Exhibition

In America: An Anthology of Fashion

May 7 – September 5, 2022

Previously on view at The Met Fifth Avenue , Various Locations

Free with Museum admission

All exhibitions

Overview Visiting Guide Director Statements The Met Gala

In America: An Anthology of Fashion

Introduction

In America: An Anthology of Fashion explores defining moments in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American fashion. Following earlier exhibitions in the Museum’s French and English historical interiors—Dangerous Liaisons (2004) and AngloMania (2006)—this presentation centers around the complex and layered histories of the American period rooms, which provide curated windows into over three hundred years of domestic life.

Within the rooms are a series of focused narratives that reflect larger developments, such as the emergence of an identifiable American style and the rise of the named designer as an individual recognized for their distinct creative vision. In this way, Anthology also provides a historical grounding for the companion exhibition, In America: A Lexicon of Fashion—currently on view in the Anna Wintour Costume Center (Galleries 980 and 981)—which offers an expansive reflection on defining qualities of fashion in the United States.

The installations take the form of cinematic vignettes that enliven the stories and highlight the intimate and immersive aspects of the rooms. These fictional tableaux were created by nine film directors: Radha Blank, Janicza Bravo, Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Tom Ford, Regina King, Martin Scorsese, Autumn de Wilde, and Chloe Zhao. Seven “case studies” offer in-depth, forensic analyses of individual costumes that function as connecting threads. Together, they comprise an anthology that challenges and complicates received histories, offering a more nuanced and less monolithic reading of American fashion, and American culture more broadly.

Baltimore Room, Gallery 724

Autumn de Wilde

I have grown up as a director and a photographer wandering the hallways of The Met. I have studied minute details in clothing, searched for new characters, discovered color combinations I’d never thought of, and committed to memory an encyclopedia of very dramatic poses. In most museums, we can only see historical costumes perfectly still, in clear boxes. Period rooms stand spotless, safe behind barriers, proudly protecting their treasures. It almost gives the impression that the people who wore these clothes and stared out of these windows were full of grace and humility, romantic to a fault, and walked on air. Maybe that was true of some, but mostly they were terribly human, and being human is a very messy business. Drawing inspiration from early nineteenth-century caricatures and early nineteenth-century gossip, my team has sculpted facial expressions, poses, food, pets, and vermin to bring to (still) life two stories. In the Baltimore Dining Room, the snubbed socialite Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, who detests prudish American fashion and dares to show the fullness of her breasts (as well as the occasional nipple), waits in vain for Jérôme Bonaparte to make their son a French royal.

Audio: “Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre,” performed by Monsieur Doudou et ses petits choupinous, 2015

Producers: Juliet Naylor, Emma Carlson
Production Design: Kave Quinn
Production Artists: Elo Soode, Elizabeth Colomba
Props: Gregor Telfer, Thomas Rea, Tracyjane Rea, Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, The Flourishing Nib, Replica Food
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Costume Consultant: Sally Turner
Hair: Marese Langan, Campbell Young, Luc Verschueren, Susan Corrado
Mannequin Customization and Animals: Amalgam Modelmaking

Benkard Room, Gallery 725

Autumn de Wilde

I have grown up as a director and a photographer wandering the hallways of The Met. I have studied minute details in clothing, searched for new characters, discovered color combinations I’d never thought of, and committed to memory an encyclopedia of very dramatic poses. In most museums, we can only see historical costumes perfectly still, in clear boxes. Period rooms stand spotless, safe behind barriers, proudly protecting their treasures. It almost gives the impression that the people who wore these clothes and stared out of these windows were full of grace and humility, romantic to a fault, and walked on air. Maybe that was true of some, but mostly they were terribly human, and being human is a very messy business. Drawing inspiration from early nineteenth-century caricatures and early nineteenth-century gossip, my team has sculpted facial expressions, poses, food, pets, and vermin to bring to (still) life two stories. In the Benkard Room, a quiet night of playing cards has suddenly gone wrong. What secret was revealed, how much wine was drunk, and how does that rat always outsmart the cat?

Audio: George Frideric Handel’s “Ombra mai fù” (1738), performed by Andreas Scholl and Akademie Für Alte Musik Berlin, 2009. Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment

Producers: Juliet Naylor, Emma Carlson
Production Design: Kave Quinn
Production Artists: Elo Soode, Elizabeth Colomba
Props: Gregor Telfer, Thomas Rea, Tracyjane Rea, Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, The Flourishing Nib
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Costume Consultant: Sally Turner
Hair: Marese Langan, Campbell Young, Luc Verschueren, Susan Corrado
Mannequin Customization and Animals: Amalgam Modelmaking

Richmond Room, Gallery 728

Regina King

I was looking to portray the power and strength Fannie Criss Payne exudes through her awe-inspiring story and exquisite clothing. I placed her in a prosperous and active working situation, during the fitting of a dress for client Ellen Clark Wallace. Wallace is accompanied by a friend, who is also wearing a dress by Criss and is admiring the designer’s latest creation. Alongside Wallace is a seamstress, whose presence highlights Criss’s employment of other Black women. In the center of the room, we have the extraordinary Fannie Criss Payne, her stance suggesting power and command, expecting to be paid for her time by Wallace’s husband. Reimagining the context of Criss’s career, I have presented her in one of her own designs—as her own muse, and a muse for her clients. Elements of the room represent Criss’s history and future. The trees and butler, dressed in livery, represent her parents’ and ancestors’ lives as enslaved people. Though Black people at the time were excluded from most economic opportunities, her apprentice seamstress represents the future of Black success and self-determination.

Audio: Amanda Gorman reading “& So” and “Call Us,” from her poetry collection Call Us What We Carry (2021)

Projection on mirror: Titus Kaphar’s Behind the Myth of Benevolence, 2014. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist

Assistant to the Director: Hailey Irvin
Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Lighting Design and Cinematography: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland, The Specialists
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Headpieces: Stephen Jones
Mannequin Customization: Flladi Kulla, Frank Glover

Haverhill Room, Gallery 729

Radha Blank

We Good. Thx! reasserts Black Women, often uncredited as cultural weavers of the fabric of this country, back into a narrative highlighting our contributions and quest for self-actualization. Maria Hollander commissioned an unknown artist to create a quilt in vibrant reds, whites, and blues, chastising George Washington’s stance on slavery. In We Good. Thx!, Black folks speak through our OWN quilt—one made within African braiding and beading traditions that are the Black Women signifiers of today. The colors here are inspired by the Work-Clothes Quilt (2002) by Mary Lee Bendolph of the Gee’s Bend quilters. If Hollander was REALLY ’bout that abolitionist life, she’d know why I projected images of Black Women’s hands onto her dress. Hands that, by day, made garments and cleaned White folks’ houses and, by night, “caught babies” and conjured African spiritual practices not meant to survive the Middle Passage. We Good. Thx! is my tribute to the Conjure Women, who in this very moment are weaving protective cloaks for Black survival in America.

Audio: Sound design by Eric Hirsch

Producer: Peter Kim
Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Production and Silhouette Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Production Assistant: Christopher Reyes
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Headpiece: Susy Oludele
Specialty Prop Artisans: Kathy Fabian and Mary Wong, PropStar LLC
Props Assistant: Natalie Loveland
Silhouette Fabrication: The Specialists

Shaker Retiring Room, Gallery 734

Chloé Zhao

“Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.” Werner Herzog’s words on ecstatic truth guided the design of this scene. The Shakers believed that God is both male and female, and their religious leader was a woman, Mother Ann Lee, whom they believed was the Second Coming of Christ in female form. This aspect of the Shaker religion was incredibly radical and progressive in the 1800s. Upon seeing this room and its occupants, most people from that era would feel unease, confusion, wonder, curiosity, shock, or even distaste and anger. I hope to invoke some of these feelings in you, twenty-first-century viewers, in a humble attempt to capture the ecstatic truth of the moment in time displayed here.

Audio: Frances McDormand reading the words of Catherine Allen, as quoted in Ann the Word (2000)

“We recognise the Christ Spirit, the expression of Deity, first manifested in its fullness in Jesus of Nazareth. We also regard Mother Ann Lee as the first to receive in this latter day the interior realisation that the same Divine Spirit which was in Jesus might dwell within the consciousness of any man, woman or child.”

Assistant to the Director: Megan Lynch
Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Wigs: Bonaveri
Headpieces: Lynne Mackey

Special Thanks:
Frances McDormand

The Battle of Versailles, Gallery 735

Tom Ford

In war, there are no winners—except, it would seem, in the case of the great guerre de la mode that has come to be known as the “Battle of Versailles.” The sides? France versus America. The stakes? Haute couture versus ready-to-wear. The weapons? Fans versus feather boas. The victors? Bill Blass, Stephen Burrows, Halston, Anne Klein, and Oscar de la Renta—surely the greatest underdogs in the history of fashion. Set in the Royal Opera of Versailles and attended by the chicest of the chic, this legendary evening and the battle that unfolded have attained mythological prominence—at least in the fashionable imagination. But how to re-create a myth? How to capture the exhilaration and astonishment of a victory that had its spectators—Princess Grace of Monaco among them—jumping to their feet and throwing their programs in the air like confetti? As with any myth, by reinventing it. The sides and stakes remain the same, but the weapons have changed—in place of fans and feather boas are fencing foils and front kicks. And what of the victors? Captured mid-battle, the underdogs will again prevail, reestablishing American fashion as a global force to be reckoned with.

Audio: “Ball” performed by Craig Armstrong, from the soundtrack to Plunkett & Macleane (1999). Courtesy of Virgin Records Ltd. under license from Universal Music Enterprises. With the sound of fencing swords

Producer: Charlotte Blechman
Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara, Isaac Watters
Fabricator: New Project
Lighting Design: Jonathan Reed, CS Global
Consultant: John Field
Mannequin Customization: John Field LTD
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland, The Specialists
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Livery Costumes: Eric Winterling
Livery Wigs: Bobbie Zlotnik, Bryan Gonzalez

Renaissance Revival Room, Gallery 737

Julie Dash

The cinematic display inside the Renaissance Revival Room is about assigning value and worth to individuals and how the designs of Ann Lowe relate to the history of American fashion. Lowe designed exquisite gowns for some of the most prestigious families in the nation. She fashioned the majestic wedding gown for Jacqueline Bouvier’s marriage to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Lowe also designed the gown Olivia de Havilland wore for her Academy Award win in 1947. Despite all this, and due to the prevailing racial bias of her time, Lowe received limited public recognition for her work. Sometimes there was no acknowledgment at all. The designer was shrouded in secrecy, masked and hooded; invisibility was the cloak she wore, and yet she persisted. I close my eyes and see West African Egungun dancers inside the Renaissance room. Each beautifully masked mannequin covered with a diaphanous fabric represents the visible manifestation of Lowe attending to her original designs. We celebrate Lowe’s creativity and courage with this remembrance and blessing.

Audio: Excerpt from Daughters of the Dust (1991) score, composed by John Barnes

Prop statuette is an interpretation of the Best Actress Oscar won by Olivia de Havilland in 1947.

Producer: Rachel Watanabe-Batton
Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Costume Design Renditions of Ann Lowe: Ashaka Givens
Draped Sinamay Veils and Dresses Designer: Ashaka Givens
Design Assistants: Penelope Webster and Ben Klemes
Headpieces: Stephen Jones
Veiling: Ashaka Givens, Penelope Webster
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland
Prop Dressmaker: Claudia Diaz
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Floral: Ariel Dearie, Serena Abraham
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens

Special thanks:
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Jacqueline Kennedy and Olivia de Havilland Families

Greek Revival Parlor, Gallery 738

Julie Dash

Orson Welles, the iconoclastic director of stage and screen, was the first to have this vision. In 1950 he cast Eartha Kitt as his Helen of Troy in his production Time Runs. Through a narrative blend of reimagined storytelling, archival film images, and a dramatic evocation of historical moments, we dive headfirst into a strange and intimate conversation with the fashions of Madame Eta Hentz, the mythological Muses, and Ms. Eartha Kitt. Eartha Kitt is Helen of Troy, arriving from Sparta and taking the city of Troy by storm.

Audio: “Usaka Dara” (“A Turkish Tale”), performed by Eartha Kitt, 1953. Courtesy of Broadcast Music, Inc.

Video: Excerpts from Helen of Troy (1924), directed by Manfred Noa

Producer: Rachel Watanabe-Batton
Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Headpieces: Stephen Jones
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Floral: Ariel Dearie, Serena Abraham
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
A/V Consultant: Moey Inc.
Mannequin Customization: Flladi Kulla, Frank Glover, Studio EIS

Special thanks:
Eartha Kitt Family
Orson Welles, "Time Runs," An Evening with Orson Welles (and Eartha Kitt), August 1950

Rococo Revival Parlor, Gallery 739

Janicza Bravo

We’re hours into a party that seems to have no end in sight. The dress smells of cologne, cigars, and cake. I took a whiff of the lilacs in the garden. That helped. The last time I sat was morning. It was at the vanity in my dressing room while fastening the clasp of my necklace. No one hears me when I speak. My voice is shot. In place of talking, I choose smiling. Then a shadow of headache chooses me. I’ve played hostess since sunup. My mind is racing. An amalgamation of disembodied faces and gestures playing on a loop. I am shrinking.

Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland, The Specialists
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
A/V Consultant: Moey Inc.
Headpiece: Stephen Jones

Gothic Revival Library, Gallery 740

Janicza Bravo

I am unable to place the exact moment when I no longer found myself on the outside looking in. And while this side certainly feels more comfortable, I will always carry the road that got me here (wherever here is). I do worry sometimes that I will find myself at an end where, when I look back, what will be reflected is a life where I could have done more. Should have done more. Some days I wish each hour was two. When I am long gone, what will be left? I hope to leave a little of me in every corner that shaped me.

Video: Excerpt from Ten Minutes to Live (1932), directed by Oscar Micheaux
Video and audio of rain
Audio of television hum

McKim, Mead & White Stair Hall, Gallery 741

Sofia Coppola

I’ve always loved and gotten so much out of The Costume Institute’s exhibitions. I remember Dangerous Liaisons (2004), which was so full of life and drew me to see their eighteenth-century collection up close when researching Marie Antoinette (2006), which gave me such a fresh impression of that period. When asked to prepare two rooms for this exhibition, I was happy to join the project and do something I hadn’t done before—but how do you stage a scene without actors or a story? After being immersed in Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country (1913) this past year, I was glad to be assigned the McKim, Mead & White Stair Hall and the Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room. I tried to keep it simple and to make an atmosphere to show these clothes from that time in these beautiful rooms, and hopefully give a brief glimpse into how people lived. I invited sculptor Rachel Feinstein to create distinctive faces for each of my “characters,” to which painter John Currin gave a dewy, lifelike finish with luminous oil paint.

Audio: Sound design by Thomas Mars, based on Robert Schumann’s “Der Dichter spricht,” Kinderszenen, op. 15, no. 13, performed by Martha Argerich. Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg under license from Universal Music Enterprises

Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Mannequin Heads: Rachel Feinstein, John Currin
Hair: Odile Gilbert, Ayumi Yamamoto
Floral: Ariel Dearie, Serena Abraham
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Music: Thomas Mars

Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room, Gallery 742

Sofia Coppola

I’ve always loved and gotten so much out of The Costume Institute’s exhibitions. I remember Dangerous Liaisons (2004), which was so full of life and drew me to see their eighteenth-century collection up close when researching Marie Antoinette (2006), which gave me such a fresh impression of that period. When asked to prepare two rooms for this exhibition, I was happy to join the project and do something I hadn’t done before—but how do you stage a scene without actors or a story? After being immersed in Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country (1913) this past year, I was glad to be assigned the Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room and the McKim, Mead & White Stair Hall. Arabella Worsham was not far from Wharton’s character Undine Spragg, who surrounded herself with what were considered the finest things and transformed herself into an important woman of the time. I invited sculptor Rachel Feinstein to create a distinctive face for my “character,” to which painter John Currin gave a dewy, lifelike finish with luminous oil paint.

Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Mannequin Head: Rachel Feinstein, John Currin
Hair: Odile Gilbert, Ayumi Yamamoto
Floral: Ariel Dearie, Serena Abraham
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland, Pompei
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Music: Thomas Mars

Frank Lloyd Wright Room, Gallery 745

Martin Scorsese

Create a one-frame movie in a period room? A great opportunity and an intriguing challenge. The Frank Lloyd Wright Room, one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. The extraordinary dresses of Charles James. These were my givens, my riches. I needed to find an emotional situation that suggested a story, many stories, and that could be felt across the length of that room, in the stances of the men and women, in what or whom they’re gazing at. And I knew it had to be midcentury. I turned to the cinema, specifically to melodrama, and to the vibrant three-strip Technicolor of the 1940s. Specifically, I turned to a film that has always haunted and inspired me and that affects me deeply every time I watch it, John Stahl’s adaptation of Leave Her to Heaven, a true Technicolor noir. What happens before our one-frame movie? And after? My hope is that people will come away with multiple possibilities unfolding in their mind’s eye.

Audio: Excerpt from the score of Leave Her to Heaven (1945), composed by Alfred Newman, 1945

Producers: Lisa Frechette, Kent Jones
Production Design: Shane Valentino, Shoko Kambara
Production Artist: Elizabeth Colomba
Prop Costumes and Accessories: Carisa Kelly, Helen Uffner
Props: Michael Jortner, Alex Karasz, Natalie Loveland, The Specialists
Production Consultant: Quinn Corte
Floral: Ariel Dearie, Serena Abraham
Lighting Design: Bradford Young
Lighting Technicians: Christian Epps, Sammy Ross
Lighting Programmers: Charlie Winter, Jessica Stevens
Wigs: Bobbie Zlotnik, Bryan Gonzalez
Mannequin Painting: Flladi Kulla
Scenic Backdrop: Rose Brand
Scenic Painting: Scenic Art Studios