Ensemble

spring/summer 1998

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 099

Olivier Theyskens looks at historical objects with childlike wonder, reinterpreting them with a romantic sensibility into today's fashion vernacular. For this early piece, he reused antique jet beads he found at a flea market to create a handmade boned bodice and neck piece with fringes of jet beads. Jet beads were typically used for mourning jewelry and attire in the nineteenth century, and whilst resplendent, they also evoke the melancholy spirit underlying most of Theyskens' creations: "In my work, there is an awareness of beauty, a meeting between strength and fragility, that something is a little broken. I like to show the ambiguities and ambivalences of the emotions, to play that string."

Artwork Details

Object Information

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Exhibition History

Title: Ensemble
Designer: Olivier Theyskens (Belgian, born 1977)
Date: spring/summer 1998
Culture: Belgian
Medium: (a) cotton, jet, metal; (b) silk, jet, mother-of-pearl; (c) leather, synthetic fiber, metal; (d, e) leather, plastic
Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2020
Object Number: 2020.205a–e
Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute

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Ensemble, Olivier Theyskens Belgian, (a) silk, (b) silk, (c, d) silk, (e) silk, (f, g) silk, metal, plastic, (h, i) leather, silk, Belgian — Ensemble
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