Tonight marks the night of the Party of the Year, The annual Costume Institude Gala Benefit which takes place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. The event will be hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Patrick Robinson of the Gap and Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue. This event will also launch the American Woman exhibition at the Met which runs from May 5th – August 15th, and explored the various perceptions of the modern American woman from 1890 to 1940 through fashion and time. This exhibit is said to reflect how the American woman created her image based on various social and political changes through those years. All of these various looks and styles, which have helped to shape the character of today’s American woman.
“American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity”, is a must see if you can, this is the first exhibit founded on a luxurious collection of gowns from the Brooklyn Museum costume collection, which have been at the Met since 2009. There will be over 80 designer dresses and gowns on display, most of them have not been seen by the public in more than three decades.
Excerpt below from: NewFashionNews.com
“The exhibition will be laid out as a series of time capsules, with visitors strolling through circular galleries. The first gallery, for example, filled with extravagant gowns by Charles Frederick Worth, will evoke the ballroom of the “Heiress” of the 1890s. In another, outdoor scenes will underscore the physicality and independence of the “Gibson Girl”.
Archival film footage will reveal the gradual emancipation of women from the time of World War 1, alongside their typical wardrobes, while a gallery resembling a 1930s cinema will showcase the second-skin, bias-cut gowns (the first body con dresses?) designed for the stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, including a dress designed by Travis Banton for Anna May Wong, in the 1934 film, Limehouse Blues.
The final gallery will feature projected images of American woman from 1890 to the present day.
Designers featured in the exhibition include Gabrielle Chanel, Madame Grès, Charles James, Jeanne Lanvin, Liberty & Company, Edward Molyneux, Paul Poiret, Elsa Schiaparelli, Valentina and Madeleine Vionnet.
The exhibition, organised by the Costume Institute’s Andrew Bolton, curator, with Harold Koda, curator-in-charge, will be celebrated with a “night of the stars” Gala Benefit, co-chaired by Oprah Winfrey, Patrick Robinson, the designer for Gap, and Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue, at the Met Museum, on Monday May 3rd. “
I wish I was in New York, I would love to go check this out at some point. Look very interesting. Check out some of the images we were able to find online.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue (Eighties & Above)
New York, NY 10028 United States
Tel. 212 650 7710
Hours
Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-9:00 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays-Thursdays 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building: December 28, 2009; January 18, February 15, May 31, 2010 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed
Admissions
Adults: $15.00
Children: $10.00
Seniors: $10.00
*Photo by Kyle Ericksen
