By Deenah Shutzer.
When Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols, penned the lyrics “I am an anti-Christ/I am an anarchist” in 1977, I doubt he envisioned that this punk ethos would wind up enshrined in The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an exhibition on high-fashion.
PUNK: Chaos to Couture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, image courtesy of galleristny.com
Similarly, if I described an outfit comprised of a ripped shirt, safety-pinned pants, and a trash-bag coat, you probably wouldn’t guess I was talking about clothes designed by Balenciaga, Versace, or Dolce & Gabana. The core philosophies of the punk movement in the 1970s and the world of couture seem to be inherently and inevitably at odds: punks eschew consumerism and deeply entrenched societal structures, while high fashion relies on the ever-eager consumer and is so prohibitively priced that it excludes all but the elite upper echelon of society.
Photo of Sid Vicious by Dennis Morris in 1977, image courtesy of flavorwire.com
Well, all you crusty Clash purists and waifish Dior darlings: be prepared. You have much more in common than you think. PUNK: Chaos to Couture, curated by Andrew Bolton for the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, brings to light the ideological similarities that tie these seemingly opposite forces together. Though punks have forged their identity by bucking the system, they aren’t the only ones. The fashion industry has been built on pushing boundaries, often using equal parts ingenuity and shock value, in everything from taste to advertisements to materials. Can you even imagine how many grannies keeled over right out of their rockers in 1946 when Louis Réard put what was essentially a bra and panties on a model and called it swimwear?
The fashion industry has continuously pushed the envelope to redefine what is socially acceptable. It even ventures into political territory with ever-present, overt statements about the fluidity of the seemingly fixed status quo. Though the offensive graphic t-shirts and torn-up clothing of the punk-aesthetic may not seem to fit into the world of haute-couture, the revolutionary ideas that brought them both to life are actually overwhelmingly similar.
poster for the exhibit, image courtesy of www.metmuseum.org
As the name of the exhibit suggests, the viewer is taken on a progressive journey through five galleries. We start in the gritty, chaotic beginnings of punk conveyed via fashion statement, then discover its nascent influence on couture design, and finally end with the complete unification of the two worlds. The first gallery tackles the origins of punk by focusing on the emerging scenes in New York and London between 1974–5. In the next four galleries, Bolton stresses the concept of D.I.Y., a mentality propagated by punks and later embraced by designers for its celebration of new and unique creations rather than buying replicated fashions from large-scale retail companies.
Vivienne Westwood, image courtesy of pdd.co.uk
In a nod to the UK, the first gallery includes a recreation of the interior of Vivienne Westwood’s Seditionaries boutique (or just “SEX” as you call it if you’re with the in-crowd), which became infamous for selling bondage gear and obscene t-shirts (think: a woman’s bare chest or two pantsless cowboys). To give equal representation to punk’s American roots, the other side of the room displays a recreation of the graffiti-covered interior of a bathroom in New York’s CBGB nightclub.
the exhibit's recreation of a CBGB bathroom circa 1975, image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In the center of this tale of two cities, an elevated platform displays Vivienne Westwood’s Clothes for Heroes designs, a collection of silver studs, plaid pants, and ripped muslin shirts that, for the first time in the mid-1970s, defined and solidified the punk aesthetic. The atmosphere of the room is primarily dictated by a large screen playing slow-motion footage of Jordan, the original Seditionaries shop girl and Westwood muse, while clips of songs from the Sex Pistols blare overhead. Aside from paying respect to these two iconic punk hang-outs, the first gallery shows us how the punk style of dress, perhaps unknowingly, became a means of outwardly expressing political ideas and economic status and eventually turned into—block your ears, Patti Smith—an infectiously popular way of making a personal statement.
After leaving the world of Seditionaries and CBGB, the next room transforms into a long catwalk-esque hallway displaying couture gowns organized around the theme “D.I.Y. Hardware.” At first, the transition from taboo t-shirts to dresses designed by Givenchy and Moschino is a bit jarring, but as you move from piece to piece, the elements that tie these two galleries together become apparent. “D.I.Y. Hardware” refers to the fashion industry’s half-way embrace of the punk-aesthetic by using small elements or trimmings in their designs. It’s more of a homage than an immersion.
Versace dress, image courtesy of eclechick.com
In this gallery, you are able to take in a black Versace dress with large gold safety pins holding together the front and back and a Moschino gown with a design made of staples on the front and silver-studded black gloves to accessorize, all the while listening to looped recordings of various punk heroes speaking about anarchy and self-expression. This gallery, the calmest of all, is where the viewer is able to process this transition from the chaotic world of punk to the elite, meticulous world of some of the most influential fashion houses in history.
image courtesy of fashion.telegraph.co.uk
The next gallery hones in on “D.I.Y. Bricolage” (literally the construction of something from whatever is on hand and immediately available) and feels like the most fully immersive room of the exhibit. The loud singing of Poly Styrene from English punk band X-Ray Spex combined with the pulsing imagery of onstage performances by Wayne County and the Electric Chairs pull the viewer into a world where fashion and punk finally fully collide to be equally represented as one. This gallery is filled with designs that draw on punk’s use of recycled material and trash as a commentary on consumerism and class. Mannequins with black or white spiked wigs line the walls and centerpiece, donning full-length gowns made entirely of trash bags, structured skirts of old bottle caps, and necklaces of broken plates. But somehow, despite all that, the pieces truly look like haute-couture and, as a result, this room is where Bolton’s focus on the concepts of “made-to-measure” vs. “do-it-yourself” is best illuminated.
The last two galleries tackle the themes of “D.I.Y. Agitprop,” or agitation propaganda (you probably guessed that), where questioning and threatening t-shirt slogans and graffiti reign, and finally, “D.I.Y. Destroy,” or the influence of deconstruction on high fashion. This is where Bolton may have lost his narrative arc a bit, or at least watered it down.
To begin with, certain pieces in the “Agitprop” make the room look like a modern novelty shop. Protest T-shirts declaring “Save our Sea” and “58% Don’t Want Pershing”—sentiments that seem to be more about protest in general than punk causes specifically—and mannequins with neon wigs and dresses, ostensibly to signify the graffiti culture of punk, line the walls.
"Agitprop" from PUNK: Couture to Chaos, image courtesy of decadesinc.blogspot.com
All of these associations are based on much looser notions of what punk ideology is, and therefore, don’t serve to explicate the ideological basis of the exhibit. The “D.I.Y. Destroy” gallery is meant to demonstrate punk’s influence on deconstructionism in fashion—the practice of challenging long-held ideas about how clothing should be constructed and how beauty should be perceived by using exposed seams, ripped edges, and faded fabrics to give an unfinished appearance to pieces. Seems like a pretty punk idea, huh? While it certainly fits within the exhibit’s concept and adds a new layer to the now-convincing idea that punk and fashion actually have a lot in common, this room actually felt a little lacking. Though the pieces were interesting, they didn’t really say something new but felt more like a continuation of the Clothes for Heroes display in the first gallery.
A piece by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren from the exhibit, image courtesy of northjersey.com
Despite this, the exhibit still manages to end on a high note with one last glorious mannequin that dons nothing but a hot pink wig and a black harness around the waist and shoulders, proudly flipping the bird to appropriately (and quickly) usher the viewer out of the room.
As someone who went through her own Clash phase in high school, I actually surprised myself by walking out of this exhibit thinking, “Hmmm…not bad.” Before arriving, my inner pre-teen scoffed at the whole idea of this collection and presumed that, at best, it could only be incredibly out of place at The Met (my inner pre-teen wears way too much eyeliner, by the way). But in spite of my jaded assumptions, Bolton and the Costume Institute did an impressive job of linking two seemingly un-linkable worlds. They just might have more in common than either party would ever care to admit. So despite my initial railings and nostalgic pessimism, I have to say it really is a job well done. But please, no one tell Debby Harry I said so.
Details
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/punk
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