In Wonder Woman’s Phone Booth By ERIC WILSON
Published: April 17, 2008 NYTThe windows at GapKids stores around the country are shouting “Bam!” and “Pow!” just as Prada is screening a series of animated films in Los Angeles and Tokyo. Louis Vuitton has set up a shop at the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition of cartoonish works by Takashi Murakami, and DKNY Jeans has hired Paul Pope, a comic book artist, to design a collection for fall.
GapKids is part of fashion’s embrace of the comics
Fashion has lately fallen under the spell of cartoons as if designers had, by hypnosis, come into some dastardly plot. It will be a marvel if they do not storm the gates of the Javits Convention Center on Friday for the opening of the New York Comic Con event, looking for inspiration in the latest ensembles of Wonder Woman or whichever of the X-Men is still standing.
The most obvious perpetrator of this trend, sort of appropriately, resides in a lair deep beneath the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Actually, his office is in the basement, where the Costume Institute is located. Ever since Andrew Bolton, a curator there, announced that the museum’s spring exhibition would be based on superhero fashion, designers have been going a little batty with the bodysuits.
On Tuesday, Mr. Bolton was testing out some of the outfits that are planned for the show, opening May 7, on high-gloss mannequins that were designed to lend a “2001: A Space Odyssey” effect. A black vinyl mesh dress by the London designer Gareth Pugh, from his spring 2007 collection, with robotic-looking pyramids sprouting from the shoulders and arms, was likened to Batman’s armor. There were lots of Spider-Woman dresses from Giorgio Armani, Jean Paul Gaultier and Julien Macdonald, as well as high-tech athletic uniforms, including the controversial Speedo LZR suit, which has raised questions as to whether its design is performance enhancing, for swimming.
“Sometimes designers are attracted to superhero costumes quite literally,” Mr. Bolton said. “And sometimes they are attracted to what they represent — they represent the ultimate metaphor for fashion. They represent transformation.”
The costumes, he noted, are becoming stronger, tougher and ever more articulated. The exhibition will include the suit from the new Batman sequel, which is so padded it looks like the interior of a Buick.
The most obvious perpetrator of this trend, sort of appropriately, resides in a lair deep beneath the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Actually, his office is in the basement, where the Costume Institute is located. Ever since Andrew Bolton, a curator there, announced that the museum’s spring exhibition would be based on superhero fashion, designers have been going a little batty with the bodysuits.
On Tuesday, Mr. Bolton was testing out some of the outfits that are planned for the show, opening May 7, on high-gloss mannequins that were designed to lend a “2001: A Space Odyssey” effect. A black vinyl mesh dress by the London designer Gareth Pugh, from his spring 2007 collection, with robotic-looking pyramids sprouting from the shoulders and arms, was likened to Batman’s armor. There were lots of Spider-Woman dresses from Giorgio Armani, Jean Paul Gaultier and Julien Macdonald, as well as high-tech athletic uniforms, including the controversial Speedo LZR suit, which has raised questions as to whether its design is performance enhancing, for swimming.
“Sometimes designers are attracted to superhero costumes quite literally,” Mr. Bolton said. “And sometimes they are attracted to what they represent — they represent the ultimate metaphor for fashion. They represent transformation.”
The costumes, he noted, are becoming stronger, tougher and ever more articulated. The exhibition will include the suit from the new Batman sequel, which is so padded it looks like the interior of a Buick.
