Open from November 7th, 2019 to March 22nd, 2020, Marche et Démarche at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, presented a global history of shoes and examined the influence they have had in modifying our bodies and our perception of self.
All in Exhibition Review
Exhibition Review: The Tuxedo Redefined: Formality, Fluidity, and Femininity
For three and a half weeks in early 2020, long before our lives were shaken by a global pandemic, the shifting dynamics of formal dress were celebrated in The Tuxedo Redefined: Formality, Fluidity, and Femininity.
Exhibition Review: Thierry Mugler: Couturissime
Monica di Vidi reviews the illustrious career of famed French designer Thierry Mugler, looking at his most iconic designs, celebrity costumes, and the most recent exhibition of his work at the Kunsthal Rotterdam.
Clothes are transitive things in the slavery archive: Serving simultaneously as modes of identification for recapture and as critical expressions of identity and self-making.
Review: Virgil Abloh: "Figures of Speech"
Appropriately situated in Chicago, Abloh’s base (or close enough, as his hometown is actually Rockford, west of Chicago), Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” geographically positioned the ever-moving designer, his legacy and his work in a stationary institution meant for art.
Review: JAY JAXON: Fashion Designer, Le Couturier, Costumer
Jay Jaxon was not only the first American to head a Parisian couture house, but also the first black person to do so. Curiously, however, Jaxon’s name is often left out of the annals of fashion history. A recent exhibition at the Queens Library shines light on this often-overlooked figure.
Review: A Tale of Two Quants
More frequently than one might imagine, multiple fashion exhibitions on similar topics pop up around the same time. While it is not unusual for trends in fashion exhibitions to occur, it is somewhat unusual for two museums in the same city to be running concurrent exhibitions on almost the exact same subject.
Review: Atelier E. B.: Passer-By
Passer-By tackled an issue with which consumers come into contact every day: the multitude of ways that clothing can be displayed through artistic, kitschy, and historical contexts, and how this changes the way the clothing is interpreted.
Review: The Krystyna Campbell-Pretty Fashion Gift
The Fashion Gift is one of those sprawling exhibitions with so many items it’s almost in danger of undercutting their individual value. There are a few moments when you might be forgiven for thinking you’ve been trapped inside a fashion labyrinth.
Review: Gray Area: Authenticity, Value, and Subversion in Fashion
Gray Area uses technology, counterfeits, and even a pair of socks from Diet Prada to illustrate how many of the conversations we have within the field of fashion studies are not cut and dried but rather an intricately layered and varied dialogue.
Review: Femme Fatales: Strong Women in Fashion
Fashion is a powerful medium that permits the display of narrative by both its producers and consumers, and can be used to study our society, reading the past and present to try to imagine the future. But is there a difference between men and women in the use of fashion to communicate thoughts and express ideas?
Review: Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
A reimagined version of the exhibition originally staged at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the V&A Museum takes museum visitors on a journey through Dior, both the man and the house.
Review: Caroline Broadhead: A Retrospective
The retrospective of over 45 years of Broadhead’s art is said to be the first collection that Lethaby has ever let take over their entire space. For them, it’s a celebration of a career that began with, and now retires in, the influence of jewelry.
Exhibition Review: Fashioned from Nature
The exhibition comprises 300 objects and spans a comprehensive timescale, from the 1600s to the present day. Arranged chronologically across two floors, the first part of the exhibition charts the relationship between fashion and industrialization, highlighting the use of nature both as a source of inspiration and exploitation.
Exhibition Review: Night & Day: 1930s Fashion and Photographs
Wedged between the Roaring Twenties and Dior’s New Look of 1949, the 1930s is quite often a decade eclipsed in popular fashion history. Now the subject of the Fashion and Textile Museum’s exhibition, Night & Day: 1930s Fashion and Photographs is the museum’s unofficial sequel to its 2017 exhibition, 1920s Jazz Age: Fashion and Photographs.
Exhibition Review: Manus x Machina
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (May 5-September 5, 2016)
Exhibition Review: Uniformity
The Museum at FIT (May 20-November 19, 2016)
Exhibition Review: Vogue 100: A Century of Style
The Manchester Art Gallery (June 24-October 30, 2016)
Exhibition Review: Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion
The MET (November 18, 2016-February 5, 2017)
Exhibition Review: The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
Barbican Art Gallery (October 13, 2016-February 5, 2017)