The upcoming Costume Institute exhibition “About Time: Fashion and Duration” will celebrate next October 29 the 150th anniversary of the Metropolitan Museum of Art by presenting a chronological timeline of fashion through the decades, from 1870 to 2020. The exhibition is set out to consider the nature of time and fashion and will put in evidence the work of designers who have riffed on earlier silhouettes and design concepts, as for example Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen’s leg-of-mutton-sleeve dress that takes its cue from 1890s examples in the museum’s collection; or Yves Saint Laurent’s broad-shouldered 1978 redux of Elsa Schiaparelli’s “broken mirror” embroidered jacket of 1938. Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of its Costume Institute, said that according to him fashion is just another name for time, and this exhibition is a meditation on fashion and temporality.
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