Fashion in the Museum

I know that there are some who think that fashion doesn't belong in the museum and that there are others who mostly go to museums to see the fashions, whether on mannequins or in paintings.

The Boston MFA has placed costumes from Hollywood’s Golden Age on display with a wall showing clips from the films where the costumes were worn. The costumes appear remarkably different in person from the screen. In person, I noticed the dresses’ beadwork and color, but saw them for their structure and movement in the black and white films. If museums serve to help us become more visually aware, then this show reminds us that what we see on screens, film, television, or computer, may not be what we would experience in person.

No bad thing in that.

As I attend a talk at the National Arts Club (tonight, Friday 1/23 7pm) on the fashion designer Bill Halston, I will also confront the club’s own uncertainty about the committee. They often organize some of the more popular events, and yet they are derided as a “light” committee, unconcerned with real art. Almost all the clothes that we wear do not constitute art, but I would be hard pressed to reject all fashion across time as having no place in a discussion of art.

Fashion is intimate and it most obviously accepts our superimposed desires, but is that truly reason to dismiss it? Hasn't other art done the same?