The exhibition is on display until the 2nd September 2024.
The Wall Street Journal: “The spring show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute uses ingenious sensory experiences to bring gowns and other garments—many of which have become fragile or degraded over time—back to life.”
The Independent: “While the innovative additives allow visitors to build an intimate connection that usually only comes when we wear a piece of clothing, each design still feels alive even stationary on its form. Maybe it’s the awareness of value rife in exhibition halls, the omnipresence of unexampled treasure, but you forget that the garments can’t walk on their own and you remember that fashion is living art.”
The Guardian: “There is much to enjoy in the show, from the deteriorating gowns rarely seen in public, to the innovative designs from more contemporary designers, to the premise itself – that fashion is, ultimately, the most human of design endeavours, dependent on its interaction with the human body.”
Fashionista.com: “What Bolton and his team endeavor to do with “Sleeping Beauties” is reinforce the idea that fashion merits the attention, study and care that other fields of art receive, while simultaneously conveying that the way we study it should be different. It should take into account the subjective human component inherent to clothes: No matter how conceptual or unorthodox, they’re meant to be worn by people, designed with a human body in mind — and people will leave their mark on them, whether that’s the scent profile of the perfume they spritz or the cigarettes they smoked, or the residue of their natural oils on the textile. This is all as much a part of their story as their origin and their making.”
Vogue.com: “Making museology (particularly conservation) a subtheme of the show seems topical in light of the debate over the wearing of the 1962 “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress designed by Bob Mackie and Jean Louis for Marilyn Monroe. The role of science is worked in obvious and subtle ways throughout. The exhibition’s rooms and passages are like those of a connecting molecule.”
To find out more about the exhibition visit: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/sleeping-beauties-reawakening-fashion