The first Monday in May in New York naturally means the Met Gala. It also marks the first glimpse of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spring exhibition, which is “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” this year.
September 2021 marked the unveiling of the first part, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” “An Anthology of Fashion” serves a different purpose: an education on the emergence of American fashion. With over 100 looks, the show focuses on defining moments in fashion from 19th and 20th Century American fashion that built the industry to what it is today.
The exhibition is appropriately housed in The Met’s American Wing, allowing each piece to live in relation to period rooms that provide even greater context to the designs.
These aren’t your typical period rooms, however. Nine film directors — Radha Blank, Janicza Bravo, Autumn de Wilde, Julie Dash, Tom Ford, Regina King, Martin Scorsese, and Chloé Zhao — transformed the rooms to highlight these intricate themes and narratives through a current lens. With their storytelling abilities and dynamic perspective, each filmmaker managed to add life to otherwise static rooms — while also making them instagrammable (Instagram is the sponsor of this year’s exhibition).
Coinciding with the museum’s 75th anniversary, the show focuses on a wide-range of artifacts that shine light on the lesser known parts – and designers – of American fashion history. The exhibition opens with an American-made coat worn by George Washington, and two Brooks Brothers jackets; one worn by Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated, and the other a part of an enslaved man’s uniform.
The show goes on to celebrate many of the unsung heroes of American fashion that are perhaps less glamorous, yet of vital importance to the success of the industry on the global stage. Designers such as Marguery Bolhagen, Ann Lowe, Bonnie Cashin, Vera Maxwell, Franziska Noll Gross, and Elizabeth Hawes get the credit they deserve with their designs via prominent displays.
