“American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity” opens at the Met next week, presenting a virtual catwalk of how women have dressed throughout our country's history, from flappers to Jackie O.
Six circular galleries built for the exhibit will each showcase a different era in the modern woman's sartorial history, dividing the 80 ensembles borrowed from the Brooklyn Costume Collection into the categories of Flapper, Bohemian, Suffragist, Patriot, Gibson Girl and Screen Siren, as well as a run-through of the female aesthetic from the 1890s through today, anchored by greats from Chanel to Lanvin to Vionnet and beyond.
Gap will underwrite the exhibition, and American designer Michael Kors and Barneys creative director Simon Doonan weighed in along with Gap's creative director Patrick Robinson about today's quintessential "American Woman" -- almost unanimously agreeing Michelle Obama is where we're at in today's moment of democratic fashion, and we'd have to agree.
American Woman: Fashionising a National Identity runs May 5-August 15 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
