Fashion Theory Volume 12 Issue 1 pp 121ndash126DOI 102752175174108X269595Reprints available directly from the PublishersPhotocopying permitted by licence onlycopy 2008 Berg

Voguersquos New World American Fashionability and the Politics of Style 121

Alexandra Palmer Exhibition Reviews Editor

Reviewing Fashion ExhibitionsFashion Theory brings together international scholars and readers who are interested in a wide range of histories and meanings of fashion and the body The exhibition review section offers an important place to consider current interpretations of historic and contemporary fashions in both large and small exhibitions and to discuss diverse themes and installations It is critical to record these ephemeral projects but to do so in a meaningful way that goes beyond mere description of what is on view (Figure 1)

The fashion exhibition grounded in the history of nineteenth-century exhibitions and commercial fashion merchandising continues to offer intriguing ways of thinking and looking at fashion However while the

122 Alexandra Palmer

history of fashion display is old the formal critical review process for exhibitions has only just begun At times curators have described their exhibition installations methods and intentions (de la Haye 2004 Palmer 1990 Thornton 1962) Though this is a valid contribution to the field these do not serve as reviews because they do not record the visitor experience Reviews of museum fashion exhibitions have tended towards a type that is a motley combination of fashion journalism coupled with emotional outpourings about the designs that have ldquospokenrdquo to the reviewer through some rarified aesthetic and intangible communion These reviews are often found in the fashion pages not the art section of the press where the reviewers tend to focus on the exhibition in terms of its relevance to current fashion trends and style This is again a valid stance but does not really constitute a review Another type barely mentions the exhibition in favor of a discussion of the party associated with the exhibition opening In this case the article is more of a whorsquos who at the event and a critique of the designer ensembles worn Most reviews describe the exhibition contentsmdashthe fashionsmdashyet often omit an analysis that measures the successes or shortfalls of the exhibition itself the curatorial thesis and the installation techniques

There are notable exceptions The fashion reviews in the New Yorker by Judith Thurman are often extended and thoughtful pieces as were those by Kennedy Fraser As well the entry of fashion exhibitions into high art settings where fashion is normally not displayed such as Giorgio Armani designs at the Guggenheim has caused much heated debate from art critics Comments tend to focus on the suitability and

Figure 1 Installation of Indian export chintz and embroidered dresses and palampore shown in 18th Century Costume curated by Katharine B Brett Textile Gallery Royal Ontario Museum (JulyndashOctober 1972) With permission of the Royal Ontario Museum copy ROM

Reviewing Fashion Exhibitions 123

hierarchical place of fashion in museum settings rather than the success and merits of the exhibition itself But all debate is helpful in raising awareness of the exhibitions

Fashion Theory offers a central place to think about the review process itself and for critical discussions This is important because the academy of fashion history and theory is in its infancy and is rapidly crossing and expanding across established academic territories As Christopher Breward eloquently discusses in this volume some traditional museum and material culture scholars continue to be threatened by the so-called ldquoNew Waverdquo of fashion studies This work has been described as ldquotediously patronizing and self-congratulatory outpourings from university departments presumably desperate for material of the next Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) written by people who are not dress historians and for whom dress is a new toyrdquo (Scott 2005 140) Valerie Cumming (2004 7ndash8) calls these same scholars ldquointellectual touristsrdquo who ldquorarely bother to examine surviving dress or textiles or even consider their importance as evidence of changes in knowledge and skillsrdquo and who are actively ldquoburdeningrdquo us with a ldquomass of books dealing with the body clothes costume dress fashion and textilesrdquo Fashion exhibitions and their reviews offer a bridge for crossing these perceived boundaries as they combine new scholarship with artifact study

Yet who is ldquoeligiblerdquo to write these reviews and how should it be done First and foremost an exhibition is a public forum so any visitor who has experienced an exhibition is a potential reviewer But reviewers need to analyze the actual displays and their reaction to them Reviews need to address the exhibition in its own terms what did it set out to do how did it do this was it successful how and if not why The reviewer needs to describe and analyze for the reader what was encountered in the exhibitionmdashwhat the visitor sees This includes the placement and order of the display and an assessment of the choice Does this aid or detract from the thesis of the exhibition The review needs to consider the selection of the objects on display how they are displayed and what this contributes to the visual and intellectual understanding of the exhibition thesis and the individual objects This includes any text its placement and perhaps a consideration of font size and legibility

For instance when I attended Fashion in Colors at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (December 9 2005ndashMarch 26 2006) I had difficulty reading the object labels due to the small point size their low placement and lack of lighting I found this extremely annoying as I wanted to read about the beautifully presented objects It seemed as if the curator or the designer did not consider that labels were particularly important The result was that the effort required to read the text diminished the significance of the objects on display

Reviews should preferably also be informed by the authorrsquos expertise When the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) mounted

124 Alexandra Palmer

Dangerous Liaisons Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century (April 29 2004ndashSeptember 6 2004) in the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Galleries it was important to have this exhibition reviewed by a person who was an eighteenth-century scholar and who was engaged in the current scholarly debates Peter McNeil a design and fashion historian with expertise in the eighteenth century kindly agreed to write this review His review (McNeil 2005) appraised the exhibition in terms of what it tried to do and how it did or did not accomplish this His review showed a keen understanding of the constraints of museum artifacts and environment the importance of this installation in the MMArsquos period rooms and was set within a broad understanding of the eighteenth-century cultural history and contemporary academic issues

Only by formalizing the critique of exhibitions can curators and visitors learn how to see and interpret the results Ane Lyngersquos (2007) review of In Fashion New Swedish Clothing Design notes that most visitors engaged in this show in a personal way looking at designs that they liked or did not like more than in an educational and learning experience She suggests that ldquoBy providing historical and contextual information In Fashion could have challenged visitors to think about Swedish national design identityrdquo (p 121) This brought to mind an exhibition I curated Au Courant Contemporary Canadian Fashion held at the Institute of Contemporary Culture Royal Ontario Museum (April 1997ndashJanuary 1998) clearly delineated for me the difficulty of exhibiting modern dress (Figure 2)

Au Courant recognized that Canadian fashion has no national design identity and was ldquoThe first exhibition to show modern Canadian fashion as a sophisticated mature design form and successful commercial endeavor more than 40 Canadians whose work demonstrates the range of style versatility and multifaceted approaches taken to womenrsquos menrsquos and childrenrsquos fashion and accessory designrdquo were on display My intention was to have visitors look at fashion as a form of industrial design and to learn about Canadarsquos current contribution to contemporary fashion However the fashion press in particular was more interested in the names of who was ldquoinrdquo and who was left ldquooutrdquo even though the exhibit was not aimed at this knowledgeable Canadian fashion world that was well versed in Canadian designer names I was interested in identifying for the Canadian public the understanding that there were many if unrecognized Canadian fashion designers and companies such as Patrick Cox John Fluevog Marie St Pierre MAC Westbeach and Roots operating successful businesses and that there was an active and diverse fashion manufacturing sector in Canada In hindsight I do not think this was very successfully conveyed

Perhaps if I had had the opportunity to read about other exhibits that had tackled similar issues of national design identity I would have been able to state a clearer case So it was with great interest that I read about other exhibitions that dealt with the same issue of displaying a

Reviewing Fashion Exhibitions 125

countryrsquos contemporary fashion to their own nationals The published reviews of Danish fashion (Lynge 2005) or New Zealand fashion (Goodrum 2004 2005) and Swedish fashion (Lynge 2007) now offer a matrix for thinking about the difficulties and methods for presenting national fashion histories These exhibition reviews also articulate the difficulty of displaying current fashions to museum visitors who bring considerable understanding of the material and the problems relating

Figure 2 Installation of Suit by Mercy in Au Courant Contemporary Canadian Fashion curated by Alexandra Palmer Institute of Contemporary Culture Royal Ontario Museum (April 1997ndashJanuary 1998) With permission of the Royal Ontario Museum copy ROM

126 Alexandra Palmer

to the innate ldquoshop windowrdquo effect of dressing up mannequins The formal exhibition review allows these complex issues to be recorded considered and discussed

As this issue of Fashion Theory articulates the debates around the issues of exhibiting fashion are growing even though mounting an exhibition remains an expensive complex and labor-intensive process The fashion for studying thinking about looking at and making fashion history through exhibitions is not a passing phase There are complex far-reaching and multiple viewpoints and interpretations None is ldquocorrectrdquo and none is final It is for scholars to critique their peers and to consider how to review the growing number of fashion exhibitions A peer review system review is necessary to raise the bar and provide a discourse that is intellectually different and hopefully more informed than those generated by fashion journalists and the general public The result can only deepen our understanding of the complexity and vibrancy of fashion and open up more ideas and ways of exhibiting and thinking about fashion

References

Cumming Valerie 2004 Understanding Fashion History London B T Batsford

Goodrum Alison L 2004 ldquoExhibition Review The First New Zealand Fashion Week Exhibitionrdquo Fashion Theory 8(1) 99ndash104

Goodrum Alison L 2005 ldquoExhibition Review Flaunt ArtFashionCulturerdquo Fashion Theory 9(1) 89ndash94

De la Haye Amy 2004 ldquoNew Gallery Review lsquoWhat Happened to all Those Lovely Costumesrsquordquo Fashion Theory 8(3) 339ndash50

Lynge Ane 2005 ldquoExhibition Review UNIK Danish Fashionrdquo Fashion Theory 9(4) 471ndash6

Lynge Ane 2007 ldquoExhibition Review In Fashion New Swedish Clothing Designrdquo Fashion Theory 11(1) 115ndash22

McNeil Peter 2005 ldquoExhibition Review Dangerous Liaisonsrdquo Fashion Theory 9(4) 477ndash86

Palmer Alexandra 1990 ldquoThe Royal Ontario Museum Costume amp Textile Galleryrdquo Costume 24 113ndash6

Scott Margaret 2005 ldquoBook Review Clothing Culture 1350ndash1650rdquo Costume 39 140ndash3

Thornton Peter 1962 ldquoThe New Arrangement of the Costume Court in the Victoria amp Albert Museumrdquo Museum Journal 62(1) 326ndash32