FABULOUS!

museum exhibition

 

The FIDM Museum’s retrospective exhibition, Fabulous! Ten Years of FIDM Museum Acquisitions 2000 – 2010, is a raucous inspection of Western clothing and accessories from the last two centuries, showing at the museum’s Los Angeles location until December 17, 2011. From sedate and courtly examples of nineteenth-century dresses to loud and noisy fashion wear by Gianni Versace, the exhibit’s breadth of contrast is sizeable.

Other less lauded forms of apparel make their appearance, from shoes and hats to undergarments. Both men and women’s clothing are represented. Fabulous! consists of two sections: donated pieces in the first, and work purchased or commissioned by the museum in the second. This latter part is divided further into modern or contemporary work, and clothing from the nineteenth century. Although the exhibition is not exhaustive, a surprising range of Western fashion is available for perusal. For any student of wearable art, this is valuable because of the opportunity for contrast and comparison. An Alexander McQueen dress of facing peacocks with entwined tails, commissioned by the museum, can be seen just across the way from traditional bustle dresses, which surely were the giants upon whose shoulders McQueen and other fashion designers have stood.

by Patrick R. Benesh-Liu
issue 35.1

 

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