Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film and Fashion

The subject of next May's annual Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute exhibition and gala has just been announced and it is "Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film and Fashion".  

It will be a collaboration between the Costume Institute and the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Asian Art and will not only feature fashion but include painting, decorative arts and the representation of China in film.  The Chinese galleries as well as the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery of the Anna Wintour Costume Center will be used.  In other words, it should be beautiful!  

One of my favorite Costume Institute exhibition's was Dangerous Liaisons which placed 18th century dress in the The Wrightsman Galleries and it really brought to life the clothing, objects and furniture of 18th century France.

Here is a dress from the Brooklyn Collection Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that was a gift from the actress Anna May Wong.  It was designed by the Hollywood costume designer Travis Banton and should be a perfect example of Chinese Whispers, which is what the game, Telephone, is called in England...

love and kisses, Juliana

Met Gala Flashback 1979

A Met Gala flashback from 1980 via Town and Country magazine...

"One glance at the committee names on the invitation to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 'Fashions of the Hapsburg Era' opening in last December made it clear that one would not be hobnobbing with little match girls or the ladies who fix the flowers.  The committee chaired by Mrs. William F. Buckley Jr., was a constellation of the brightest stars in New York's social firmament and included Mrs. Winston Guest, Nancy, Lady Keith, Mrs. Aristotle Onassis, Mrs. Giovanni Agnelli, Mrs. Walter Annenberg, Miss Doris Duke, Mrs. Charles Englehard, Princess Lee Radziwill...  These well heeled heavenly bodies, glittering like Fourth of July sparkers in their haute couture gowns, radiate magnetic currents and powerful g forces.

Mary Sykes Cahan, the Metropolitan Mueum's senior public affairs associate in charge of the dinner that accompanies the exhibition which benefits the Costume Institute.  This dinner has long been a fundraiser for the CI, but became bigger in the 1970s with the appointment of Diana Vreeland as special consultant.  

Mrs Cahan said, 'Everything, from the invitation down to the placment of the last fork, goes through us.  No tapers, only unscented, votive candles are used.  Wax blows.  People deserve a suberb evening when hundresd of dollars have been spent.'

There's a waitng list for the six hndred invitations to the $300-per-person dinner.  Fifteen hundred tickets, priced at $75 for the post-dinner drinking, dancing viewing of the exhibit and the ultimate in people watching is the hottest ticket in town."

Town and Country, September 1980

Photos by Ron Galella from the Costume Institute Met Gala opening for Fashions of the Hapsburg Era, 1979

love, kisses and Party of the Year memories, Juliana

The Anna Wintour Costume Center

Once upon a time, in 1948...

 The Party of the Year, was maybe not quite yet the party of the year. Eleanor Lambert, invited society "matrons" - I do not know who in their right mind would like being called a matron - but anyhoo,  she invited matrons to buy a ticket for 50 bucks and said matrons were able to choose a gown from the Costume Institute to wear to a midnight dinner (I like that part : ) in December and Ms. Lambert dubbed it  'the party of the year'.  

And in 1971 the theme at the newly renovated Costume Institute was 'Fashion Plate'.  It celebrated the Costume Institute's own holdings - represented by  200 years of fashion and accompanying fashion plates.

Robe de style by Jeanne Lanvin.  Fashion plate by Benito for Vogue.  1924

And in 1973 with a waft of perfume and a demand for the young Harold Koda to make a mannequin for the exhibit 'Eighteenth-Century Woman' to appear ready for the guillotine, Mrs. Vreeland became the Special Consultant to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had her debut with  the 1973 exhibit 'The World of Cristobal Balenciaga'.

Diana Vreeland The World of Balenciaga Met Museum

Out went the matrons and in came the patrons.

Marisa Berenson at the Met Gala.

Halston and Bianca Jagger.  Met gala.  1981

Paloma Picasso and Rafeel Lopez-Sanchez.  1981.

Diana Vreeland and Yves Saint Laurent at the Met gala.

Diana Vreeland and Bill Blass at the Costume Institute

And since 1995 Anna Wintour has raised nearly $125 million dollars for the Costume Institute.

She has truly changed the party of the year into THE Party of the Year and while raising an astounding amount of money to support one of my favorite places in the world.  The CI is now also the home of the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection with its incredible collection of Charles James.

It was just announced that when the Costume Institute reopens in May after a $40 million dollar renovation, it will be renamed the Anna Wintour Costume Center.

love, kisses and vintage, Juliana