The Met’s spring 2013 Costume Institute exhibition, PUNK: Chaos to Couture – curated by Andrew Bolton, will examine punk’s impact on high fashion from the movement’s birth in the early 1970s through its continuing influence today. Featuring approximately one hundred designs for men and women, the exhibition will include original punk garments and recent, directional fashion to illustrate how haute couture and ready-to-wear borrow punk’s visual symbols.
Focusing on the relationship between the punk concept of “do-it-yourself” and the couture concept of “made-to-measure,” the seven galleries will be organized around the materials, techniques, and embellishments associated with the anti-establishment style. Themes will include New York and London, which will tell punk’s origin story as a tale of two cities, followed by Clothes for Heroes and four manifestations of the D.I.Y. aesthetic—Hardware, Bricolage, Graffiti and Agitprop, and Destroy.
Presented as an immersive multimedia, multisensory experience, the clothes will be animated with period music videos and soundscaping audio techniques.
Clothes for Heroes
Left: Paul Cook, late 1970s – Photograph © Dennis Morris – all rights reserved
Right: Comme des Garçons (Japanese, founded 1969), spring/summer 2006 – Photograph by Catwalking
Left: John Lydon, 1976 – Photograph by Ray Stevenson/Rex USA
Right: Junya Watanabe (Japanese, born 1961), fall/winter 2006–7 – Photograph by Catwalking
D.I.Y. Hardware
Left: John Lydon, 1976 – Photograph by Ray Stevenson/Rex USA
Right: Gianni Versace (Italian, founded 1978), spring/summer 1994 Vogue Paris, February 1994 – Photograph © Satoshi Saïkusa
Left: Joe Strummer, late 1970s – Photograph © Pennie Smith
Right: Riccardo Tisci (Italian, born 1974) for House of Givenchy (French, founded 1952), spring/summer 2008 – Vogue Italia, March 2008 – Photograph ©Glen Luchford, art partner
D.I.Y. Bricolage
Left: Gary Wilson, 1977 – Photograph © Roberta Bayley
Right: Maison Martin Margiela (founded 1988), spring/summer 2011 – Photograph © Nathalie Sanchez for Maison Martin Margiela
D.I.Y. Graffiti and Agitprop
Left: Patti Smith, late 1970s – Photograph by Caroline Coon, Camera Press
Right: Ann Demeulemeester (Belgian, born 1959), spring/summer 2000 – Photograph by Catwalking
Left: Joe Strummer, 1977 – Photograph by Ray Stevenson/Rex USA
Right: Helmut Lang (Austrian, born 1956), fall/winter 2003–4 – Photograph by Catwalking
D.I.Y. Destroy
Left: Sid Vicious, 1977 – Photograph © Dennis Morris – all rights reserved
Right: Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), Vogue, March 2011 – Photograph by David Sims / art partner
Left: John Lydon, 1976 – Photograph by Richard Young/Rex USA
Right: Rei Kawakubo (Japanese, born 1942) for Comme des Garçons (Japanese, founded 1969), 1982 – Photograph by Peter Lindbergh
Left: Jordan, 1977 – Photograph from Rex USA
Right: Rodarte (American, founded 2005), Vogue, July 2008 – Photograph by David Sims
Left: Richard Hell, late 1970s – Photograph © Kate Simon
Right: Hussein Chalayan (British, born Cyprus, 1970), spring/summer 2003
Dazed and Confused, March 2003 – Photograph by Eric Nehr
See a video of the gallery views here.
All info, media and images © www.metmuseum.org
