By Ed Avis
When most NCA members think of costumes, they think of the outfits kids wear at Halloween or actors put on before the curtain goes up. But the word has a broader definition, of course, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York demonstrates that with an exhibition in the new Condé M. Nast Galleries.
The exhibition has been organized by the Costume Institute, which is the fashion curatorial department of the Met. The Costume Institute’s collection, which previously was housed in the basement, includes over 33,000 garments and accessories.
For this exhibition, titled Costume Art, the Institute has juxtaposed 200 garments from its collection with 200 artworks from the Met’s collection. According to the press release announcing the event, it “not only illuminates the indivisible connection between clothing and the body but also the complex interplay between artistic representations of the body and fashion as an embodied artform.”
The exhibition will run until January 10, 2027. Click here to learn more: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/costume-art