Empowering Fashion: The Met’s ‘Women Dressing Women’
A groundbreaking exhibition, “Women Dressing Women,” at The Met showcases 80 garments by 70 pioneering female designers, celebrating their diverse contributions to fashion history.
From December 7 to March 3, 2024, visitors can explore this empowering exhibition at The Met, featuring pieces by well-known designers like Donna Karan and political garments by Katharine Hamnett.
The exhibition, curated by The Costume Institute, is a tribute to female designers who have reclaimed the narrative in fashion, emphasizing inclusivity and diversity in their designs.
Max Hollein, The Met’s Director, highlights the historical significance of women in fashion, stating that fashion was a site of female empowerment and emancipation in both production and consumption.
Structured around four themes—anonymity, visibility, agency, and absence/omission—the exhibition spans the early 1900s to today, providing a comprehensive snapshot of fashion history and trends.
The show subtly champions feminism, in contrast to previous exhibitions that may have lacked such a perspective. The focus on female empowerment is a departure from the Karl Lagerfeld exhibit, criticized for its association with fatphobia, racism, and misogyny.
Originally intended to coincide with the centenary of women’s suffrage in 2020, the exhibition faced a delay due to the pandemic. Despite the setback, The Met remained committed to showcasing the critical work of women creatives.
The exhibition begins with a historical context, acknowledging that male tailors dominated the European garment industry until the establishment of a dressmakers’ guild in 1675. In the U.S., garment making was considered “women’s work,” though often performed in anonymity.
The exhibition highlights periods when women designers outnumbered men, especially during war times in France, showcasing how women rose to leadership positions in fashion.
The section on agency explores how women utilized fashion to subvert conventional ideals of beauty and achieve bodily autonomy, featuring designs by influential figures like Claire McCardell and Bonnie Cashin.
The exhibition concludes by addressing the omission of certain narratives in traditional fashion history, notably highlighting Ann Lowe, a Black designer overlooked during a period of segregation.
As an epilogue, the exhibition emphasizes the ongoing evolution of fashion studies, urging a constant reassessment of history to correct omissions and acknowledge the diverse contributions of women in fashion.
Re-reported from the article originally published in The Time out News
