As for the McQueen show, the Met curators originally worried there wouldn’t be enough material available for the kind of in-depth retrospective they had in mind. When they called London, though, they found that McQueen had kept extensive archives throughout his entire career. Years ago, the designer had kept it all “stuffed in a tiny closet,” and he used it primarily for his own research, often “cannibalizing” old pieces to design new ones, Mr. Koda said. There were still some 5,000 pieces and a repository of McQueen works at Givenchy from his tenure there.
It was a daunting task, but no doubt worth it to Sarah Burton, McQueen’s longtime assistant and the label’s current head, and the company. “This will cement him in fashion history,” Ms. Dubin said. “Going forward, it means more awareness of the brand because exhibits produce catalogs and press. It will maybe extend his reach and create opportunities for future licensing–McQueen is not a mass-market brand and does not, as far as I know, have a huge amount of licenses.”
The clothes and accessories are being mailed to the Met now, and Mr. Bolton has begun editing them down into a few main themes. The production designers, Sam Gainsbury and Joseph Bennett (who also designed some of McQueen’s runway shows), took inspiration, for instance, from McQueen’s 2001 “Insane Asylum” collection, in which the audience sat around a mirrored cube that lit up to reveal deranged models inside. They reinterpreted this “box within a box” leitmotif in one of the galleries with a display of McQueen’s signature romantic gothic costumes, and within that room, in a box, will be a mini-collection of deconstructed pieces.
In a technical section of the exhibit, the recovered bumsters, kimono jackets, skirts and other trousers will make up a “study” of McQueen’s tailoring skills. But Mr. Koda didn’t want to focus too much on technique because McQueen “really is about a spirit,” he said, “an approach to creativity that is the romantic hero, me against all, and making the unexpected beautiful–and that’s Andrew’s take on it.”
The ball is the Costume Institute’s main fund-raiser, generating “gobs” of money, according to Rogues’ Gallery author (and gadfly to the Met) Michael Gross. “It also has a halo effect, for both good and ill. It raises consciousness of the museum around the world, and the institute’s exhibits draw huge crowds who do contribute to the bottom line, but the party and its denizens–the fashion crowd and the skin puppets and rock stars who love playing dress-up for the cameras–also lower the museum’s image, turning it into one more mass-market circus.”
The exhibit will end July 31, but next year’s show is already in the works. Mr. Koda hinted that it will likely present one of the short-listed designers in the original “Against Nature” show. Could it be Dior, or perhaps feature Mr. James? His pieces are notoriously hard to find, but since the Costume Institute acquired the Brooklyn Museum’s archives two years ago–home to about 200 Charles James garments–it now seems possible.
In the meantime, one thing is certain: We can expect to see celebrities in “a parade of McQueen’s greatest hits” in May, Ms. Stephenson said. “The whole fashion world will be peacocking.”
