
The exhibit is in two parts--one large gallery on the main floor of the Met, and another portion in the basement where the Costume Institute used to be relegated, before they realized what massive appeal those exhibits would have. In the main-floor gallery are all the famous evening gowns--the Swan, the Umbrella, the Cloverleaf--and in the basement are day dresses, tailored suits, outerwear, and accessories, as well as design sketches, collection paperwork, scrapbooks, muslins and half-drapes, etc.
I got some photos to share....( Pictures and a video )
The short version is: if you are at all interested in unusual structure, tailoring, creative draping, and couture construction, find a way to go. I seriously think that if all i had done was fly to NYC, go to the exhibit, and fly right back home, it would have been worth it. The exhibit has been SO well-planned and well-executed. It's probably interesting to people who know nothing about how clothes are made, but boy, if you DO know anything about patternmaking and construction, you'll just lose your mind at how well-done it all is.
Not only are the garments displayed on forms, but there are robotic arms with cameras showing you seam placement details in parts of the garment that you cannot physically see, like the back of a displayed coat or up under the skirt of the cloverleaf gown. There are videos that explode and deconstruct the patterns of the gowns in 3D animation, and which show you all the different understructural layers, x-rays showing where the bones and hoops go, and so forth. Just fantastic.
The exhibit is in two parts--one large gallery on the main floor of the Met, and another portion in the basement where the Costume Institute used to be relegated, before they realized what massive appeal those exhibits would have. In the main-floor gallery are all the famous evening gowns--the Swan, the Umbrella, the Cloverleaf--and in the basement are day dresses, tailored suits, outerwear, and accessories, as well as design sketches, collection paperwork, scrapbooks, muslins and half-drapes, etc.
I got some photos to share....( Pictures and a video )
