The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the title of the exhibition which will be running in New York City from the 10th of May through the 2nd of September 2024.
“Sleeping Beauties - Reawakening Fashion”
As we all know, the exhibition accompanies the Met Gala, one of the most exciting fashion events of the year, which this year is sponsored by TikTok, with the support of Loewe and Conde Nast.
The vague title sent us all in a bit of a frenzy trying to reshuffle ideas in our heads, is this title relating to princesses or Disney fairytales. - Not quite, as we learned at the press conference from Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton and Met CEO Max Hollein.
"The focus is on the question of, 'What happens to an object when it enters our collection, which basically transforms it from a garment that was worn into an object that's being shown?',"
”Approximately 250 items drawn from the Costume Institute’s permanent collection—some very rarely seen in public before—will be displayed in an entirely new way. Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO, said: “The Met’s innovative spring 2024 Costume Institute exhibition will push the boundaries of our imagination and invite us to experience the multisensory facets of a garment.” He added: “‘Sleeping Beauties’ will heighten our engagement with these masterpieces of fashion by evoking how they feel, move, sound, smell, and interact when being worn, ultimately offering a deeper appreciation of the integrity, beauty, and artistic brilliance of the works on display.”
Upon entering the exhibition, visitors will discover a sequence of self-contained galleries, each exploring a different theme inspired by the natural world. Within each space, historical fashions will be juxtaposed with their contemporary counterparts in an immersive environment intended to engage a visitor’s sense of sight, smell, touch, and hearing. The walls of one space will be embossed with the foliate, vegetal, and insectoid embroidery of an Elizabethan bodice; the floors of another will be animated with snakes that frame the neckline of an early 20th-century sequined dress; and the ceiling of another will be projection-mapped with a Hitchcockian swarm of black birds that encircle a black tulle evening dress designed by Madeleine Vionnet just before the outbreak of World War II. Punctuating the exhibition will be a series of “sleeping beauties”—garments that can no longer be dressed on mannequins due to their extreme fragility—that will be displayed in glass “coffins” allowing visitors to analyze their various states of deterioration as if under a microscope. Select “beauties” will be brought back to life by the illusion technique known as Pepper’s ghost.
In collaboration with Andrew Bolton, photographer Nick Knight and SHOWstudio will lend their distinct vision to developing and realizing the various technological activations. Architecture firm Leong Leong will design the exhibition in collaboration with The Met’s Design Department. ST smell artist and researcher Sissel Tolaas will contribute her work with smell to bring select garments to life.
