The incongruity of timeless garments coexisting in fashion, a realm of constant changes, is catalytic. Perhaps this is why timeless fashion can never truly be new, and why there is always a nuance of timeliness within fashion.
This connection reflects the challenges designers nowadays confront, with reaching beyond the archives of a brand or of the holistic fashion timeline, and reinterpreting them with newness and modernity. The effect of this contrasting style of presentation is salient, while the vintage quaintness is not lost in the contemporary pieces, the modernity is foreshadowed visibly in the antique apparels from the bygone centuries. For example, a floral embroidered black silk riding coat from 1902 is set beside a similar velvet floral jacket from Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2018 an all-black satin dinner dress with leg-o’-mutton sleeves from 1877 is juxtaposed with a deconstructed Comme des Garçons ensemble of a jacket and shirt from 2004 and an art deco evening dress with symmetrical geometric pattern of the late ‘1920s is paired with John Galliano’s 1997 Dior take on the era’s body-skimming silhouette but with an intricate, asymmetrical spiderweb pattern. The temporality of fashion, ironically, illuminates on the timeless aesthetics of garments. Despite the hundred or so years between each garment pair, they each bare a resemblance in shape, motif, material, pattern, technique, or decoration cohesively visualizing Bergson’s concept of the past and present. Each ‘minute’ features a pair of garments, with the primary piece illustrating a linear timeline of fashion and the secondary piece placed behind the primary one to draw parallels. So why do fashion forces strive to attain a state that negates its own existence of constant innovation? The answer lies in this year’s exhibition.īoth galleries are constructed as two enormous clocks and organized to reflect the principle of 60 minutes of fashion. However, the idea of timelessness in fashion seems paradoxical by definition: it is a state of being that is impervious to the passage of time and changes. But just want makes a garment truly timeless? Louis Vuitton’s Creative Director Nicolas Ghesquière once said– “Never forget that what becomes timeless was once truly new.”įashion certainly is a reflection of time and culture in societies, and the subjectivity of time concerning fashion is chronicled in our own history. In celebration of the museum’s 150th anniversary, the exhibit examines timeless fashions and how garments can withstand the tests of time. Half a year later, the exhibit seems appropriate following a six month period where time stood still and keeping track of the days of the week seemed like a difficult task. The exhibit which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic was originally set to open back in May. The long awaited Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s exhibition ‘About Time: Fashion and Duration’ is finally here, and dare we say– it’s about time.
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