“Sleeping Beauties:” Reawakening Fashion, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Pay attention to the “smelling opportunities” on the walls! Gallery view, Reseda Luteola and The Garden. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
How can you experience fashion of the past in a museum setting? Admiring a sumptuous court dress from the eighteenth century on a mannequin behind glass is one way. But admiring is not the same as experiencing. Fashion only comes to live when it is worn by a person. Just think about all the senses involved in experiencing fashion: you first look at an item of clothing, then you touch it, you feel it against your skin, and if we are talking about a dazzling ball gown, you hear the rustling of the fabric. Items of clothing also acquire a unique smell with time – it might not always be entirely pleasant, but there is no denying that it’s there! Experiencing fashion thus means the ability to experience it with all our senses.
You can get a physical sense of the intricacies of the fabric by touching the 3D-printed miniature model of the dress in the background. Gallery view, Dior’s Garden. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The curators of The Met’s fashion exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” made it their mission to enable museum goers to have a full sensory experience of the gorgeous items of clothing on show. And yes: this includes trying to recapture the scent left behind by their former owners. There is something almost frightening about a display of pretty, old hats and the plastic tubes underneath them that invite you to sniff the various scent molecules left behind in the fabric. Who in their right mind would voluntarily smell a dead stranger’s hat? It’s a bit like watching a scary movie – you don’t want to look, but then you do!
Don’t be scared - dare to explore the smell of the past transported by these tubes. Gallery view, Scent of a Woman. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met advertises its exhibition of over 200 garments and accessories spanning four centuries as an immersive, “sensory journey” through fashion history. Visitors are invited to smell the “aromatic histories” of old hats, to touch walls mimicking the embroidery of century-old dresses, to imagine the way dresses moved or restricted movement with the help of visual illusions and artificial intelligence. As a marketing tool, the exhibition’s curatorial approach has certainly worked: there are long queues months after the exhibition’s opening, proving that people are keen to go to an exhibition that promises the possibility of interacting with the items on display.
Gallery view, Venus. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
But even though The Met’s attempt to engage all the senses might seem a bit forced at times, it has a surprisingly philosophical side effect. By attempting to engage all our senses, the exhibition engages our mind in unexpected ways. There are beautifully crafted dresses and accessories on display, but by taking the experience beyond purely visual enjoyment, the viewer is invited to think about the fleeting nature of time. The contrast between our fragile, mortal bodies and the sturdiness of our material belongings and their potential to outlive us is ever present. By attempting to create an aromatic history of the past, we inevitably think of decay and mortality: the people who left behind these scent molecules are long gone, but their dresses and hats are still here, disintegrating at a much slower pace than their previous owners.
Punctuating the galleries is a series of “sleeping beauties” – garments that are so fragile that they can no longer be displayed on a mannequin but only lying flat on a surface. According to The Met, “when an item of clothing enters the Costume Institute collection, its status is changed forever. What was once a vital part of a person’s life is now a motionless ‘artwork’ that can no longer be worn or heard, touched, or smelled.” By trying to reanimate these magnificent objects, the exhibition invites us to muse about the cycle of life and death and the material traces we humans leave behind.
You can visit the exhibition until 2 September 2024, or enjoy The Met’s virtual tour of the exhibition.
This fragile dress is a “Sleeping Beauty.” Gallery view, The Siren. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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