Lady LUX

Fashion and punk are an interesting combo, and one the Metropolitan Museum of Art is proudly celebrating with its new spring 2013 Costume Institute exhibition “Punk: Chaos to Couture.” Sponsored by M'oda 'Operandi, the exhibit presents a variety of haute couture and read-to-wear fashions that take the punk era as muse. To be unveiled at the Yearly Costume Institute Gala, aka the Met Ball, on May 6, the groundbreaking exhibit will be available for public viewing from May 9 to August 11, reported Vogue UK.

“Punk broke all the rules when it came to fashion, and everything became possible after punk,” Andrew Bolton, Costume Institute curator, said to Vogue UK. “Its impact on high fashion became so enormous, and continues at the same time.”
The highly anticipated installation spans punk’s impact on haute couture since the movement’s early ‘70s beginnings through to the present day.

Boasting in the neighborhood of 100 men’s and women’s fashions – including the famed Gianni Versace safety-pin gown sported by Elizabeth Hurley in 1994 – the exhibit features original punk apparel as well as more contemporary designs, presenting high fashion and read-to-wear’s reappropriation of punk’s visual symbols.

Concentrating on how the punk idea of “do-it-yourself” and the couture idea of “made-to-measure” interrelate, Chaos to Couture will highlight the materials, techniques and embellishments associated with punk designs. Major themes encompass New York, London, Clothes for Heroes and four manifestations of the D.I.Y concept: Hardware, Bricolage, Graffiti and Agitprop, and Destroy. As an absorbing multimedia, multisensory exploration, the garments will be brought to life with music videos and audio techniques.

“Primarily the biggest legacy is DIY and deconstruction,” said Bolton. “Punk has had one of the biggest influences on fashion over the last 30 years, and sometimes people wear punk without even realizing it.”

The exhibition’s co-chairs are a distinguished lineup: Rooney Mara, Riccardo Tisci, Anna Wintour and Lauren Santo Domingo. Designers presented in the installation are likewise renowned, including Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, Rodarte, Marc Jacobs and Alexander Wang.

For more information, visit www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/PUNK.

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