From Runway to Museum: Creating Successful Exhibitions Showing the Interrelationship Between Fashion and Art
Location
CSU 201
Start Date
9-4-2012 11:00 AM
End Date
9-4-2012 12:00 PM
Student's Major
Art
Student's College
Arts and Humanities
Mentor's Name
Curt Germundson
Mentor's Department
Art
Mentor's College
Arts and Humanities
Description
Historically, high-end fashion has been reduced to ideas of materialism and functionality by the average person. What has commonly been overlooked on the runways of New York, Paris, and Milan was the idea of fashion as an object of art. Some designers, artists, and art historians have always given fashion the warranted classification as art, but this concept is not yet accepted by the regular museum visitor.
This paper focuses on three fashion exhibitions that show when a designer’s inspiration and vision is successfully translated into a museum setting, it encourages the visitor to see the interrelationship between fashion and art. I visited the following exhibitions for research: “Scaasi: American Couturier” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, “Roberto Capucci: Art into Fashion” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, and “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
These exhibitions deal with designer-artists who transcend the conventional line between fashion and art. Exhibiting fashion is relatively contemporary, and there are challenges involved with translating the designer’s pieces. After thorough research, I have concluded that displaying these fashion pieces in a museum is difficult, for they rely so heavily on movement, contours of the body, and the designer’s inspiration from the workroom to the runway. It is a challenge that when overcome by remaining true to the context of the designer’s vision, from the initial design to the runway show, encourages the museum visitor to expand his/her definition of art to include fashion.
From Runway to Museum: Creating Successful Exhibitions Showing the Interrelationship Between Fashion and Art
CSU 201
Historically, high-end fashion has been reduced to ideas of materialism and functionality by the average person. What has commonly been overlooked on the runways of New York, Paris, and Milan was the idea of fashion as an object of art. Some designers, artists, and art historians have always given fashion the warranted classification as art, but this concept is not yet accepted by the regular museum visitor.
This paper focuses on three fashion exhibitions that show when a designer’s inspiration and vision is successfully translated into a museum setting, it encourages the visitor to see the interrelationship between fashion and art. I visited the following exhibitions for research: “Scaasi: American Couturier” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, “Roberto Capucci: Art into Fashion” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, and “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
These exhibitions deal with designer-artists who transcend the conventional line between fashion and art. Exhibiting fashion is relatively contemporary, and there are challenges involved with translating the designer’s pieces. After thorough research, I have concluded that displaying these fashion pieces in a museum is difficult, for they rely so heavily on movement, contours of the body, and the designer’s inspiration from the workroom to the runway. It is a challenge that when overcome by remaining true to the context of the designer’s vision, from the initial design to the runway show, encourages the museum visitor to expand his/her definition of art to include fashion.
Recommended Citation
Kroening, Erica. "From Runway to Museum: Creating Successful Exhibitions Showing the Interrelationship Between Fashion and Art." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 9, 2012.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2012/oral-session-06/1
