Is Fashion Modern? It’s a big question, but going broad makes sense for the Museum of Modern Arts’ first dedicated fashion exhibition since 1944. The institution clearly treats fashion differently than other mediums, and chose to “highlight the ways clothing is made but also the ways in which it might be made.” The result is a selection of 111 items, including commissioned prototypes demonstrating new, often more sustainable, techniques.
Before presenting such a tight edit, the curators address some inevitable criticism. Yes, the collection is New York-centric. But it’s international in the city’s own fantastic way. They also invite us to point out what’s missing, though one is more likely to point out what’s included, namely a tube of SPF 4, and “contouring” Touche Éclat makeup.
Overall, this show is heavy on text. There are parameters and explanations (defining modern, for example, as “a constructive attitude based on the unity of the arts, working together on society’s needs, aspirations and priorities”), and an academic approach is, at times, very powerful. A breathtaking lineup of little black dresses (think Chanel, Dior, Mugler) demonstrates one wildly cruel driver of fashion: the evolution of body shape ideals over time. Nearby, a dress form represents the 21st century American female body as captured by the Cornell Body Scan Research Lab. It’s commendable to highlight this early in the exhibition, but a shame that this one sculpture representing the “average” woman (she is a size 16, with a convex midsection) is presented in miniature. The exhibition “items” themselves are pinned flat to a wall or draped over your typically lithe mannequin, distanced, as always, from the reality of a human.
That said, the show is a big, beautiful, and often wonderfully nostalgic jumble that dances around our ideas of what’s modern. There’s a pair of Rudi Gernreich’s gender fluid rib knit turtleneck jumpsuits, an answer to Life magazine’s 1970 question of what people would wear in the future. Designed for the year 2000, he deftly anticipated the reevaluation of gender divides—less so global warming. Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking is shown beside a photo of Françoise Hardy; with her resurgence as a fashion icon, it’s impossible not to admire it from a contemporary point of view. A description of the everyday sari, which is continually repaired and passed down, sounds responsible and forward-thinking in 2017.
Among the assortment, some items rightly get a curatorial underline: there’s a whole case of Maison Martin Margiela Tabi boots, video footage of Rick Owens’s Spring 2014 show and a full set of Donna Karan’s Seven Easy Pieces, but one of the most delightful is an ode to the turtleneck. 332 words are dedicated to the unassuming style, which gets better billing than Diane von Furstenberg’s jersey wrap dress, a longtime curator favorite.
Oddly, the prototypes commissioned for the show are some of the least interesting pieces. Maybe it’s because survival of the fittest applied to bikinis and Birkin bags and the Nike Air Force 1. Or it could be the deep associations, often sentimental ones, that we have with fashion; since this is a modern art museum, there is nothing that conjures Martha Washington, and plenty that reminds us of our high school fashion experiments and aspirations. One notable exception is the prototype of a dress that can be worn easily through pregnancy and while nursing without restricting a changing body. This is, sadly, quite revolutionary; it sits beside maternity wear that was actually produced and worn by real mothers, and when considering the selection, the answer to the question “is fashion modern” is a definitive and resounding no.
Items: Is Fashion Modern? is on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through January 28, 2018.
