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Theater of Fashion
| Article
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18954 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1991 |
2,255 Words |
| Author
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David H. Ehrlich
David H. Ehrlich, an avid theatergoer, is an independent
writer based in Washington, D.C. He has previously written
numerous essays for The World & I. |
Covering nearly half an acre beneath the Egyptian Temple of Dendur in New York's Metropolitan Museum is a temple of a different kind. Known as the Costume Institute, it is devoted to fashion design; its collections encompass more than four centuries of personal apparel and accessories worn by the influential of various lands.
Although its origins go back to 1928, today's burgeoning facility is largely the creation of Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor of Vogue from 1962 to 1971. A lifelong fashion aesthete, Vreeland served as a special consultant to the institute from 1972 until shortly before her death in 1989, dramatically broadening the collections and initiating the annual blockbuster exhibitions of the costumes and social conventions of the past that have brought acclaim to the institute and attracted hosts of visitors to its displays.
Prior to Vreeland's coming, the museum had assembled the rudiments of a costume collection--a few thousand articles of dress from many parts of the world and a substantial library on costume design. The institute was originally chartered to collect and study the dress and accessories of all epochs and all peoples, which may serve ... students of all kinds [and) stimulate in the general public an awareness of the importance of dress in the development of the human race and [its relationship] to the present and future creative impulses in American life.
What's There?
More than sixty years after its founding, the institute consists of a ten thousand-volume library of fashion, a workroom, several exhibition galleries, and antiseptically protected "vaults" in which are stored the clothes that illustrate how elegant men and women of past centuries dressed.
Largely closed to the general public, the institute has no permanent displays or exhibits. However, the vast library of costume design, the gift of the Lewisohn sisters, members of a prominent New York family that made a fortune in mining and finance earlier in the century, is open to many. Fashion designers in search of inspiration, theater costume designers looking for examples of authentic period dress, and researchers from many fields seeking information about the history of costume design frequent the collection.
The institute's leadership is shared by Jean Druesedow, the acting head, and a diminutive Frenchwoman named Katell le Bourhis, who since
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