Superheros at the Met

When I was younger I read comics constantly. My dad had this great collection of comics from back when the women in comics looked like this:

not like this:

and would therefore have been spared crippling back pain. One of the many things that led me to stop reading comics was the fact that I would look at the costumes and bodies of these women and think, "wow, I'm really not the target audience for this am I?" Granted, a more significant reason was the crappy writing and plotting, but the art was definitely a problem as well. Still, I have an abiding interest in the comic book superhero and his/her place in pop culture so I was totally excited about going to see the Met Costume Institute's exhibition, Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.

The exhibition was simultaneously interesting and disappointing. It was fun to see the costumes from various movies, including the recent Iron Man and some of the fashion displayed was interesting to look at. But it wasn't what I was hoping for. Most of the fashion on exhibit was very literal in the way it used the superhero influences. The pieces mostly looked like costumes, not clothing. I would have liked to see more subtle, wearable influences. It would have made a better case for cross-pollination between superhero comics and fashion and the place of superheroes--or rather the place of ideas about superheroes--within our culture. As is it just seems like a fun chance to display some interesting costumes.

Celestino

I got to go to a clothing exhibition today for a couture line called Celestino. If there was a Web site I'd link you to it, but there doesn't appear to be. It was very interesting, which goes to show that it's good to have friends who are a) cooler than you and b) in fields that have interesting things like this going on. Apparently an exhibition just means that the clothes are on mannequins instead of on models who walk down a runway. I didn't even know they did this (unsurprising since I know virtually nothing about fashion). Kind of nice, actually, since it gives you plenty of time to look at the clothes. Like an art gallery for clothing. While the experience itself was fun, what made it even better was that the clothes were gorgeous.

It seemed OK to take pictures, and I took a few with my cell to show my roommate, so I've posted a couple little ones here so that you can get an idea of just how nice the clothing was. Unfortunately, because they're just crappy cell phone pictures that aren't even really in focus, you won't see how detailed and well made they are. Hopefully doing this is alright, because I wouldn't want to do something that's not alright, but I felt silly nattering on about clothes without being able to show people what I was talking about. Suffice it to say, while you can tell that it's pretty clothing even in my poor pictures, this stuff is far lovelier in reality than it looks here.

If I could afford to spend $2000-$3000 on a dress (which I so so so cannot), this is totally the sort of clothing I'd want to wear.

Poiret

My 13-year-old cousin stayed with me Saturday evening to Sunday evening, and I think it went well. She's going through a rough time family-wise at that moment through no fault of her own, so I wanted her to have a nice time. One of the things we did, at my boss's suggestion, was go to see the Poiret exhibit currently going on at the Met. Interestingly, in an exhibiition hall on the ground floor, off the new Greek and Roman galleries, as opposed to in the Costume Institute space.

I actually read about Poiret fairly recently in the New Yorker which was good as my cousing travels through museum exhibits much more quickly than I do, so I didn't have time to do all the reading and slow looking that I normally do. It also meant I didn't have anyone to chat to while looking. I wanted to say un-witty things like, "my god, you'd need to be an absolute stick to look ok with a roll of fabric on your hips," and, "that coat would make a normal person look like a tank." Then again, it's hardly news that if one is going to wear something with very little structure they ought to be quite thin.

Still, the work I liked best was that which still had a real shape to it, while not going to far into the "oriental" look he was so influenced by. While the Met did a nice job of presenting his innovations, particularly in showing through projected images how some of the clothing was draped, I think you still came away--or at least I still came away--feeling as though you were looking at costumes. For all the practicality of getting rid of restrictive undergarments, the clothing still doesn't feel as though it would work for your typical woman. Then again, I suppose that's why his popularity declined once women became more active.

Still, one has to applaud that kind of devotion to beauty, even if it doesn't seem like clothing that is as functional as one might hope. Of course, the dresses Poiret was replacing don't scream functional either.

Beyond that, my cousin and I rented some movies, ate out, and did the whole girly manicure/pedicure thing. It didn't rain as it was supposed to, but it was nevertheless to hot to go for the long walk I normally would have liked. I don't quite know why being out in the sun is so draining, although I'm sure there's some kind of biologic reason for it. So now I'm home, typing away with one of the cats sacked out on my lap and enjoying the quiet. I love having a roommate and have not been liking this only-person-in-the-apartment thing generally, but I do have to admit as much as I prefer living with people, and as much as I liked having my cousin visit, tonight I'm really enjoying the peace and quiet of having the place to myself.