Met Museum: Punk: Chaos to Couture

The current exhibit at the Met,  Punk: Chaos to Couture, is one of the museum's more frivolous attempts to find filler to put on display for the summer season.

At base, the exhibit, as its title implies, explores the conundrum faced by fashion designers when forced to create extremely expensive couture fashions patterned after originals that were largely DIY inspirations made from worn cast-off tee shirts and slashed  jeans.  As one might expect, the exhibit abounds with such catchphrases as "bricolage" and with references to Duchamp's "readymades."  In contrast, the Punk ethos itself is reduced to window dressing for the fashions shown.  All the raucous elements of rebellion and youthful angst have been thoroughly sanitized.  There is none of the vulgarity that characterized Punk expression or the violence that underlay it, and any references to controversial figures such as Sid Vicious have been carefully avoided. The viewer is left to wonder what the movement was all about in the first place.

The elegant fashions lined up one beside the other - with wall size photos of such Punk archetypes as Johnny Rotten enshrined at each end - are definitely fun to view, though they appear quite uncomfortable to actually wear.  The most successful, including a long black gown by Moschino complete with black leather gloves, are those which seem to have the least to do with Punk.  Others, such as voluminous skirts made from plastic trash bags, appear more academic exercises than actual clothing.  A viewer can only speculate to what functions the designers envisioned their fashions being worn.  They are hardly the couture one expects to encounter at opening night at the Met Opera.

The exhibit's greatest success is its own design.  It eschews authenticity in favor of style.  The recreation of CBGB's bathroom, no matter how exact, is unrecognizable without the stench of urine that permeated the original.  The music that plays in the background is never loud enough to be intrusive.  The dim lighting pays hushed reverence to fashion by suggesting the darkened interior of a church rather than the grimy setting of a rock concert.  Any apropos suggestion of obscenity or violence has been carefully excised.

The exhibit continues through August 14, 2013.