Yet even more exhibition stuff...

The exhibition continues to be a dominating factor in my life. This week there were tours to lead and a major presentation for 90 high schoolers to plan and present--not to mention keeping up with all the press coverage we have gotten! So far I think the most exciting ones have been Vogue Italia, Elle.com, The New York Times, and the Racked article in which they finally mentioned our grad program.

Yesterday, after we finished our giant presentation for FIT's pre-college program, I had my classmates over for a potluck. It was a wonderful time to laugh and vent about various things, and it occurred to me that no one among my family and friends (even my housemate) have actually met all of the women with whom I have been spending all of my time. I've spent a year and a half in an incredibly tight-knit community, yet if I showed any of you a picture of my class you probably wouldn't be able to name anyone!

So here is a little ode to my classmates. This is the group of 11 of us who worked on the exhibition and are on track to graduate in May (there are four part-time students who we consider as part of our class but who won't be done with coursework this year).

From left to right: Rebecca (my partner for a menswear project where we compared the work of Michael Kors to John Varvators), Sarah (we have worked on a couple of projects together and both interned at the Met last summer), Me (if you didn't know that, get off this blog), Audrey (One of the curators of the show who I sometimes rode the subway with when I lived in Brooklyn), Emma (the other curator, who invited me to my first party when I moved to New York), Laura (who is always fabulously dressed and here is wearing an actual Vivienne Westwood), Miriam (who went out to lunch with me on that first terrifying first day of orientation), Jessica (who once journeyed all the way from her apartment at the north tip of Manhattan to visit me in Brooklyn), [lower row] Tatiana (another group project collaborator who is always ready with advice and pointers), Cassidy (possibly even more obsessed with British movies and TV than me), and Ariele (who invited me over for hors d'oeuvres and prosecco on my birthday). Our class generally gets along very well, and I feel blessed to be part of such a great group.

Opening Week!

Finally, my class exhibition—which we have been toiling over since August—opened this past week. Since most of you won’t be able to see it, I feel I should avoid waxing rhapsodic about how wonderful it is, but I have to admit it is a pretty good show. Because I wasn’t one of the curators (or even someone with one of the larger jobs) I assumed I wouldn’t feel that emotionally attached to it, but the experience of seeing it complete has been almost magical.

To top it all off, the response we have gotten has been overwhelming. The museum staff they had never seen so many members of the press show up for a preview of a student show, and when the doors opened to the public there were people outside waiting eagerly. By Thursday all the gallery guides we had printed had disappeared, and every day we get an e-mail about the show being mentioned in another blog or magazine.

The opening reception for friends and family was fun, but the press preview was more exciting for me. Basically, members of the press checked in at a table and then were free to walk through on their own, get a tour or interview with the curators, and take photos or videos of the gallery. There were several people from the Museum as well as the media office for the college, but I was one of only four from my class. The curators were there, of course, and then otherwise it was just me and the project manager. As I mentioned, the turnout from was really good. I don’t think the curators ever got a break from interviews, and at one point there was a line of people waiting to talk to them. As a result I ended up answering a lot of questions and even gave a short tour to a woman from Forbes.

My big moment came with a news crew from China (we have gotten a lot of international coverage—don’t ask me why). They filmed an interview with the curators and then I ended up chatting with one of the reporters about the project. They hadn’t understood that there were many people working on the exhibition, and were fascinated by what I told them about the process. Eventually she turned to me and said, “we want to film you saying this.” So before I knew it I had a microphone clipped to my dress and a camera pointed at me. I think I spoke relatively intelligently, but I can’t be sure. Once I was done they wanted some background shots so they asked me to walk slowing down the hallway and look like I was looking at the exhibition. Then they had me talk to one of my classmates and point at things on the wall. I’m pretty sure that is the part that will be embarrassing when I finally see the video. They promised to send me a link when it is finally posted, so we call all look forward to that.

Vivienne Westwood has launched!

We had our opening party on Monday night, the press preview Tuesday morning, and it was open to the public at noon on Tuesday! The website also launched this week so be sure to check that out. More dish on opening week coming soon...

Little Black Dreck

This week in my symposium class (the one where we are writing papers that de-bunk fashion myths) we watched a short documentary about the Little Black Dress. The show was actually part of a series called Love/Lust currently showing on the Sundance channel, and the episode about the LBD was the first to air. I was particularly interested to see it because the research team for the show had come to Special Collections many times and spent hours going through sketches and making scans. They seemed like nice people but we did have one moment of suspicion when they asked to see a 1926 issue of Vogue because it supposedly showed the "first ever" little black dress (designed by Chanel, of course). I brought the volume out for them but tried to gently suggest that while this may have been an important little black dress, this was certainly far from the first black dress of moderate size in the history of fashion. As a response, they literally stuck their fingers in their ears and said they didn't want to hear it.

So in class we decided to watch the show with the expectation it would include a few myths that we could discuss. But what we witnessed was awful beyond our expectations. We spent the whole hour alternately laughing, gasping, and groaning at the sheer number of flat-out incorrect statements. They didn't imply untruths, they made made statements that were just flat-out wrong, wrong, wrong. It was quite appalling actually. The core issue was that it was fashion history as told in a VH1 "I love the 80's!" kind of way. They interviewed "experts" tha were really just photogenic people with some connection to fashion who were willing to make statements like "F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were totally the Brad and Angelina of the 1920s!"

The show kicked off by not only claiming that Chanel had invented the first ever little black dress, but she was the first woman (besides nuns) to ever wear black, and that in 1926 she saved the world from Victorian fashion (which actually ended circa 1901) which included bustles (last gasp 1892) and crinolines (R.I.P. cage crinoline 1868). But lest you think this is nothing more than the rants of a picky fashion stickler, there were plenty of groans for everyone else.

For the Historian / People over 55

-By the early 1960s, the tensions of the Cold War were basically over

-The Kennedy Presidency co-existed with the height of the hippie movement.

For the Feminist:

-The LBD is a great way to show the world you are an empowered woman! In fact, Kate Middleton got her man by wearing an LBD in a fashion show Prince William attended. Now she is going to be a princess!! Girlpower!

For people with a basic understanding of size:

-A floor-length evening gown counts as a little black dress

For Humanity:

-Miley Cyrus is the perfect example of class and style today.

The final insult was that the images that they used from Special Collections were literally on screen for about a second. They scrolled through about 10 images from our Bergdorf Goodman archives in rapid fire for one moment at the end. But as my professor pointed out, it was probably good that we were barely associated with that train wreck. It has been thrilling to help people who are working on documentaries or films, but this would be one case in which seeing "Special Thanks to Clara Berg!!" would have been a downright embarrassment.

Next week we plan to see what they have to say about the high heel shoe.