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The theme of the Costume Institute’s 2024 spring exhibit and Met Gala has officially been announced: “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the fairy tale-esque theme in a press conference Wednesday morning at the Costume Institute’s Collections and Conversations area. Featuring about 250 items, the exhibition will run from May 10 to Sept. 2, 2024, opening to the public after the May 6 Met Gala.
Who is the “sleeping beauty” referenced in the Met’s fairy tale? Not a person or princess at all. Rather, the upcoming exhibit champions reawakening the fashions within the Institute’s permanent collection — 85% of which is stored on-site, while the remainder is held off-site in Queens — reeling visitors in by playing with their senses.
Sponsored by Loewe and TikTok, the exhibition is equipped with technology like holograms and magnifying glasses to emphasize details. Archival garments will stand within immersive experience-like rooms that animate their elements, like a fiery red Alexander McQueen blazer inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” Per curator Andrew Bolton, the exhibit will be “punctuated with sleeping beauties that will be brought back to life through technology.”
“One of the reasons for approaching TikTok was the platform in terms of accessibility. We really wanted to have the biggest, broadest platform possible in terms of how the show is disseminated globally,” he said of the sponsorship during the press conference. “We always try to have a synergy between the sponsor and the theme of the exhibition, and JW (Anderson) is so well known for including technology in his work and playing with analog.”
Bolton stresses that, despite the tech-powered exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties” will also underscore fashion’s connection to nature through their dual “ephemerality.” He added, “fashion is such a living art form, more than any other art form… more than painting, more than sculpture… That’s partly what drove it: How we can breathe life back into an art form that was intended to be lived in by a person and embodied?”
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