Embodying Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
Is she just another pretty face or a timeless fashion icon? Harold Koda, curator at the Costume Institute, shows us who embodies the true meaning of “Muse” and why she’s worthy of our gaze.

The “Model as Muse Embodying Fashion” exhibit, running from May 6th through August 9th is, interestingly enough, not focused on the fashion as its subject.  The Institute has chosen instead to focus on the direct influence of its various muses on major fashion industry players and surrounding media culture.

The exhibit opens with Dior’s New Look and Balenciaga’s sack dresses accompanied by photographs illustrating the theory that the term “muse” is truly deserved by only certain models – and its all in how they wear the clothes.

Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Time magazines accompany each historical era beginning with the fabulous faces of Dorian Leigh, Suzy Harnet, Suzy Parker and Domiva shot by Cecil Beaton, all the way to the current, curvier-silhouetted muses.

The 50s feature Jean Shrimpton, Rudi Gernreich, Twiggy, and Verushka, demonstrating the lanky, carefree, long and lean body type.  The 70’s include the Halstonetts’s – Karen Bjornson, Pat Cleveland, Elsa Peretti – when body takes center stage to clothing physical fitness reaches its peak, along with the resurgence of Sports Illustrated.  Next are the supermodels of the 80’s featuring Linda Evangelista, Kristi Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Stephanie Seymour, each showing off a more substantial, filled-out silhouette.

The photographs are as compelling as the trail of magazine layouts featuring each supermodel.

Then you reach what Koda calls the “ultimate Muse”: Kate moss, the waif and benchmark of the Grunge era.  Moss propagated “supermodel as anti-supermodel,” individuality and deviation from pop culture. Here in the exhibit is a glass box.  Inside are models wearing Prada and Helmut Lang to depict the moment in time when fashion segued towards the conceptual, and designers preferred a faceless “hanger” to a recognizable supermodel.

The show closes with the dichotomy of the revived Dior costumes from John Galliano, recently worn by supermodel Gisele, presented against two “faceless” models wearing Marc Jacobs with Richard Prince nurse uniforms.  The body types represent the yin and yang, Gisele’s 50s-esque voluptuous curves, versus Natalia Vodianova’s androgynous, 60s-era shape.

Why are these models, all so completely different, “muse” worthy?  Why are these specific models picked when there are so many to choose from?

The word “muse” originates from Ancient Greek Mythology and the sisterhood of the Greek goddesses.  These figures inspired the creative process even so far as invisible or divine.  The term has been used in the fashion dialect to describe a real, accessible person who, as Irving Penn would say of Dorian Leigh, “seems to sense the coming of the click of the camera; her expression builds until she and the camera come alive together.”

The muses highlighted in the exhibit were selected as Harold Koda explained, while “researching for this exhibit and looking through archives I realizing that some faces I recognized instantly and there were loads of models pictures that meant nothing to me.” His recognition of specific models confirmed his theory that only some are true muses, capable of impacting us deeply.

Harold firmly distinguishes between models who are “just another pretty face” and a muse’s divine status.  A muse has “an edge and interprets fashion through movement and gesture. She makes the dress work.”  Simply put, “a dress looks better on a muse,” says Koda, she “embodies” fashion whereas classically, the fashion embodies her.  A muse makes clothing more attractive, thus becoming the vehicle that moves clothing from generation to generation.  Muses give the clothes character.  The exhibit proves that the muses’ power is so strong that one wants to “be her, and have her physical attributes.”   A muse inspires people to emulate her, no matter what she is wearing.  She understands the clothing and can therefore wear it best, aiding in brand and marketing for the designer.

There is a key difference between a muse representing an idealized femininity and a true census of women during that time.  In most instances, the real women of each decade could not wear the couture clothing designers made unless the pieces were completely altered.  The exhibit is less about defining femininity, and more about fantasies and desires of the community, as embodied by its muses.

From Funny Face and Audrey Hepburn continuing to the 90’s Kate Moss, the term “muse” was a wholesome, true, aggressive, powerful and positive notion; however, it has lost some status in this celebrity-obsessed culture to the point of becoming almost passé.  Do celebrities who buy designers’ dress follow the reverse process of becoming a muse after the fact? Is anyone who is rich enough and well connected now “Muse’ worthy? No. The relationship between a muse and a generation of women is significant and important enough to be the focus of the exhibit.

The direct relationship between the muse and designer was not discussed or focused on, therefore the question becomes less “does a designer have a muse” and more “do women in general have a muse.”  Although the exhibit starts out with Yves Saint Laurent’s quote, “A good model can advance fashion 10 years,” the direct connection between the designers dissipates.  In what way did the muse inspire the designer?

Muses have surfaced since ancient Greek mythology; however now, in between the designer in contemporary celebrity-obsessed culture, anyone can be elevated to “muse.”  Marketing and commercializing models, branding them with products, defaces the ancient definition of the sacred muse.  The term transforms to one associated more with money and lineage and less with creativity and art.

According to Marc Jacobs who sponsored the event, the muse is just as integral in fashion today. “It is one thing to design clothes and quite another to see them brought to life – not just by nameless, beautiful faces, but by women who have asserted their personalities and become well known on runways, in magazines, on movie screens and beyond.”  If true muses still exist today, they are scattered and few in number, but highlighted beautifully at the Costume Institute’s exhibit.