May 5, 2006
Design Review
That Imperial Punk
By
ROBERTA SMITH
IT turns out we'll always have England. Or at least Englishness. Or perhaps the reverberating Englishness of certain sartorial innovations. The empire is long gone, but the tiny island nation exerts an out-of-proportion influence on fashion as art, provocation, self-expression and social commentary.
This is perhaps only right: it was in Georgian England of the 1790's where Beau Brummel, the first famous dandy, became a confidant of the future George IV on the basis of nothing more than distinctive tailoring, smooth manners, verbal wit and new levels of personal hygiene. It was in barely pre-Thatcher-era England of the 1970's where punk rockers established the substantially less fastidious tradition of the bondage suit, the Mohawk and, most lastingly, the incendiary T-shirt.
These twin rebellions are among the inspirations for "AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion," the most recent offering from the
Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute with assists from European sculpture and decorative arts department.
Organized by Andrew Bolton, the institute's associate curator, with support from Harold Koda, its curator in charge, and the decorative arts curators Ian Wardropper and Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, it is a fabulous, confusing romp. It crams 65 mannequins into the Met's normally serene English Period rooms with effects — and sound effects — that are alternately lavish and helter-skelter, stunning and cacophonous, seductive and annoying.
The show feels like hurriedly buried treasure, full of partly exposed, partly explained riches. Its shortcomings include dim lighting, disappointingly brief, poorly placed labels and overcrowding that makes it hard to see the garments either as wholes or in detail.
Still, "AngloMania" is light-years ahead of the institute's first foray into the Met's period rooms, "Dangerous Liaisons," which Mr. Koda and Mr. Bolton organized in 2004. Pairing 18th-century garments and interiors while using suggestively posed mannequins, its like-unto-like consistency soon felt monotonous. It had one idea. "AngloMania" has more ideas than it knows what to do with.
The thesis here is that Brummel rubbed together the sticks of tradition and transgression in a new way, igniting sparks for future rebellions. He codified dandyism's impeccable understatement, replacing lace, embroidery, wigs and knee breeches with (clean) white linen, short hair, plain, exquisitely tailored jackets and, above all, trousers.
It was the beginning of the man's suit as we know it — that staple of modern dress for both sexes — and also of the democratization of taste. Class was shown to be fluid, a matter less of bloodlines than choice of attitude and attire. This point is elaborated in Ian Buruma's supple essay in the show's soon-to-be-published catalog.
Since then, the interplay of tradition and transgression has been aided and abetted by some wonderfully malleable British conventions: royal raiment, Scottish tartans, hunting pinks, Savile Row tailoring, the trench coat and mourning black, the latter institutionalized by Queen Victoria's prolonged grieving for Prince Albert. Stylistic hybridization received a big boost from Vivienne Westwood, who with Malcolm McLaren, manager of the Sex Pistols, fused elements of the suit, worker's clothes, the straitjacket and tartans into punk's aggressive tribal attire.
Mr. Bolton anoints Ms. Westwood as a founder of postmodern deconstruction whose innovations are being built on by current British fashion stars like
John Galliano and Alexander McQueen. Also on hand are Hussein Chalayan and, just barely, Stella McCartney, represented by a single, all-white tuxedo.
The show proceeds in a series of theatrical tableaux without quite coming together. Each room mixes periods, classes and sensibilities and of course, tradition and transgression. A "Garden Party" in the pale yellow Kirlington Park Room (1748) overflows with mannequins wearing early-18th-century gowns of ravishing Spitalfields silks. The fabric's brocaded flower patterns are reiterated by orchid-shaped hats from 2000 by Philip Treacy and intruded upon by the monochrome form of a topiary dress from 2000-1 by Mr. Chalayan.
Next, the broad Cassiobury Park staircase (circa 1677-80) affords an upstairs-downstairs moment: the riches of a Victorian court dress with an 11-foot train of voided velvet lilies contrast with the haute couture rags of three more Chalayan dresses. Pieced together from thrift-shop finds and worn by housemaids, they amount to Eliza Doolittle chic.
Nearby, Queen Victoria in mourning joins two mannequins in fashionable black evening gowns by Mr. McQueen around a massively canopied state bed from Hampton Court whose current occupant is a dandy in tartan pants. To either side, smaller displays focus on Ms. Westwood's adaptation of Elizabeth I's panniered silhouette — in breathtaking blue-silver silk whose printed chinoiserie suggests hand-painted wallpaper — and her radical truncation of
Elizabeth II's Coronation ensemble, reduced here to a red velvet mini-pouf and a tweed crown.
A room devoted to the hunt is dominated — filled actually — by life-size fiberglass horses and dogs on a platform evoking a massive great-hall table. Mannequins on horseback tower overhead, casting viewers as simple country folk. Christopher Bailey's 2006 dress in lilac silk faille for Burberry, the exhibition's chief sponsor, grandiosely merges trench coat with queenly riding habit: its spreading train, lined in red, all but obscures the horse.
Mr. Galliano exaggerates traditional riding garb with droopy coat and breeches and ridiculously elongated shoes. The ensemble is a three-dimensional caricature reminiscent of Hogarth's shambling bumpkins. Behind it, a portrait by Joshua Reynolds of Capt. George K. H. Coussmaker from around 1782 reasserts the proper proportions.
The punk insult of Ms. Westwood's and Mr. McLaren's Seditionairies line of 1976-78 forms the saucy centerpiece of "The Gentlemen's Club" in the Lansdowne Dining Room of 1766-69. The imposing Mohawks and headgear are by Stephen Jones, and in the case of a large Union Jack Mohawk, by Julien d'Ys. It crowns a mannequin wearing the famous, if rather ordinary-looking tartan jacket that Ms. Westwood made for Johnny Rotten (John Lydon), the lead Pistol, according to his design. Mr. Lydon has provided the show's podcast: a ranting, surprisingly tender diatribe that salutes both the monarchy and anarchy, or as he puts it "monanarchy."
The surrounding display includes an evening dress once worn by the Duke of Windsor, and 13 mannequins in bespoke suits made especially for them.
They are intriguing but hard to see, and fewer of them might have left room for an ensemble from Brummel's period.
The show's pièce de résistance is the Hunt Ball, which centers on extravagant evening gowns by Mr. Galliano, Mr. McQueen and Ms. Westwood and towering nylon wigs by Mr. d'Ys. The billowing garments pile on the fabrics and historical references to dizzying effect: hoops, bustles, crinolines, lace, tulle, striped silk. The exception is a gown in lilac silk duchesse satin by Ms. Westwood. Its free-form lines evoke Dior's New Look of the late 1940's and the work of Charles James, but its feats of draping and sculptural abstraction go far beyond mere quotation.
It finds common cause with a black ball gown by Mr. Galliano that has Robert Adam's great orange-on-orange tapestry room from Croome Court (1771) to itself, and, nearby, a white silk-satin evening gown with coiling black-velvet decoration suggestive of wrought iron. It is an 1898-1900 design by Charles Frederick Worth, the Englishman who founded the dominant Paris fashion house of the late 19th century.
Frustratingly, the exhibition suggests more than it delivers: you leave wanting to know more about Ms. Westwood's development; the evolution of the man's suit and the artistry of Savile Row tailoring; and punk fashion's relationship to its deviating predecessors, the hippies and the mods.
Nonetheless "AngloMania" is itself an act of transgression. It symbolizes the Costume Institute's desire to break free of its small basement galleries beneath the Egyptian wing. It has stinted on mechanics like placement, lighting and labeling, hallmarks of previous shows in the basement, but it is great to see such an ambitious movable feast of fashion above stairs.
"AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion" is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, through Sept. 4. (212) 535-7710.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, San Serif][SIZE=-1]Dress ensembles by John Galliano, left, and second left, and Vivienne Westwood.
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A dress by John Galliano from his 1994 spring collection.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, San Serif][SIZE=-1]A dress by Charles Frederick Worth, a popular couturier of the late 19th century.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, San Serif][SIZE=-1]Trench coat dress by Christopher Bailey for Burberry for spring and summer this year.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, San Serif][SIZE=-1]A jacket designed by Johnny Rotten and made by Vivienne Westwood.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, San Serif][SIZE=-1]A dress ensemble by Vivienne Westwood.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, San Serif][SIZE=-1]A dress by Charles Frederick Worth.
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, San Serif][SIZE=-1]A dress ensemble by Alexander McQueen from his 2002-2003 fall collection.[/SIZE][/FONT]
