DOWN FASHION'S MEMORY LANE

Rarely-seen-before couture meets best-in-class tech at The Met's spring 2024 exhibition

- NIDA NAEEM

Archival fashion will claim newer pedestals this year. Early November 2023, The Costume Insitute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the theme for its next spring exhibition: Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.

Don't let the name fool you though. It doesn't really have anything to do with ill-fated princess Aurora. The 'beauties' here refers to around 250 historically significant garments spanning 400 years from The Met's permanent collection that are too fragile to be ever worn again. These pieces will be on view from May 10 to September 2, 2024.

From 19th century designs by Charles Frederick Worth (considered by many fashion historians to be the father of haute couture) to pieces that go even further back in time, such as a 17th century Elizabethan-era bodice, these garments transcend their original functionality as relics of an industry that was largely dependent on natural materials before the advent of polyesters and nylons. Conceptually speaking, nature here is a metaphor for the ephemerality of fashion, and the cyclical processes of birth and renewal come to the forefront.

"When an item of clothing enters our collection, its status is changed irrevocably. What was once a vital part of a person's lived experience is now a motionless artwork' that can no longer be worn or heard, touched, or smelled. The exhibition endeavors to reanimate these artworks by re-awakening their sensory capacities through a diverse range of technologies, affording visitors sensorial 'access' to rare historical garments and rarefied contemporary fashions," comments Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge at The Costume Institute.