Met exhibition review: Spring 2024 show is a treat for the senses

The rustle of silk, the clack of shells and the sweet scent of flowers. All these captivating effects and more are now drawing visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's ambitious spring fashion exhibition.
Titled Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion , the show is an ode. to the multisensory aspects of fashion, focusing on the evocative smells, sounds and textures of selected garments and accessories from the museum's collection. In an age where social media has been flattened into pixels on a screen, consider this the Met's appeal for engaging with the physical world.
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“A picture is painted by an artist to be looked at, and it immediately arises on a wall so we can think about it,” Met CEO and Chairman Max Hollein said in a press release just hours before the Met Gala transformed the museum's steps into the most extravagant red carpet in history. world. “A dress is made to be worn, to move in space. When a piece of fashion enters the Met’s collection, it becomes an object. You can't touch it anymore, you can't feel it anymore, not like the original creator intended. This exhibition is a grand multi-sensory experience and a celebration of the many dimensions of the fashion experience. »
That was the challenge posed to the exhibition's curator, Andrew Bolton, and his team, who exhibited 250 garments and accessories representing a period stretching back four centuries to alongside 75 new acquisitions made for this show.
They harnessed old and new technologies to evoke sensory experiences. associated with the exhibits. Take the opening paintings: a ballgown by British designer Charles Frederick Worth from the 1880s, so delicate that it is arranged horizontally (in a position that leads the museum to refer to these delicate dresses as "sleeping beauties") ). Opposite is a 3D animated figurine, dancing in a version of the same item of clothing.
“Fashion is a living organism that uses most of our senses to fully appreciate. greater understanding,” Bolton said during the morning...

Fashion May 8, 2024 0 13 Add to Reading List

Met exhibition review: Spring 2024 show is a treat for the senses

The rustle of silk, the clack of shells and the sweet scent of flowers. All these captivating effects and more are now drawing visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's ambitious spring fashion exhibition.

Titled Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion , the show is an ode. to the multisensory aspects of fashion, focusing on the evocative smells, sounds and textures of selected garments and accessories from the museum's collection. In an age where social media has been flattened into pixels on a screen, consider this the Met's appeal for engaging with the physical world.

Scented tubes next to a large fabric flower

“A picture is painted by an artist to be looked at, and it immediately arises on a wall so we can think about it,” Met CEO and Chairman Max Hollein said in a press release just hours before the Met Gala transformed the museum's steps into the most extravagant red carpet in history. world. “A dress is made to be worn, to move in space. When a piece of fashion enters the Met’s collection, it becomes an object. You can't touch it anymore, you can't feel it anymore, not like the original creator intended. This exhibition is a grand multi-sensory experience and a celebration of the many dimensions of the fashion experience. »

That was the challenge posed to the exhibition's curator, Andrew Bolton, and his team, who exhibited 250 garments and accessories representing a period stretching back four centuries to alongside 75 new acquisitions made for this show.

They harnessed old and new technologies to evoke sensory experiences. associated with the exhibits. Take the opening paintings: a ballgown by British designer Charles Frederick Worth from the 1880s, so delicate that it is arranged horizontally (in a position that leads the museum to refer to these delicate dresses as "sleeping beauties") ). Opposite is a 3D animated figurine, dancing in a version of the same item of clothing.

“Fashion is a living organism that uses most of our senses to fully appreciate. greater understanding,” Bolton said during the morning...