It's Showtime, Part II

Two fun costume exhibitions this fall are happening at the Met and, of all places, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. One would expect a great show at the Met's Costume Institute, but a costume collection at a museum dedicated to all things Ford? American Style and Spirit draws from an amazing collection unearthed from the attic of a "chic but thrifty lumber scion named Augusta Roddis, known as Gussie, who died at 94 six years ago."* 

https://www.thehenryford.org/current-events/calendar/american-style-and-spirit-exhibit/. This exhibition spans 130 years of American style. The collection covers everything from 19th c. ballgowns to 20th c. couture.

American Style and Spirit

Then, 500 miles away at the Met,Masterwoks: Unpacking Fashion, http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016/masterworks opened Nov. 18, and features significant acquisitions of the past 10 years. The Costume Institute has honed its collection to reflect only the finest in costume aesthetics, and to feature those designers who have advanced fashion as art.

Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion

Alexander McQueen Armadillo Boots

A Cynthia Textile Vignette

Silk Dupioni

 A young designer sits in her small atelier outside Rome, creating her very first collection. Inspired by the ball gowns her grandmother wore to opening nights at La Scala, and the luxurious drapes in her mother's Venetian apartment, she uses this beloved Indian silk in new and inspired ways. Dupioni, whose very name implies sumptuous, finds its way into her own modern signature pieces: pieced and paired with bits of ethnic fabrics, crisp cottons, and rustic silk blends that her Nonna and Madre would never have imagined.
-from Santa Fe Fabrics.com

* NYTimes