"Costume Art" at the Met

Rafaello Monti's "The Veiled Woman"
and John Galliano's Ensemble

The Costume Art exhibit now on at the Met is beyond fabulous. The exhibit showcases garments that date "from prehistory to the present," most of which are from the Met's extensive collection. (In case you're wondering -- as I was -- the term "prehistory" means the period before people left written records.) While this would be a terrific show in and of itself, what puts it over the top is the pairing of the costumes with other objects and works of art. 

Take, for instance, Rafaello Monti's sculpture of "The Veiled Woman" circa 1854 and John Galliano's "Ensemble" from Maison Marciela's autumn/winter 2020-2021 haute couture collection. The pairing is situated by a beautiful headless sculpture whose details I neglected to note. In my defense, there is a lot going on in this exhibit. 

These artworks features "wet drapery," a term for this clinging form of dress. Think of it as the ancient equivalent of a wet t-shirt contest. The sculptural style dates back to ancient Greece circa 5th century BC, a time when it was deemed inappropriate to fully reveal a woman's body in a work of art. Today there's much less concern about that, but wet drapery lives on. Click here to see Kendall Jenner rocking the style at the most recent Met Gala, an event that funds the work of the Costume Institute. The dress wouldn't be easy to dance in, but I don't think that was her priority.

Gown by Yahji Yamamoto, "Corazon, Corazon" by Nahum B. Zenil
and "Ensemble" by Daniel Roseberry (House of Schiaparelli)

How about a little color to perk things up?  Shown here are, from left to right, Yahji Yamamoto's red silk crepe de chine dress from the spring/summer 2005 collection, "Corazon, Corazon" by Nahum B. Zenil (1981), and Daniel Roseberry's "Ensemble" from Schiaparelli's autumn/winter 2025-26 haute couture collection. The necklace complementing the Schiaparelli is made of silver brass and red Swarovski crystals. 

You might notice -- I didn't at the time -- that the head and the arms of the mannequin wearing the Schiaparelli are positioned backwards. What's with that? Schiaparelli is known for merging haute couture with surrealism. A distant bell is now ringing in my head about a Schiaparelli exhibit at the Dali in St. Pete, which you can read about by clicking here. Her work -- and that of her studio assistants -- has always been fabulous. 

Yamamoto is best known for his oversized silhouettes, heavy use of black and avant garde tailoring. So we're only batting .333 here. The description of this gown notes that "the accordion-like folds...oscillate between compression and release, akin to a pulse." Huh. I could have stood there forever and never gotten that analogy. But this interpretation of the gown makes sense in the context of Zenil's painting, with his self-portrait embedded in a human heart. In fact, the Spanish word for "heart" is "corazon;" hence, the name of the work. The curators must have had a blast coming up with these groupings. 

Roman cuirass paired with chest coat and waist coat by YSL

I'll leave you with perhaps the most striking pairing in the exhibit. On the left is an Etruscan anatomical vest of sorts known as a cuirass, late 5th-4th century BCE. Beautiful as it is, the bronze piece of armor would have been worn in battle. Interestingly, the cuirass has inlaid copper nipples and what might even be a belly button. This version lacks the six pack that many cuirasses exhibit. The idea was to create something that mimicked a warrior's idealized body. The armor would have been made specifically for the warrior who would wear it and would have sat above his hips to allow freedom of movement. 

This cuirass is paired with a stunning gilt and galvanized copper chest coat and waist coat by Claude Lalanne for Yves Saint Laurent. Lalanne is best known as an artist and sculptor, which explains why these coats are made from gilt and copper rather than fabric. The work is known as a "body sculpture," and the components were cast from the body of supermodel Verushka.YSL said of Claude's creations that "her beautiful sculptor's hands seem to push back the mystery to reach the shores of art." 

Claude Lalanne Chest and Waist Coats on the runway (2022)

It's hard to resist going into a deep live about Lalanne, who created art under the name "Les Lalanne" with her husband Francois-Xavier. The duo are perhaps best known in the world of art for their sculptures of sheep, which you can see by clicking here. I've seen their sheep somewhere along the way in my museum travels, and they are great fun. They don't, however, compare to the beauty of this fashion. For more on Les Lalanne, click here.

With that, I'll leave you with an exhortation not to miss this exhibit if you are in the New York area. If that's not in the cards, you learn see more from the show by clicking here.