In this week's blog post, contributor Holly Murphy reviews MFA Boston's current exhibition 'Dress Up', which explores the way messages can be conveyed through dress. Including insights from curators Theo Tyson and Emily Stoehrer about how the combining of jewellery and clothing in this exhibition came about, and what the outcome is for its interpretation.
The RuPaul quote “We're all born naked, and the rest is drag," which describes the act of becoming someone through dress, aptly opens the new costume exhibit, 'Dress Up', at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. In three interconnected rooms in the northwest of the museum, the show explores how the act of dressing communicates one’s politics, ambitions, culture, mood, and identity. It is a collaboration between Theo Tyson, the Penny Vinik Curator of Fashion Arts and Emily Stoehrer, the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator of Jewellery.
The initial idea grew out of a 2018 donation of costume jewellery from collector Carole Tannenbaum. Pre-pandemic, it was planned to be a small jewellery exhibition, but as things got derailed by Covid19, the museum director encouraged Stoehrer to think bigger.
After Tyson joined in late 2021, the partnership brought in dresses and other things worn. As such, it evolved into the larger exhibition that now fills the three-room space. Opening up their focus allowed them to look through a new lens, to see both fashion and jewellery, together. “That might seem obvious, because this is how we get dressed, but it is actually not obvious in this context (a museum exhibit) to do that” explains Stoehrer.
Split into nine segments - each with a title, corresponding quote, and text blurb - the structure of ‘Dress Up’ was planned so that if all one does is read quotes as one moves about the exhibit, the curators’ ideas would be understood.
A quote by Kate Spade in the first section, Child’s Play, evokes the childhood fantasy that starts it all. “Playing dress up begins at five and never truly ends” it reads, beckoning attendees to participate. Indeed, Tyson notes that as they’ve spoken with visitors, they’ve found that it is in this part of the show where the memory is triggered and guests start to connect to their own fantasy and experience dressing up.
Stoehrer points out that as the only museum in the country with a designated jewellery curator, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston is in a unique position to present a show with equal attention to jewellery and to fashion. “We have the opportunity to look at fashion, and jewellery, together because we’re collecting it together, and so, this show really builds upon that in a way,” she explains.
The idea of fashion and jewellery as equal players, or at least collaborators, in the creation of a ‘look’ is examined further in a part titled: More is More. Collaborations between both Halston and Elsa Peretti, and Pucci and Coppola e Toppo, are displayed here along with an outfit worn by interior designer turned starlet, Iris Apfel.
Showing jewellery and garments together on a mannequin was something that the curators looked forward to in planning the exhibit. They were able to do this in a few key moments in the show where security allowed. They have also shown fashion and jewellery together through the use of photographs and magazine editorials in areas where mannequins could not be present.
The exhibition continues with a deeper look into how an outfit can communicate in an area titled Identity Politics. Here, pieces by contemporary Native American designers and makers show how worn items can express an identity that encompasses past, present, and future. A pair of earrings by Haida and Aquinnah Wampanoag artist Tiffany Vanderhoop, entitled All My Ancestors Are Watching, inspired by her mother and her grandmother’s weavings, sits alongside Raven's Tail robe, a robe woven in twined wool, sea otter fur, cedar bark fiber, shell, and copper threads by Tiffany’s mother Evelyn Vanderhoop, who is Haida. Stoehrer explains that the museum commissioned the robe from Evelyn, and she agreed to donate her woven textile but only after it was danced in, which she herself came to the museum to do.
Describing the event, “We had this beautiful ceremony in 2018 where she danced the robe. And we got to see all the fringe come to life … see the object move in a way that she understood it never would after that. It was really at its core and at its intention. And at that beautiful ceremony, Tiffany was there and she banged the drum, and she was wearing her earrings.”
Showing the lived experience of the objects is important to the curators. In Identity Politics, there are other poignant pieces such as the AIDS Awareness Ribbon conceived of by costume designer Marc Happel and distributed by Visual AIDS, which is an important symbol that both communicates support for those with HIV and was useful as an educational tool, when there was little public discussion around the disease. “The overall sentiment is that fashion matters, and the decisions that we make when we dress ourselves and self-fashion, matters. The personal is the political is kind of the shorthand of it.” Tyson summarises.
The exhibit also looks at the accessibility of ‘dressing up’, once only a privilege for the wealthy. There is a part dedicated to the Little Black Dress, made famous by Coco Chanel, who, as the museum text reads, “took no issue with combining fine jewellery with costume jewellery to achieve the right look.” This attitude by such a strong fashion influence, helped to give a green light for others to wear costume jewellery, thus aiding to blur traditionally restrictive lines of who could wear what.
The internet has also played a role in allowing the availability of items to more of the population. A segment that addresses Shopping points this out, while hinting at the fallout of overconsumption through the inclusion of the photo A Day in the Life, Gramercy Square Hotel by Jessica Craig Martin, a critique on consumer culture and excess consumption.
The curators emphasize the fantasy that lives in one’s head as one goes about making selections. For many, that fantasy was influenced by Hollywood, which the exhibition makes note of in the section Dressing the Part. There is also a part devoted to Sequins and Sparkle, highlighting the qualities common to both fashion and jewellery, and includes two dresses worn by the Boston born “Queen of Disco”, Donna Summer, one of which is a Valentino sequined gown, complete with custom pouch for a microphone.
The exhibition brings the audience in closer in its final segments. One, titled The Theatre of Everyday Life, shows off pieces of costume jewellery, many of which were made in nearby Providence, Rhode Island, referred to as the jewellery capital of America. It invites us to imagine the items on display in life and not just as objects in a case, and consider what we might choose to dress in. Stoehrer expresses her hopes for this section, “You bring yourself to these jewels and you wear them with your own sense of style. I hope that people will look and maybe think about their own jewellery collections and the way they want to see themselves in a more expansive way.”
A photo booth with camera stand (for one’s phone) and backdrop, further entices attendees to think of dress and fantasy in regards to our own self-definition by taking a picture in the final area, Teen Spirit. On the walls are photos of teens employed by the museum for the school year as part of the MFA Teen Program. The youth self-selected roles behind and in front of the camera, and through the experience, imagined new careers for themselves, sending home the message.
‘Dress Up’ is on view April 13th - September 2nd, 2024
Last year, Costume Society News Editor Babette Radclyffe-Thomas visited MFA Boston; read her review of the museum's 'Something Old, Something New' exhibition in her blog post.
