News Release The Metropolitan Museum of Art Communications Department 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028-0198 tel (212) 570-3951 fax (212) 472-2764 [email protected] For Immediate Release
Contact: Elyse Topalian, Nancy Chilton
Costume Institute’s Charles James Exhibition and New Anna Wintour Costume Center Open at Met on May 8
Costume Institute Gala Benefit May 555 with Chair Aerin Lauder and CoCoCo-Co ---ChairsChairs Bradley Cooper, Oscar de la Renta, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lizzie and Jonathan TischTisch,, and Anna Wintour
ExhibitExhibitionion DDates:ates: May 888–8–––AugustAugust 1010,, 2014 Exhibition LLLocation:Location: Anna Wintour Costume Center and firstfirstfirst- first ---floorfloor Special Exhibition Galleries Press PPPreview:Preview: Monday, May 55,, n, noonn oonoonoon––––2:002:00 p.m.
The Costume Institute’s new Anna Wintour Costume Center opens on May 8 with the inaugural exhibition Charles James: Beyond Fashion , on view from May 8 through August 10, 2014. The exhibition examines the career of legendary 20th-century Anglo- American couturier Charles James (1906–1978) and is presented in two locations–the new Anna Wintour Costume Center as well as special exhibition galleries on the Museum’s first floor. The exhibition explores James’s design process, specifically his use of sculptural, scientific, and mathematical approaches to construct revolutionary ball gowns and innovative tailoring that continue to influence designers today.
The exhibition is made possible by AERIN.
Additional support is provided by Condé Nast.
“Charles James considered himself an artist, and approached fashion with a sculptor’s eye and a scientist’s logic,” said Mr. Campbell. “As such, the Met is the ideal place to (more) Charles JamesJames:: Beyond Fashion Page 2 explore the rich complexity of his innovative work.”
The Museum's Costume Institute Benefit on Monday, May 5, 2014, celebrates the opening of the exhibition and the new Anna Wintour Costume Center space. The evening’s Chair is Aerin Lauder. Co-Chairs are Bradley Cooper, Oscar de la Renta, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, and Anna Wintour. The décor for the 2014 Costume Institute Gala Benefit is produced by Raul Avila for the eighth consecutive year. This event is The Costume Institute’s main source of annual funding for exhibitions, acquisitions, and capital improvements.
“Charles James was a wildly idiosyncratic, emotionally fraught fashion genius who was also committed to teaching,” said Harold Koda, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute. “He dreamt that his lifetime of personal creative evolution and the continuous metamorphosis of his designs would be preserved as a study resource for students. In our renovated galleries, we will fulfill his goal and illuminate his design process as a synthesis of dressmaking, art, math, and science.”
Exhibition Overview The retrospective exhibition, Charles James: Beyond Fashion , features approximately 65 of the most notable designs James produced over the course of his career, from the 1920s until his death in 1978. Curators Harold Koda and Jan Glier Reeder, working with exhibition designers Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), the interdisciplinary architecture and design firm, have organized the exhibition in three zones. The first-floor special exhibition galleries spotlight and analyze the resplendent glamour and breathtaking architecture of James’s ball gowns; while the new Anna Wintour Costume Center’s Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery follows the arc of James’s career, and the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery displays ephemera from his life and work.
In the first-floor gallery, a replica of James’s sculpture of an idealized female form greets (more) Charles James: Beyond Fashion Page 3 visitors as does a portrait of Millicent Rogers in a James gown, which is on view in the main gallery. It is also one of six muslins created by James as teaching tools; they are displayed in a neighboring alcove with a sofa, which is a James design created for the de Menil family.
The expansive main gallery features 15 dramatically lit iconic James gowns including the "Clover Leaf," "Butterfly," "Tree," and "Swan" from the late 1940s and early 1950s. The dresses float on circular platforms with dramatic front views, while from behind they are analyzed on platform-mounted projection screens with rolling content designed by DS+R. Programmed light projectors with pan/tilt heads and robotic boom arms direct the visitor’s eye to the area of the gown the digital content explores. Analytical animations, text, x-rays, and vintage images tell the story of each gown’s intricate construction and history. Mirrored walls tagged with James’s quotes create an infinity repeat surrounding the sea of silk and velvet.
The new Anna Wintour Costume Center galleries explore the span of James’s career. Descending the steps to the new Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery, which provides the technology and flexibility to dramatize James’s craft, visitors view a portrait of the designer and hear his voice. A pathway winds around a cruciform platform where the evolution and metamorphosis of James’s day and evening wear are explored in four categories: Spirals & Wraps, Drapes & Folds, Platonic Form, and Anatomical Cut. Video animations focused on the most representative examples of his approach are shown on monitors, and live-feed cameras detailing the backs of garments are projected on the walls.
In the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery, a picture rail displaying drawings, pattern pieces, and videos clips runs along the periphery of the room and a cantilevered steel shelf displays dress forms, jewelry maquettes, scrapbooks, and accessories–including hats representing James’s early work as a milliner–and other materials from his personal and (more) Charles James: Beyond Fashion Page 4 design archives. A white satin eiderdown evening jacket, widely regarded as the first puffer coat, sits in the center of the room.
Much of the content in these galleries was transferred to the Met as part of the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection in 2009, and was augmented recently with the contents of James’s last studio in the Chelsea Hotel. As a result, the Museum has the most definitive body of James’s work in the world, and the most comprehensive collection of a fashion designer’s work in any museum.
History “James was an artist who chose fabric and its relationship to the human body as his medium of expression,” said Jan Glier Reeder, Consulting Curator in The Costume Institute, who is organizing the exhibition with Harold Koda. “In fact, a devoted James client once said, ‘...his work went beyond fashion and was a fine art.’” Beyond Fashion was also the title James chose for the autobiography he never completed.
After designing in his native London, and then Paris, James arrived in New York City in 1940. Though he had no formal training, he is arguably one of the greatest designers to have worked in the tradition of the haute couture in America. His fascination with complex cut and seaming led to the creation of key design elements that he updated throughout his career: wrap-over trousers, figure-eight skirts, body-hugging sheaths, ribbon capes and dresses, spiral-cut garments, and poufs.
RRRelatedRelated Catalogue and Programs A book, Charles James: Beyond Fashion, by Harold Koda and Jan Glier Reeder with a preface by Ralph Rucci and contributions by Costume Institute Conservators Sarah Scaturro and Glenn Petersen, accompanies the exhibition. This publication is illustrated with new photography of James designs, including details highlighting the materials, construction, and conservation of the pieces, as well as rarely seen vintage photographs (more) Charles JamesJames:: Beyond Fashion Page 5 from the designer’s archive. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the $50 catalogue (hardcover only) has 264 pages and 330 color illustrations. It is distributed by Yale University Press.
Public programs presented in conjunction with the exhibition include a Sunday at the Met on June 22 focusing on the seductive appeal of Charles James’s creations; a three-session studio workshop on draping, darting, fitting, and creating movement with cloth beginning May 3; a Drop-in Drawing focusing on drapery in ancient sculpture on July 18; and artist demonstrations and workshops with fashion design professionals on July 26. There will also be an exhibition-related workshop for visitors who are blind or partially sighted on June 12. For more information, please visit metmuseum.org/events.
The Museum’s website, www.metmuseum.org/charlesjames, features information on the exhibition and new galleries. Follow us on Facebook.com/metmuseum, Instagram.com/metmuseum, and Twitter.com/metmuseum to join the conversation about the exhibition and gala benefit. Use #CharlesJames and #MetGala on Instagram and Twitter.
Anna Wintour Costume Center May 2014 marks the opening of the Anna Wintour Costume Center space after an overall two-year renovation, reconfiguration, and updating. The 4,200-square-foot main Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery features a flexible design that lends itself to frequent transformation, a zonal sound system, innovative projection technology, and wireless connectivity.
The Anna Wintour Costume Center also includes: the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery; a state-of-the-art costume conservation center; an expanded study/storage facility which houses the combined holdings of the Met and the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection; and The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, one of the world’s foremost fashion (more) Charles James:James : Beyond Fashion Page 6 libraries.
The project is funded by a $10 million gift from Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, as well as proceeds raised at the annual Costume Institute Benefit under the leadership of Met Trustee Anna Wintour, and from commitments by Janet and Howard Kagan and the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Inc. The Costume Institute was last refurbished in 1992. #### May 5, 2014 VISITOR INFORMATION
TTTheThe Main Building and The Cloisters are open 7 days a week. Main Building Friday and Saturday 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. SundaySunday––––ThursdayThursday 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
The Cloisters museum and gardens MarchMarch– –––OctoberOctober 10:00 a.m.–5:15 p.m. NovemberNovember––––FebruaryFebruary 10:00 a.m.–4:45 p.m.
Both locations will be closed January 1, Thanksgiving Day, and December 25, and the main building will also be closed the first Monday in May. Recommended Admission (Admission at the main building includes samesame----weekweek admission to The Cloisters ))) Adults $25.00, seniors (65 and over) $17.00, students $12.00 Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free Express admission may be purchased in advance at www.metmuseum.org/visit For More Information (212) 535535----771077107710;;;; www.metmuseum.org
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No extra charge for any exhibition. Accommodations for visitors with disabilities, such as Verbal Imaging tours and Sign Language interpretation of any program, are available by request with advance notice. For more information: (212) 650-2010 or [email protected].