New Met Show Examines Fashion Frame by Frame

Even for a legendary film director like Martin Scorsese, the task was daunting.

Take one of the famous American period rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and essentially make a one-frame film, without a camera: one frame, not a film, but using your cinematic sensibilities. The actors are mannequins; the costumes must be chosen by the director.

“Create a one-frame movie in a period room? A great opportunity and an intriguing challenge”writes the director in a statement along with his creation, a mysterious mix of characters, emotions and fashion in the impressive room Frank Lloyd Wright from the museum.

Eight other directors also put their stamp on period rooms to “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” (In the United States: A Fashion Anthology”)the spring exhibition of the Met Costume Institute which opened this Monday with the met gala before opening to the public on May 7.

Attendees of the gala, which raises millions for the self-funded institute and has become a fashion and pop culture extravaganza, were among the first people to see the show.

This is the second part of a larger exhibition on American fashion to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Costume Institute. Conceived as usual by the star curator Andrew Boltonthe new installment is both a sequel and a precursor to “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion” (In America: A Fashion Lexicon)which opened last September and focuses more on contemporary designers and establishes what Bolton calls a vocabulary for fashion.

Although the new “Anthology” is intended to provide crucial historical context, it also seeks to find untold stories and unsung heroes in early American fashion, especially designers of color. Many of their stories, Bolton said in announcing the show, “have been forgotten, overlooked or relegated to a footnote in the annals of fashion history”.

The nine directors were chosen to enliven the narrative with their own varying aesthetics. In addition to Scorsese, they include two of the hosts of Monday night’s Met Gala: actress and director Regina King and the designer and director Tom Ford. Also contributing is last year’s Oscar winner, Chloe Zhaoas well as Radha Blank, Janice Bravo, sophia coppola, Julie Dash Y Autumn de Wilde.

For King, the Richmond Room, depicting early 19th-century domestic life for wealthy Virginians, provided an opportunity to spotlight the black designer Fannie Criss Payne, who was born in the late 1860s to formerly enslaved parents and went on to be one of the best local dressmakers. She was known to sew a ribbon with her name on her garments to “sign” her work, part of an emerging sense of making clothes as a creative endeavor.

King says he was looking for “portray the power and strength that Fannie Criss Payne exudes through her impressive story and exquisite clothing”placing her in a prosperous employment situation and proudly sporting her own design, shoeing for a client, and employing another black woman as a seamstress.

Filmmaker Radha Blank looks at Maria Hollanderfounder of a clothing business in the mid-nineteenth century in Massachusetts, who used her commercial success to advocate for abolition and women’s rights. In the Shaker Retiring museum room, director Zhao connects with the minimalist aesthetic of the 1930s sportswear designer, Claire McCardell.

De Wilde uses his set in the living room Baltimore Dining to examine the influence of European fashion on American women, including some disapproving American attitudes about those low-cut dresses in Paris.

Dash focuses on black dressmaker Ann Lowe, who designed future first lady Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress but was barely recognized for it. “The designer was shrouded in secrecy”Dash writes. “Invisibility was the cloak he wore and yet it persisted”.

In the wing’s Gothic Revival Library, Bravo looks at the works of elizabeth hawes, a mid-20th century fashion designer and writer. And Coppola, in the McKim, Mead & White Stair Hall and another room, writes that she was initially unsure what to do: “How do you put together a scene without actors or story?” Ultimately, he teamed up with sculptor Rachel Feinstein to create distinctive faces for his “characters”.

Each filmmaker reached into their own bag of tricks. For Scorsese, the fashion he was given was designed by the brilliant couturier Charles James, the subject of his own costume show (and Met Gala) in 2014.

Scorsese knew he needed to create a story “that could be felt throughout that room”. He drew on the Technicolor films of the 1940s and used “Leave Her to Heaven” (“May heaven judge her”) by john stahwhat he calls “a true Technicolor noir”.

As for what happens before and after the scene we see, which includes a woman crying near a portrait of a man and a Martini glass nearby, “I hope people walk away with multiple possibilities unfolding in their minds”says the manager.

An exhibition that will surely give something to talk about is the one in the Versailles room of the museum, known for its circular panorama of Versailles painted by John Vanderlyn between 1818 and 1819.

Ford transforms the room into a representation of the “Battle of Versailles”not a military conflict, but the name given to a major night for American fashion in 1973, when five sportswear designers (including Oscar de la Renta and Anne Klein) “they faced each other” with five French haute couture designers at a show in Versailles and showed the world what American fashion is made of.

Ford decided to turn his frame into a real battle with warring mannequins, many of them dressed in outfits from that memorable show. “Weapons have changed”Ford writes. “Instead of fans and feather boas, there are fencing foils and front kicks”.

“In America: An Anthology of Fashion” opens to the public on May 7. The first part, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion”remains open in the Anna Wintour Costume Center. Both close in September.