TheGspotNYC

The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion

To continue my day @ the Met, I went to the Tisch Galleries. All excited and just expecting sooo much beauty in that exhibit. From different era and how fashion has evolved thru the years.

The ideas, the concept , inspiration.

But before you start reading the rest of this post go check this out, I remember one very strong scene from the "The Devil Wears Prada" on how Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) explained to her no-clue intern, Andy Sachs (Ann Hathaway) how fashion is just a no laughing matter.

Read this script, it is major fierce!

Miranda Priestly: [Miranda and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy sniggers because she thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?
Andy Sachs: No, no, nothing. Y'know, it's just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y'know, I'm still learning about all this stuff.
Miranda Priestly: This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

MAJOR FIERCE!

And now, onto the exhibit! HAHAHA.

As you enter the gallery, you are greeted by this: A re-creation of Richard Avedon's picture called Dovima with elephants.

The gown used here was Dior. 1955.

The Avedon photograph.

The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion:

To quote: "Exploring the reciprocal relationship between high fashion and evolving ideals of beauty, The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion focuses on iconic models of the twentieth century and their roles in projecting, and sometimes inspiring, the fashion of their respective eras. The exhibition, organized by historical period from 1947 to 1997, will feature haute couture and ready-to-wear masterworks accompanied by fashion photography and video footage of models who epitomized their epochs."

I am sure y'all have heard or seen pictures when the exhibit opened a few weeks ago with a  line up of guests that drew tremendous attention in the media, fashion and showbiz world.

Now, I am to witness all of this wonderful exhibit.

Irving Penn's - The 12 Most Photographed Models. New York

Vogue 1947

To quote: "When American women think of clothes, beauties like the twelve shown here are responsible for the way they think, the way they want to look, and the dollars they spend. These are the models whose elegant bones and immaculate heads appeared most often in the fashion photographs of the decade 1937-1947 -- subtle symbols of the clothing business, the third largest industry in America. Their faces are known to millions; their talents to the few that work closely with them. Each of these girls, professional to the fingertips, has besides looks a developed sense of the source of light and how to appraise her position in that light. For this picture, the group was loosely composed and each model fell instinctively into a characteristic attitude. Out of the twenty-nine shots made in an atmosphere of polite jockeying, this one seemed the best.

The group comprises, left to right: Meg Mundy, Marilyn Ambrose, Helen Bennett, Dana Jenney, Betty McLauchlen (on ladder), Lisa Fonssagrives, Lily Carlson, Dorian Leigh (on floor), Andrea Johnson (seated), Elisabeth Gibbons, Muriel Maxwell (in black) and Kay Hernan"

Fierce no?!?!

Another Richard Avedon photograph

Dorian Leigh in Piguet dress. Harper's Bazaar  August 1949

Prada

This floating-like collection was from 1988-1991 by Giorgio Sant'Angelo

The chic-est woman I have seen on crutches.

Helmut Newton's photograph of Nadja Auermann wearing Dolce & Gabbana and karl Lagerfeld for Chanel 1995

Vogue 1995.

A part of the gallery was devoted to the theme: Grunge, The Anti-model and A Return to Glamour

To quote: " dimly lit walls are splashed in raucously post-Basquiat graffiti devoted to the top models of the '90s - Stella! Kate! Linda!

The cheap-chic tableau is backed by the music of (who else?) Nirvana and features famous magazine covers and pictorials. One wall tellingly displays two adjacent photos: to the left, a group shot of early-'90s glamazons Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Tatjana Patiz.

To the right, Kate Moss, the underage, under-height, androgynous upstart who single-handedly sent them (and women with their slim but attainable size 6 dress sizes) to irrelevant pastures. No wonder they didn't pose together."

Drama?!?!?! The glamazons versus the tiny one.

A Dior collection by John Galliano. 2007.

I swear, it is just not enough to cover everything for this exhibit alone. There are times that I forgot I have a camera with me coz I was just mezmerized to all the things I saw.

Sooo beautiful....sooo grand...soo magnificent!

For a second I was just caught up just staring at a picture of Veruschka.

When a guy quipped. "now that's a way to hold a rifle". LOL

You hafta see and experience it! But this is my lil way of sharing it with you.

And as I exited the gallery, I checked out this little store that of course, sells everything about the exhibit.

So I bought a pair of tees in purple and in red as a token from that exhibit.

A limited edition Marc Jacobs for the Met tees.

The exhibit was oooh so fun! I'd go back again to see it again. Seriously.

0-sha!