Yet to be announced: the celebrity co-hosts of the Met Gala, which will occur as usual the first Monday in May. “If you’re afraid of birds, I wouldn’t go in there,” Bolton said. Like many of the older items, it will be paired with a contemporary garment, in this case a McQueen jacket inspired by Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”Īs in many of the displays, cutting-edge technology will be used to create a mood, in this case “a Hitchcockian swarm of black birds” on the ceiling. The immersive nature of the show may prove a little frightening to some, Bolton noted - perhaps particularly the presentation of a black tulle dress covered with embroidered blackbirds, designed just before World War II. Like some 50 of the items to be displayed, it is too delicate to be shown any other way. That bodice was fitted onto a mannequin, but nearby, a stunning silk satin ballgown by the 19th-century English designer Charles Frederick Worth lay on a table.
So the through-line is the natural world.”Īmong the oldest items: a tiny 17th century Elizabethan-era bodice embroidered with nature-themed elements like peas in a pod, and birds eating insects. Bolton added: “I think nature is a broader metaphor for fashion - the fragility and ephemerality of fashion, but also the circular nature of fashion, the ideas of regeneration and rebirth.
