In My Shoes: Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibit

Monday, April 9, 2018

Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibit

I am not much of an activist, you won’t see me in the front lines of protests with posters in hand. In my life I have only attended a couple of protests and frankly to be one-hundred-percent honest I did it more for the experience than because I was truly committed to the cause. As I have grown up, I have learned that while we need people to gather the masses and lead them to voice their concerns, we also need people who contribute to the fight in a more quiet way. Mother Teresa said that we didn’t all have to do great things, but each of us could do little things in an extraordinary way. These little daily actions in the long term speak just as strongly (if not more) than putting words on a poster board.

Wonder Women

On Saturday, my friend and I went to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum for their annual Motion Picture Costume Design exhibit. As we walked around appreciating the costumes, I admired closely the perfect stitching, beading, cut, material- just every detail that comes together to bring to life the characters from some of the top movies of the year. Though the futuristic costumes were quite beautiful, I especially loved the period pieces. There was this green reproduction skirt and jacket combo from the early forties that reminded of times past when we knew what good construction looked like. It reminded me of my mother’s youth and the stories she has told me in which she describes to the last detail the outfits she wore. It even reminded me of my childhood when my mom would take a garment apart to recreate from its fabric a picture day outfit for me to wear.

As my friend and I exited the museum, we shared a strong lament for the loss of good garment construction. With the rise of industrialization we have lost the art of garment construction and have inherited the ills of fast fashion. In a world where the fashion industry has changed so quickly there’s a lot of darkness that gets swept under the carpet, but I think we are at a point where there’s no more room to hide the evils of overproduction of cheap clothes. But that’s a subject for a future post today, I just want to share some of the awesome pictures I took of a few costumes that just blew my mind. Including a real Alexander McQueen peacock dress that I had a hard time walking away from!