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Contact: Elyse Topalian Bernice Kwok-Gabel
WILD: Fashion Untamed
Exhibition Dates: December 7, 2004 - March 13, 2005 Exhibition Location: The Costume Institute Press Preview: Monday, December 6, 10:00 - noon
W7LD: Fashion Untamed, an exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute on December 7, will present a historical and cross-cultural examination of humankind's obsession with animalism as expressed through clothing. With more than 100 costumes and accessories on display, WILD: Fashion Untamed will focus on the practical, spiritual, psychosexual, and socio economic underpinnings of the decorative possibilities of birds and beasts. Whether in the form of pelts, plumes, prints, ot animal symbolism, faunal apparel has represented one of man's more primal instincts.
The exhibition is made possible by Roberto Cavalli.
Additional support has been provided by John and Laura Pomerantz.
Organized thematically, WILD: Fashion Untamed will examine how the physical and sexual characteristics of animals have come to define ideals of femininity. Evoking the power and strength of wild beasts, the notion of "Woman (more) WILD: Fashion Untamed Page 2 as Huntress" will be explored in the work of fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen, and Yohji Yamamoto. Drawing on 19th-century representations of "La Belle Sauvage," these designers have used animal skins, crudely sewn togethet and molded to the body like a second skin, to construct images of 21st-century Amazons invested with a potent feminism.
Since prehistoric times, fur has been used not only for warmth and protection, but also for display and adornment. Fur's decorative possibilities were realized fully in the Middle Ages with the emergence of a symbolic system for determining social rank and class affiliation based on fur's material value. In the Renaissance, the necks, cuffs, and hems of gowns trimmed with ermine, lettice, or miniver (all members of the weasel family) became hallmarks of fashionable aristocrats. Today, fur continues to announce wealth, luxury, and exclusivity. In WILD: Fashion Untamed, the work of Dior, Fendi, and Gucci will be featured to illuminate contemporary representations of the fur-clad "Bourgeois Woman."
Fake furs will also be featured as a means of manufacturing class access and as a means of constructing definitions of the "Ethical Woman." Recent debates over fur and social morality will be analyzed through the advertising campaigns of The Protection for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and LYNX of the United Kingdom.
In the visual history of fashions for men, artists such as Holbein, Titian, Rubens, and Raphael are conspicuous for their highly refined and naturalistic representations of the different varieties of furs included in the costume of the nobility in the Renaissance. These painters not only manifest fur's aesthetic values but also its economic values by equating fur with the wealth and power of the (more) WILD: Fashion Untamed Page 3 aristocracy. In the early 20th century, the fur coat became the hallmark of the "Mogul" ot "Capitalist," a stereotype of the fur-clad man that has endured to this day. Charles Chaplin immortalized him in two of his most popular and comedic films, The Gold Rush (1925) and Modern Times (1936). As in Chaplin's films, this "fat cat" was often accessorized with a hat, cigar, and moustache, signifiers of wealth and status that are only surpassed by the motorcar. Today, the fur coat is not only a symbol of wealth and status, but of virility, machismo, and male dominance. WILD: Fashion Untamed will explore how the dandified self-presentations of sportsmen and hip-hop performers reference pimp style, with its blatant display of sexual and economic power.
The power of plumage to signify both vigor and ardor has a long history in fashion. While plump ostrich feathers dangling from wide-brimmed beaver hats announced the physical and sexual confidence of the 17th-century cavalier, delicate egret feathers woven into the coiffure of an 18th-century courtesan proclaimed her sensual exoticism. In WILD: Fashion Untamed, these historical references will be articulated through the wondrous "Birds of Paradise" creations by renowned milliners Philip Treacy and Stephen Jones. The fantastical feathered costumes of Las Vegas showgirls - iconic symbols of femininity born out of male fantasies of the "kept" or "caged" woman - will also be shown alongside equally dazzling and sexualized creations by Rudi Gernreich and Jean Paul Gaultier. Among the highlights of the exhibition will be examples of feathers used for display and attraction in male apparel, such as Jimi Hendrix's peacock feather waistcoat, a psychedelic manifestation of the Restoration fop. WILD: Fashion Untamed Page 4
Other designers in the exhibition have used animal prints to suggest a playful yet sensual femininity. Conflating ideas of the feline and the feminine in societies as diverse as ancient Egypt and Victorian England, designers such as Azzedine Alai'a, Christian Dior, and Gianni Versace have used animal prints— most notably those derived from the leopard— to evoke such hypet-sexualized pin-ups as the "Vixen." WILD: Fashion Untamed will also explore darker relationships between animalism and female sexuality. Myths and legends such as those of Lilith, Medusa, and the Sirens, which combine images of women as divine matriarch and sexual predator, are referenced in the serpentine creations of Jean Paul Gaultier, Norman Norell, and Alexander McQueen. Continuing the theme of female empowerment, ensembles by John Galliano for Christian Dior Haute Couture parody the overtly sexual and suffragette symbolisms of the Victorian femme fatale through exaggerated fur stoles and taxidermy hats. The exhibition will also explore couture interpretations of second-skin fetishism, as demonstrated in the leather bodysuits of Batman's cherished dominatrix, "Catwoman," and Thierry Mugler's embossed black exoskeletons and leather-whip skirts.
The exhibition will present an unparalleled selection of designs by Gilbert Adrian, Adolfo, Miguel Adrover, Azzedine Alaia, As Four, Cristobal Balenciaga, Geoffrey Beene, Blackglama, Bill Blass, Donald Brooks, Stephen Burrows, Nicholas Ghesquiere for Callaghan, Roberto Cavalli, House of Chanel, Andre Courreges, James Coviello, Anne Demeulemeester, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, Christian Dior Haute Couture, Dolce &c Gabbana, DSquared2, Fendi, Tom Ford for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, James Galanos, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rudi Gernreich, Givenchy Couture, Norman Hartnell, Barbara Hulanicki, Sean John, Jacques Kaplan, Junko Koshino, Karl Lagerfeld, Larrissa, (more) WILD: Fashion Untamed Page 5
Julien Macdonald, Bob Mackie, Maximilian, Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, Missoni, Frederic Molenac, Moschino Couture, Thierry Mugler, Nija Furs, Norman Norell, Todd Oldham, Rick Owens, Emeric Partos, Russell Sage, Plain Sud, Playboy, Alice Pollock, Prada, Paco Rabanne, Revillon Freres, Zandra Rhodes, Russell Sage, Arnold Scaasi, Elsa Schiaparelli, Anna Sui, Philip Treacy, Emanuel Ungaro, Valentino, Rose Valois, Gianni and Donatella Versace, Viktor and Rolf, Madeleine Vionnet, Vivienne Westwood, House of Worth, Yohji Yamamoto, and Yves Saint Laurent.
WILD: Fashion Untamed is organized by Andrew Bolton, Associate Curator, with the support of Shannon Bell Price and Elyssa Schram Da Cruz, Research Associates, all of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. A publication with the same title will accompany the exhibition. Published in paperback by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it will be distributed by Yale University Press.
The exhibition will be featured on the Museum's Web site (www.metmuseum.org).
### August 18, 2004 WILD: Fashion Untamed Page 6
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