2022 Installation shot from In America: An Anthology of Fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Battle of Versailles- 1973” Room, created by Tom Ford featuring contemporary designs by House of Dior, Bill Blass, Pierre Cardin, Anne Klein, Halston, Hubert de Gienchy, Emanuel Ungaro, Oscar de la Renta, Yves Saint Laurent, and Stephen Burrows.
The Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute seems to always find fresh, creative ways to engage and delight visitors! In America: An Anthology of Fashion, an exhibition addressing defining moments of fashion history through an exploration of men’s and women’s costume in the United States from the 18th century to the present is case in point. Embracing the theme of sartorial narrative in its fullest sense, Anthology makes brilliant use of the Met’s American Wing period rooms, which have been transformed into rich mis-en-scènes by nine different film directors - some more humorously, some more profoundly, but each layered with depth and meaning. Within these historic settings, costumed mannequins, imaginative story-telling, and cinematic acumen are cleverly deployed to activate time and space, weaving stories from the personal to the political, the aesthetic to the ideological.
Our favorite environment, and by far the most dynamic, was staged by Tom Ford, a renowned designer as well as a filmmaker. Ford literalized the so-called “Battle of Versailles,” a transatlantic fashion show (cum publicity stunt) that took place on November 28, 1973 at the Royal Opera de Versailles, which famously pitted French and American designers against one another. Quite unexpectedly the five underdog Americans – Bill Blass, Halston, Stephen Burrows, Anne Klein, and Oscar de la Renta –ran away with the show, captivating the ultra-chic audience with the modernity of their designs, the vitality of their choreography, and their American models "who “knew how to move in their clothes.” The sophisticated crowd went crazy, jumping up and down, and throwing their programs in their air like confetti! Marking a huge triumph for American ready-wear and a total upset for elegant European haute couture, the event re-establishing American designers as a force to be reckoned with. Of course the fashion “battle” involved a clash of feathers and fabric, fierce looks and runway walks, rather than fencing foils or martial art high kicks. But that doesn’t mean Tom Ford couldn’t re-envision/re-embody that mythic night - and some of the garments presented at Versailles - in these fabulously fantastical terms! Ohhhh, to have been there to witness the actual “guerre”!