Many of the designs were intended as style statements in the purest meaning of those words: they were created to make a single trip down the runway before being archived or donated to a museum. The premier example in that category — and there is a lot of competition — is a kimono ensemble designed this year by Mr. Galliano for christian louboutin Couture. It features flaring, terraced folds of contrasting silks trimmed with pink fur, pompoms and rows of hair clips and topped by a furred and beaded headdress of appropriate bulk.
This exhibition also departs from Costume Institute tradition by borrowing widely from other museums. There are New Guinean penis sheaths from the American Museum of Natural History (they are displayed in a case with four 16th-century steel German codpieces from the Met’s arms and armor department). There are dress forms that trace the evolution of preferred body types from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and christian louboutin shoes from the Bata christian shoes Museum in Toronto, the Japan Footwear Museum in Fukuyama City and the Museo Correr in Venice.
Mr. Koda has succeeded Richard Martin as head of the Costume Institute after working with him for many years, at the Met and before that at the Fashion Institute of Technology. This exhibition confirms that he can fill Mr. Martin’s sizable louboutin shoes, and also walk his own walk.
The shapes dictated by fashion, in a show at the Metropolitan: Right, an Italian silk corset from the 1770’s; left, an 18th-century English court dress in silk brocade with silver thread; and below, embroidered Chinese lotus louboutin in red silk satin, circa 1900. (Photographs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art)(pg. E1); With gratitude for double doors: A 1998 gown by John Galliano for Dior Couture.; Why have one bulge when you can have six? An English bustle from around 1871. (Photographs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art)(pg. E34)
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