“IS FASHION MODERN?”: A MOMA EXHIBITION
October, 2017
The MoMA (New York Museum Of Modern Art) has just launched an initiative to demonstrate the enormous influence of fashion on the modern world.
Kristina Parsons, Anna Burckhardt, Paola Antonelli, Michelle Millar Fisher and Stephanie Kramer are the principal curators of what, for the MoMA, is the first fashion show in 73 years. The whole idea takes inspiration from a previous show that was set up in 1944 by famous designer and architect Bernard Rudofsky: “Are Clothes Modern?”.
Back in 1994, the museum aimed to promote an “intelligent change” in fashion trends “now that ideas and conventions of dress are undergoing modification because of the war“ (MoMA’s press release, 1995). This year’s collection will instead focus on pieces from the 20th Century that had a great impact on 21st Century’s fashion. It will present items from Hubert de Givenchy, Arnold Scaasi’s and the Christian Dior little black dress to the Wonderbra, from the 1997 Comme des Garçons collection “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body”, to the iconic Armadillo shoes that Alexander McQueen designed for the “Plato’s Atlantis” collection of spring 2010, to a gold jumpsuit that the American designer Stephen Burrows realised in 1974.
When interviewed by the Italian press agency ANSA, Paola Antonelli said: “we aim to convince the public that fashion is part of the design, but also to let everyone know that clothes have an impact both on the single person and globally.”
The show will take place between 1st of October 2017¬-28th of January 2018 (with a preview available from September the 27th for MoMA Members), presenting more than 350 items of fashion history distributed into 111 sartorial conceits.
In times when fashion aspires to be global, one of the primary purposes of the exhibit is to show its rising influence in the modern age. Alongside with what Paola Antonelli describes as “the points of pressure between classes and genders” it will present items from all over the world, with an impressive section about eastern fashion that allows the spectator to reflect on the changing role of women and of dresses in the modern society.
In an interview with The Independent, Antonelli says that “the hijab has become a visible and global symbol of the difficult balance between church and State, between rebellion and oppression, and between prejudice and freedom. It is also a symbol of the contested territory that is the female body”.