REVIEW: THE MET'S SLEEPING BEAUTIES

Some sublime treasures can't quite make up for a convoluted theme. Plus, some of my favorite pieces from the show.

A dramatic 1930 wedding ensemble created by Callot Soeurs.

I have a confession. More often than not, when The Met’s Costume Institute announces its major spring exhibition and that exhibition centers on a thematic premise versus the work of a singular designer, I usually wince. Since Andrew Bolton’s tenure as head curator, I’ve found these intellectual exercises largely . . . muddled. There’s always a fascinating nugget of an idea at the center, but that typically gets outshone by excesses and ideological tangents that are, frankly, confounding. And that was once again the case with 2024’s just-opened show.

Let’s start by hearing from the horse’s mouth what this show purports to be about. According to the Costume Institute:

Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, reactivates the sensory capacities of masterworks in the Museum’s collection through first-hand research, conservation analysis, and diverse technologies — from cutting-edge tools of artificial intelligence and computer-generated imagery to traditional formats of x-rays, video animation, light projection, and soundscapes.

When an item of clothing enters the Costume Institute collection, its status is changed forever. What was once a vital part of a person’s life is now a motionless ‘artwork’ that can no longer be worn or heard, touched, or smelled. This exhibition reanimates these objects, helping us experience them as they were originally intended—with vibrancy, dynamism, and life.

The exhibition features approximately 220 garments and accessories spanning four centuries, all visually connected through themes of nature, which also serves as a metaphor for the transience of fashion . . . Punctuating the galleries will be a series of “sleeping beauties” – garments that can no longer be dressed on mannequins due to their extreme fragility.

Two 'sleeping beauties' in the exhibition. LEFT: Mariano Fortuny 'Delphos' dress, c. 1920; RIGHT: Charles James 'Butterfly' gown, 1955.

Ok, let’s start with that nugget of an idea that works. There is an undeniable ephemerality to fashion that is ripe for exploration. As clothes are worn, they become an extension of the wearer. That wearer begins to associate certain garments with specific life events and dormant sense memories, often while imparting their individual scent and other traces of their life back onto the clothes. However careful, the wearing of clothes leads to their material degradation, forcing them to become untouchable artifacts given enough time. That is fascinating, particularly when it comes to very old garments cloistered away in museums.

Now, here’s where things begin to go astray. Much of the publicity around this show – and even its title – focuses on the almost frightening fragility of corroding, century-old garments and accessories housed in the museum’s vast permanent collection, the so-called ‘Sleeping Beauties.’ In practice, this concept bleeds at the edges, somehow coming to encompass *any* garment or accessory in the museum collection by virtue that they can never be worn again, including designs created within the last five years that do not possess any notable inherent vice. Muddled.

This is all made more perplexing by the chosen throughline of nature. On the surface, it makes good enough sense – the ebb and flow of the natural world as a sort of parallel for the changing tides of fashion and the inherently delicate constitution of its wares. But why is it even necessary? This exhibition already had a potentially compelling thesis that connected the extant examples included. Sprinkling a bevy of floral garments everywhere does not do anything to meaningfully support that thesis. Well, besides making Loewe’s pay-for-play inclusion even more painfully obvious. (Loewe is a corporate sponsor of this year’s exhibition – and it made its presence known from beginning to end.) And florals for spring? You know the rest.

A masterpiece of an evening bag rendered in natural shell and metal by Judith Leiber, 1976.

All that said, there were some truly astonishing pieces in the winding presentation. Judith Leiber Couture evening bags made from real, delicate sea shells had my jaw on the floor. Ditto for an increasingly threadbare Butterfly gown by Charles James and the gleaming high-necked evening dress of razor clam shells crafted by Alexander McQueen. I left wondering why works of this quality apparently weren’t enough.

One couldn’t be blamed for thinking that perhaps this all boils down to reports that this show was a swap for an axed Galliano retrospective. Perhaps that last-minute change is true. But given the museum’s recent history of missteps, I feel certain that’s not the only culprit at play.

For those who won’t be able to make it to The Met or who are uncertain as to whether or not they should attend, here are a few more of my favorite things I came across (regardless of whether or not I think they appropriately fit the theme):

Yves Saint Laurent’s embroidered couture evening jacket inspired by Van Gogh’s ‘Irises,’ 1988.

Alexander McQueen’s dress of layered razor clam shells, 2000.

A delicate Judith Leiber evening bag made from natural shell and gold-tone metal, 1978.

An evening dress of black silk tulle embroidered with black sequins in a swallow pattern, 1938.

An ethereal, sculpted chiffon dress with a graphic aquatic print from Alexander McQueen’s last show, 2010.

The bodice of a Charles James ‘Tulip’ dress, 1949.