Though everyone’s attention has been set on NYC’s iconic and ever-entertaining looks from this year’s Met Gala, the Costume Institute Benefit at its core is actually a fundraiser for the department that puts on astounding exhibitions every year in tandem to all the glitz and glam of the annual event.
In America: An Anthology of Fashion is the sequel in the two-part exhibition following last year’s part one, In America: A Lexicon of Fashion. Part one is still on view in the Anna Wintour Costume Center and part two will be on view starting Saturday, May 7 in the American Wing period rooms.
Adding to part one’s “modern vocabulary of American fashion based on its expressive qualities,” In America: An Anthology of Fashion “will present sartorial narratives that relate to the complex and layered histories of those rooms,” as shared by the Met. Both exhibitions will be on display through September 5, 2022.
Guests will be able to explore a variety of installed vignettes across select period rooms that date back more than 200 years.
Three-dimensional cinematic “freeze frames” will share stories of domestic life in America throughout the years, “from the personal to the political, the stylistic to the cultural, and the aesthetic to the ideological.”
Highlights include:
- Shaker Retiring Room from the 1830s
- Nineteenth-century parlor from Richmond, Virginia
- Panoramic 1819 mural of Versailles
- Twentieth-century living room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
The installations have been produced in collaboration with highly-regarded American film directors, as the “mise-en-scènes will explore the role of dress in shaping American identity and address the complex and layered histories of the rooms.”
Visitors will get a deeper look into the hidden accounts of fashion in America with this unique exhibit that’s sure to wow!
Find out more at the Met’s website here.