Next Stop: Met Gala
- rizzyroseco
- Sep 10, 2017
- 3 min read
Fashion week is here, school is in full swing, I finally saw the Met Costume Institute exhibition, and I am one happy gal. Last weekend I took the afternoon train into the city to see my aunt and uncle with the only plans being to have lunch, go to the Met, and take the evening train back to South Orange. I am no expert on the city, but if I have learned one characteristic, it is that the city has a way of leading oneself to unexpected and unplanned places culminating into one fabulous adventure. My adventure so happened to include eating the best apple pie in the world, strolling through Central Park, running through the Upper East Side in the rain at night, and ending with a quiet, cozy morning in Brooklyn.
Before heading over to The Met we stumbled upon Dover Street Market. Dover Street Market in on Lexington Ave, and it is a seven story building with each floor displaying well known designers and up-and-coming designers' ready-to-wear collections. Every floor has its own theme and built in a way that can only be described as an upscale fashion labyrinth. Of course, it is only fitting that Rei Kawakubo herself founded the Dover Street Market, so I was very intrigued in viewing and comparing her ready-to-wear collection at the Dover Street Market versus her exhibit at The Met.
The Met is such a beautiful place to get lost in, and that has been what has ended up happening to me the two times I have visited. Ever since I first learned about the Met Gala and the Costume Institute exhibition about five years ago, I knew I had to go. From watching the documentary The First Monday in May and the famous red carpet every year and reading articles about the exhibition in the New York Times and Vogue, I have become completely captivated by and fell in love with everything and everyone involved within it. This year’s exhibition was unique because it was the first time the Costume Institute dedicated the entire exhibition to a single designer. Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garçons Art of the In-Between was an exhibition like no other. “Art of the In-Between” was a perfect title because Kawakubo definitely blurs the areas of art and fashion and blends them into one. The exhibition featured pieces from her 198-84 Spring/Summer collection all the way to her Autumn/Winter 2017-18 collection. Each section was set apart by a white abstract cubicle, and labeled by antonyms: “Absence/Presence”, “War/Peace”, “Clothes/Not Clothes.”. In regards to these collections the official exhibition pamphlet says, “It reveals how her designs occupy the spaces between these dualities - which have come to be seen as natural rather than social or cultural.” The word “natural” is used so accurately because Kawakubo’s designs are so raw that one can not relate them to anything but one’s own beliefs and personal experiences. In Kawakubo’s own words she says, “My clothes and the spaces they inhabit are inseparable… They convey the same vision, the same message, the same sense of values.” I feel so thankful that I was finally able to see the Costume Institute’s exhibit, and I hope it’s a yearly tradition that will follow in the years to come. One day I will get to the Met Gala, but for now I am perfectly content with treasuring my first visit to the exhibition with two people who are so special to me.
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