FASHION Magazine

Judged either by the vulgar mathematics of marketing or by higher, more refined artistic standards, fashion exhibitions are flourishing. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, a show that ran at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2011, attracted 661,509 visitors, making it one of the 10 most popular attractions in the Met’s 143-year history, right up there with the Treasures of Tutankhamun and the Mona Lisa.

Besides scoring big numbers, the show also ranked high on a scale of aesthetic satisfaction. “It was really about an artist who spoke very emotionally through his work,” says Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, who saw it three times and speaks of it as “the most extraordinary fashion exhibition I’ve seen.”

In 2013, the exhibition boom continues. Steele and her curatorial team tackle an explosive subject with Queer Style, opening at FIT next September. The first major show to explore the gay influence on fashion, it’s been a long time coming, but its arrival this year seems thrillingly on-trend, 2013 having got rolling with an inaugural address in which U.S. President Obama gave a shout-out to Stonewall and a showing of Chanel haute couture that concluded with lesbian brides.

And transgressive seems to be trending. Costumes worn by rock music’s great gender bender are featured in David Bowie is, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (March 23 to July 28).

Last night on livestream, when one Met Gala-goer after another swore they were only really wearing that $50,000 look to the Oscars of fashion so they could sneak-peek “Impossible Conversations,” I almost believed them. The Metropolitan Museum’s daring pairing of a designer exhibit is that good: Schiaparelli, meet Prada; Prada, meet Schiaparelli. Hello, two most […]

The post We share first impressions of the Impossible Conversations exhibit and ask: Are you a Prada or a Schiap? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Yesterday, we reported that Miuccia Prada was not too pleased about her upcoming retrospective with Elsa Schiaparelli at the Met. The designer was quoted by WWD as saying the exhibit was “too formal” and that the pairing of her and Schiaparelli was odd considering they were “total opposite[s].”

Now Prada has been doing some serious damage control, with a rep for the company telling Fashionista that the designer’s comments were taken out of context:

When we first reported in October about the Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli exhibit to open at the Met, our minds went wild with thoughts of how the institute would connect the two. Well, Miuccia Prada is now raining on our little trompe l’oeil parade.

Prada is not enthusiastic about sharing the spotlight with Schiaparelli, to say the least. She complained to WWD, “It’s too formal. They are focused on similarities, comparing feather with feather, ethnic with ethnic, but they are not taking into consideration that we are talking about two different eras, and that [Schiaparelli and I] are total opposite […] I told them, but they don’t care.”

Different eras? Sure. Total opposite? Not entirely. Both experiment(ed) with Surrealism, escapism, fantasy, and visual trickery. To boot, both could easily be considered the artistes of their era. From where we sit, the Met exhibit sounds promising enough, and we can only hope that Prada has a change of attitude before the start of the exhibit on May 7.

Sweet, sweet, surrealist joy. The Met’s Costume Institute has confirmed next spring’s mega exhibit, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion, set to run from May 10 through August 19, 2012. As we originally reported in August, the exhibit will focus on the connections between the two Italian designers who, while working in completely different eras, share proclivities for the oddball, uncanny, and arty—Schiaparelli with her ’30s collabs with Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, and Prada with her ongoing relationships with some of today’s best known architects, artists, and foundations.

By Gillian Pryor

After making an unofficial statement on Friday, Balmain has just officially announced that Olivier Rousteing will take over from Christophe Decarnin. Here’s to guessing what the new era of Balmania will look like! [Nymag]