Analogue Chic

If you’re traveling this summer, check out one of these fashion-related exhibits in the US and Europe.  If you know of any others, drop me a line, and I’ll add them here.  [Updated 6/6; 6/17; 7/12]

NYC

Metropolitan Museum, Costume Institute

May 5, 2010–August 15, 2010

American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity

[...] the first Costume Institute exhibition drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Met. It explores developing perceptions of the modern American woman from 1890 to 1940 and how they have affected the way American women are seen today. Focusing on archetypes of American femininity through dress, the exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sexual emancipation. "Gibson Girls," "Bohemians," and "Screen Sirens," among others, helped lay the foundation for today’s American woman.

Metropolitan Museum, Howard Gilman Gallery

June 8, 2010 – October 17, 2010

Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein’s New York Photographs, 1950–1980

Born in West Virginia in 1910, Levinstein moved to New York in 1946 and spent the next thirty-five years obsessively photographing strangers on the streets of his adopted home. Early in his career, Levinstein was quoted in Photography Annual 1955: "In my photographs I want to look at life—at the commonplace things as if I just turned a corner and ran into them for the first time." With daring and dedication to his subject, Levinstein captured the denizens of New York City at extremely close range. He used his superb sense of composition to frame the faces, flesh, poses, and movements of his fellow city dwellers in their myriad guises: sunbathers, young couples, children, businessmen, beggars, prostitutes, proselytizers, society ladies, and characters of all stripes.

Hartford, Connecticut

The Wadsworth Atheneum

The Upholstered Woman: Women’s Fashions of the 1870s and 1880s

Part I: Women’s Fashions of the 1870s
April 22 – September 12, 2010

Part II: Women’s Fashions of 1880-1885
November 10, 2010 – March 20, 2011

Part III: Women’s Fashions of 1885-1890
April 13 – September 4, 2011

The prosperity of the middle and upper classes in Post-Civil War America, along with technological developments in machine sewing, weaving, lace making, and pattern drafting, created a fashion for elaborately embellished women’s garments. Like the deeply tufted and carved furniture of the late Victorian era, dresses were closely fitted, draped with contrasting fabrics, and trimmed with a myriad of furbelows, including fringe, ribbons and braid, lace, faux flowers and pearls.

Charlotte, North Carolina

The Mint Museum

Apr 25, 2009 – Sun, Jan 30, 2011

The Heights of Fashion: Platform Shoes Then and Now

The Heights of Fashion highlights 60 examples of platform footwear from the 1930s – the present.
Fashionable platform shoes appeared in Europe and the United States in the 1930s and 1940s but the popularity of platforms in the 1970s reached far greater heights and lingered far longer.

Also on exhibit: The Art of Affluence: Haute Couture and Luxury Fashions, 1947-2007

Nashville, Tennessee

Frist Center for the Visual Arts

June 18 – September 12, 2010

The Golden Age of Couture

In addition to Dior, the exhibition highlights the work of such luminary Paris designers as Cristóbal Balenciaga, Hubert de Givenchy, and Pierre Balmain and celebrated London designers including Hardy Amies, Charles Creed, and Norman Hartnell. Included are examples of daywear, cocktail dresses, and evening gowns designed for royalty and aristocracy. Photographs by Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn show how images in fashion magazines enhanced the prestige of couture, while also making its innovative ideas widely known and accessible in America as well as Europe.

London, UK

Victoria & Albert Museum

April 17 – September 26, 2010

Grace Kelly: Style Icon

This exhibition shows the spectacular wardrobe of Grace Kelly, one of the most popular actresses of the 1950s. Featuring dresses from her films including High Society and Rear Window, as well as the gown she wore to accept her Oscar in 1955, the display will examine Grace Kelly’s glamorous Hollywood image and enduring appeal.

It will also explore the evolution of her style as Princess Grace of Monaco, from the outfit she wore to her first meeting with Prince Rainier in 1955 to her haute couture gowns of the 1960s and ’70s by her favourite couturiers Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy and Yves St Laurent.

Paris, France

Le Petit Palais

March 11 – August 29, 2010

Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective

This exhibition presents a sweeping panorama of Yves Saint Laurent’s forty years of creativity. It is organised thematically, offering a selection of 307 haute couture and ready-towear garments, together with photographs, drawings and films.