This is a review of the documentary “The First Monday in May.”
- List of the topic.
- Since fashion could be considered as an art like paintings or sculpture, because of its artistic quality, beauty, and craft, the Met, as an encyclopedic museum, established The Costume Institute. It has opened a fashion exhibition every spring on the first Monday in May.
- In 2011, there was a fashion exhibition, Alexander McQueen “Savage Beauty,” just after Alexander McQueen’s suicide. It was unquestionably radical, powerful, and extraordinary.
- Andrew Bolton, who curated “Savage Beauty,” was thinking about the possibility of a major costume institute at museums since he was a 17-year-old. He became a curator as his dream and the exhibition was successful, but he felt pressure with his achievement.
- In 2014, there was another exhibition, “China: Through the Looking Glass,” which showed collaboration between costumes and Asian art.
- The exhibition started with a number of pictures of designs inspired by Chinese culture, and in his office, the images were on a storyboard so-called “The Great Wall of China.”
- Bolton interviewed John Galliano and visited the archive of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris for the exhibition.
- The exhibition was organized in cooperation with Vogue. Anna Wintour, who is the editor-in-chief of Vogue, who prepared the Met Gala.
- The garments at the show were inspired by Chinese culture, so that the designers must have gotten motifs from Chinese movies, such as The Last Emperor (1987), Raise the Red Lantern (1991), Farewell my Concubine (1993), and In the Mood for Love (2000). Wong Kar Wai, who was the director of In the Mood for Love, participated as an artistic director for the exhibition.
- Bolton, his partner, Thom Brown, and Anna Wintour went to Beijing for the show. This exhibition, as crossroads of art, culture, and politics, required many discussions between the Met, Vogue, and Chinese people.
- Bolton wanted to convey different perspectives from the stereotype of Chinese people and culture, such as Chinese immigrants and the movie character, a “Dragon Woman.”
- It took approximately eight months to open the exhibition and the gala, and it was the largest costume exhibition they had ever done. There were various difficulties. The cultural subject matter could have been stereotypical, which is not fresh, and also it could be misconstrued in a political way. It was sensitive.
- In the last minute, they were out of time, but the preparation was thriving. The show was much larger than the shows that they had opened in springs till then, and 150 garments from 40 designers were displayed.
- At the day, many celebrities, musician, and designers visited the show. All designers brought their muses.
- Total visitors of “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” were 661,509, and there were more than 800,000 visitors at the “China: Through the Looking Glass.” It was one of the most successful exhibitions in the Met’s history.
- Research Question
- Why do the Chinese people have concerns about showing historical aspects in the exhibition?
- Why do some people tend to deem that features of traditional art are less creative than features of modern art?
- How did Bolton overcome the frustration from the different views and diverse obstacles?
- Why don’t some fashion designers consider themselves to be artists?
- Why are Western people more interested in Japanese or Chinese culture than Korean culture?
- How do people who work at the high fashion industry deal relate to people in fast fashion industry?
