Ahead of the Met Gala, an Up-Close Look at “Costume Art”

Fashion is the first thing

we see about each other.

So it's incredibly powerful.

Fashion can tell a story.

At its best,

it expands what the body can be.

There are just so many ways in which the human

body takes form.

How then does that impact

what we layer on top of it?

No longer can we debate

the idea that fashion is art.

Fashion has always been art.

The pressure, ah.

We're in the Costume Center.

For the moment,

we're using it as a way to store our mannequins

and dress some of the pieces for the exhibition.

But these are actually our traditional galleries.

[Interviewer] But not anymore.

Not anymore, yeah.

It's so exciting.

We're now moving upstairs into the lights.

The Met collects many things.

Paintings, sculpture, textiles, arms and armor,

but especially also fashion.

And we want to make sure that it's understood

that fashion is a fantastic form of art.

To do that,

we want to make sure that the galleries devoted

to that would be centrally located.

The Great Hall is one

of the most recognizable interiors in New York City.

Our galleries come directly off of that space.

We sort of started by taking

a deep dive into the museum building itself.

Looking at old drawings,

understanding the way it came together,

but it's actually not one building.

It's 20 something buildings that have grown

and shifted over time.

The title of the show is called Costume Art.

It has two connotations.

One, it references our history.

So before we were founded in 1946

as a curatorial department at the Met,

we were known as the Museum of Costume Art

and it was an independent entity,

but also a statement about

the status of of fashion itself.

I think that when you walk

around the museum,

you see these wonderful examples

of the dress body,

but it's just a representation of the dress body.

I think where fashion has the edge

over art is the fact

that it's about our lived and embodied experience.

So I very much wanted the exhibition to focus on

that distinction between the representation

of the dress body and also fashion

as this living art form in which it expresses very complex

ideas about identity.

I think it's been interesting working

with different curators.

We've done shows in the past where we've collaborated

with specific departments.

We've never done a show before

where we're collaborating

with every single department in the museum,

and Navina was actually the first person I spoke to.

The Met is an amazing place

that can tell global stories

because it has the ingredients,

it has everything at his fingertips.

We have a wonderful painting

from the 18th century

from one of the courts of India, from Hyderabad,

which shows a woman in a very transparent muslin.

It's so light, it's so fine

that the body looks almost nude under it.

In every case,

Andrew has found a response in contemporary

fashion to these pieces

and that's what's making them come alive.

So I wanted to start off the exhibition

with the art historical distinction

between the naked and the nude.

The naked is really about one's lived vulnerability,

whereas the nude is a sort of mediated construction

that's often posed or aestheticized.

In any time and place,

the naked body's never naked.

It's always dressed

in the cultural ideals of a particular moment in time.

And then you go into the main part of the exhibition

and it's separated into two main galleries.

One is focusing on sort of diversity of bodily being

and we start off with a classical body in that section

'cause I wanted to look at

and sort off with a body that has often been valorized.

It's a body that has always been reified,

both in arts and also within fashion.

And then we progressed to a section

called the Abstract Body,

which is in a way the opposite of the classical body

where we have many women's bodies that are contorted

and distorted through undergarments like the corset,

the crinoline, the pannier, and the bustle.

Even though they seem radically opposite

of the natural body,

they're both about achieving an ideal beauty.

So opposite the abstract body,

we focus on something we call the Reclaimed Body.

And the Reclaimed Body mainly feature female designers

who do the opposite.

Who use understructures, padding,

bindings to challenge these normative conventions of beauty.

So it's the opposite of what the abstract body is about.

The Reclaimed Body is sort

of introducing three other body types

and reclaiming these bodies within both art and culture.

With the pregnant body,

the corpulent body,

and the disabled body.

So that's the first half of the exhibition

and the second half,

it's all about universality and commonalities.

Everything we all share.

So skin, the anatomy, blood,

but also our experiences of life

like aging and death, or mortality.

So we have bodily diversity in one gallery

and body universality in the other.

Then we end with some,

I'm calling the Epidermal Body,

which in a way is the largest and most salient organ.

We all have skin,

but all of our skin tones

and textures are very different.

So it brings them together

and in a way ends with a celebration of plurality

and the the pluralistic body.

I think in the past, you know,

in my previous exhibitions,

whenever we talk about diversity,

I've always integrated it within our exhibitions,

but I do think we're particularly now,

I don't think we're at a place

where we normalize diversity.

It has become otherized

and you see it reflected in fashion.

What's special about costume art is

that the question it asks is,

is fashion already art

or does it become art through embodiment?

I have dwarfism,

I have a physical apparent disability.

Fashion has always been incredibly important to me

because it's a vocabulary,

it's an armor

and that's still, I think,

how many people use clothes,

whether or not they make that conscious decision.

So to be able to put that in place in this exhibition

with the explicit inclusion

of different kinds of bodies,

putting them on pedestals,

what it will mean very physically

when people come into this

exhibition is that for the first time

they will look at bodies that maybe

they have overlooked with a sense of awe

and wonder because they are looking up.

I spend my life looking up,

so I'm really intrigued

and curious about what that change will mean

for others within that space.

I think for me,

like the body

obviously means something very specifically

to me as a trans woman.

I think that it has always kind of been a point

of conversation for others,

but I think to reclaim that

and really find what makes me feel beautiful

as an individual and makes me feel

supported and loved,

and able as an individual is quite special.

For me, it means express things

and show the strength that I have in my body.

Show the muscles that I have,

show the ass that I'm hopefully gonna have

on the Met Gala day.

But like all of these different things,

I can't tell you how much it means to me

to be a part of this.

Like, I feel like disability

and disabled people in the world overall

is the most like underrepresented, underserved population.

As we can see,

I have quadriplegia cerebral palsy.

I am visibly disabled and I use a wheelchair.

And so to be recognized in the arts

in this kind of way

and fashion in this way

is so deeply touching and meaningful.

As a performer and as an artist,

my body is my instrument

and I often say that it's my first costume.

Like, the skin I'm in,

in the body that I have as a dancer.

It's what we're working with.

Two of the things I love most in the world,

costume and art,

the way our body can be changed and subverted,

the way our form can alter

and inform our mental state

is something so divine to me.

You know, the show is really focusing on the body

and really focusing on the idea

of one's lived embodied experience.

We felt it was very important

to actually include mannequins based on real men and women,

particularly in the corpulent body

and the disabled body sections.

Andrew had written me

to ask if I would be a mannequin in this show

and the outfit that was made

for me was already gonna be in the show.

It was important to me that it actually

be on my body, especially my body now.

You go into this room

that has about 100 SLR cameras positioned.

And even just thinking about getting

my body made into a mannequin

was an incredibly vulnerable process.

I was in the middle of this thing,

I was sitting right here

and then around me were like thousands of cameras

just scanning me

and taking pictures of me

to make the model and it was really awesome.

I felt like I was in like a 90s futuristic anime.

They sent them off to Italy

where they would be converted

into a 3D scan and then carved.

I always find within exhibitions,

one of the challenges is

how do we sort of bridge the gap

between the art you're looking at,

the artworks you're looking at and the visitors.

So I'd always sort of thought about the idea

of using a mirrored face as a way of diminishing that gap

between the visitor and and and the artwork.

I came across the work of Samar Hejazi,

an extraordinary artist

who had used polished steel faces

and what was so interesting about them is

because they're made outta polished

steel rather than mirror,

there's a depth to them.

It's like your reflection in a wishing well or a pool.

It's not a sort of mirror-mirror idea.

It's slightly distorted

and I think that how we all see ourselves in the mirror

is always slightly distort.

It's never true.

I love and also think the polished faces

are really funny,

which, you know, I'm really glad Andrew's not sitting

beside me because he would probably shake

his shoulders at me.

I really interested to see what people take from it.

It's very interesting.

I love that idea that they chose to do that.

I feel like it speaks to a lot.

They're gonna see themselves reflected in me

and I'm gonna see myself reflected in them.

I think one of the ambitions

for the show is we're not trying to sort

of like reverse a hierarchy

that's always existed within art museums

where fashion's are the bottom rung of the ladder.

It's more about focusing on equitability.

So the idea of equitability between objects,

whether it's art or fashion,

but also an equitability of bodies,

whether it's the classical body or the disabled body.

There is a risk that if you don't honor them in this way,

people moving through the space go

through it passively without noting that it is different.

But also for those who would live in those bodies,

to see their bodies singled out

with respect, grace, admiration,

and with psychological safety at the heart of it,

what can that be a catalyst for?

When you have the opportunity to work with a range

of body types,

you're going to get an incredible range of results.

And I think that's something

that's important about seeing more diversity in in fashion,

you know, and I think about it so connected to,

you know, the way I talk about the importance

of having more diversity in classical dance.

That when you see different body types exploring the same

type of movement,

it's going to look completely different.

It's really amazing for someone like me to be there,

but also like there's a lot of really

amazing women and men,

and everything in between who are a part of it.

And I think that that's really special and really unique,

and I hope that I serve for all of us.

The pressure, ah.

The emphasis on the individual,

what it is that makes us unique,

what it is that makes us different.

It is about seeing those moments,

seeing those pockets

of individuality and highlighting their beauty.

I think it's so important that there is representation

and equity and diversity and and inclusivity.

Again, when the world as it's standing in our sociopolitical

climate is trying so hard to like destroy that.

It's so important more than ever

to uplift these communities of people

who are going through so much

and who are being persecuted so much.

Fashion listens to the market.

So when the market's demanding to reflect

what actually is frankly in our society,

fashion will follow suit.

The show hopefully will resonate

and hopefully will foster ideas of empathy

and compassion towards each other.

It's gonna open up a conversation about

the beauty in us as human beings.

There's so many stories to tell.

Hopefully, it will mean that when we start

to look at fashion as an art form.

It isn't just about new,

it isn't just about now.

It is about the voyage

that we all go on through our lives.

I'm personally so tired of being an other,

I'm tired of being an other.

Even though I am black and disabled

and trans, I'm still Ariana Rose Philip.

and I'm still a musician,

and an artist and a model.

I'm just like you.

[light upbeat music]