Anthology Of Fashion Meaning

Anthology of fashion is simply presenting isolated stories on the work of individual designers and dressmakers who must have been forgotten or relegated.

During the Met Gals 2022, the Costume Institute tasked film directors such as Autumn de Wilde, Regina King, Radha Blank, Chloé Zhao, and Tom Ford, to make individual scenes come alive and should be intended to “enhance the intimate and immersive aspect of the rooms, and [activate] their histories in compelling and unexpected ways.”

The directors were selected based on the themes of the stories, and each one has approached them through their own, very distinct creative visions.

This anthology reflects ongoing research by curators in the Costume Institute to explore untold stories in our collection, stories that highlight the work of designers who have been forgotten, overlooked or relegated to a footnote in the annals of fashion history.

Men’s and women’s dress dating from the eighteenth century to the present will be featured in vignettes installed in select period rooms spanning ca. 1805 to 1915: a Shaker Retiring Room from the 1830s; a nineteenth-century parlor from Richmond, Virginia; a panoramic 1819 mural of Versailles; and a twentieth-century living room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, among others.

The exhibition will reflect through a series of three-dimensional cinematic “freeze frames” produced in collaboration with notable American film directors.

These mise-en-scènes will explore the role of dress in shaping American identity and address the complex and layered histories of the rooms.