Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute Salutes Power of “Superheroes?

Wednesday, 24 October 2007 00:05

New York City - As superheroes enjoy a surge in mass popularity not seen since the golden age of comic books in the 1940s, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will explore the symbolic and metaphorical associations between these fictional characters and fashion in Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, an exhibition at the Museum from May 7 through September 1, 2008.

The exhibition will feature approximately 70 ensembles including movie costumes, avant-garde haute couture, and high-performance sportswear to reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body.

To celebrate the opening of the exhibition, the Museum's Costume Institute Gala Benefit will take place on Monday, May 5, 2008. Giorgio Armani will serve as Honorary Chair of the Gala. Co-Chairs will be actor George Clooney; actress Julia Roberts; and Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue.

The exhibition, in the Museum’s first-floor special exhibition galleries, will include movie costumes as well as radical fashions that literally and figuratively reference superhero iconography, including Bernhard Willhelm’s 2006 royal blue dress emblazoned with a red-and-yellow “S” emblem, a 1996 Walter van Beirendonck pink vinyl inflatable jacket, and a John Galliano for Christian Dior Haute Couture corset and bikini bottom from his 2001 “Wonder Woman” collection. A Hussein Chalayan Airplane dress with battery-operated moveable flaps shares the Flash’s streamlined aerodynamics. Also included is an array of second-skin body suits for extreme sports, as well as luminous, glow-in-the-dark clothing.

Other designers in the exhibition include Giorgio Armani, Balenciaga, Pierre Cardin, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rudi Gernreich, Givenchy, Eiko Ishioka, House of Harlot, Michiko Koshino, Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, Moschino, Nike, Gareth Pugh, Paco Rabanne, Jeremy Scott, Speedo, and Three As Four.

Objects will be organized thematically around specific superheroes, whose movie costumes and superpowers will be catalysts for discussion of key concepts of superheroism and their expression in fashion. Superman and Spiderman costumes will address the subject of The Graphic Body, relating Superman’s ‘S’ chevron to designer logos and branding. Batman and Cat Woman will represent The Fetishistic Body – their sexually charged costumes have inspired a variety of PVC, rubber, and leather fashions. The stars and stripes of Wonder Woman’s uniform, a composite of the American flag, epitomize The Patriotic Body and designs that appropriate patriotic emotions implicit in the character. The Hulk, a metaphor for male potency, will introduce a section on The Phallic Body, which includes inflatable clothing that swells to exaggerate the male physique.

The Flash – a character who possesses superhuman speed -- will address the Aerodynamic Body as manifest in high-tech sportswear such as Nike’s “Swift Suit” and Speedo’s “Fastskin Suit,” which enhance athletic performance in sprinters and swimmers respectively. Iron Man’s costume will represent The “Mechatronic” Body, and examine avant-garde fashion that combines mechanical and electronic components.

The exhibition is organized by Andrew Bolton, Curator, with the support of Harold Koda, Curator in Charge, both of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute.

A book, Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, will accompany the exhibition, and will feature an introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. The book will also be excerpted on the Museum’s website.

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