Chapter I INTRODUCTION
1-1 Research Background
This research probes into the controversy raised upon the phenomenon of
exhibiting fashion couture within the field of museums. On a general outlook, fashion seems to reshape museums with a more inviting, alluring image.Some blockbuster fashion exhibitions, for example, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition even attracts more than 500,000 visitors. Therefore, to accommodate the public’s zealous demand, museums made the unprecedented decision to extend the exhibition for weeks, on off days or throughout nights. Fashion exhibitions even have the potential to be on the top 10 most visited exhibitions in “art” museum history.
On a general outlook, not only does the fashion exhibition attract new visitors, including the non-museum goer, it also reaches broader audiences from different ages and social backgrounds, encouraging the attainment of museum membership.
The glamour of fashion houses and artist designers attract celebrities as well as the public to pay tribute to the grand show. It links museums with popular culture and the media world. Fashion also makes museums newsworthy and intriguing. Fashion seems to reshape museums with a more inviting, alluring image and increases museums’
accessibility to the general public. Based on public interest, fashion seems to ignite curiosity and fulfill the museum’s objective of democratization.
On the other hand, museums, the legitimate cultural institutes, endow displayed fashion with cultural credibility, offer the entry to high art temple, add symbolic value to fashion, and reestablish the connotation of fashion design. More or less, exhibiting fashion in the field of museum shifts the heated debate on whether or not fashion is art.
Moreover, no matter admitted or not, the museum is involved in the fashion branding system by becoming a medium for the promotion of fashion design as a commodity.
Fashion corporations get to present their own history and dress archives in a less commercial way.
After the 1970s, more and more fashion exhibitions were dedicated to the designers from the fashion house as an expression of their creative talent and a commercial potential to attract broader visitors. Fashion exhibitions converge the needs from both designer brands and museums.
This phenomenon indicates a desire for the museum to be compatible and appealing to contemporary society. Due to budget cuts in the 1990s, museums learned from commercial entities, gradually modifying their operation strategies to guarantee the public’s acknowledgement and financial income (Rectanus, 2002). By teaming up with the fashion industry, museums attract more visitors and have brought in millions in corporate sponsorship money.
However, as positive as this partnership may seem, the commercial element of the designer’s brand haute couture has made it a controversial issue in the field of art museum.
Several issues revolving around institutional ethics have been severely debated and criticized. Some exhibitions lacked historical and contextual information, rendering a branding, advertising approach. It is suspicious how much the curatorial integrity, and the exhibition content are compromised after taking sponsorship money from the fashion house. While the obscure line between a carrier of popular culture or an ephemeral commodity remains unclear, fashion’s low status as a design within academia fuels art critique’s debate of its exhibit-worthiness.
The phenomenon of exhibiting contemporary fashion was led by traditional art and design museums, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, rather than the specialized fashion museums. In order to understand the significant issues of fashion exhibitions in the field of museums, it is crucial to start by investigating their history in order to further understand the presence of fashion in museums.
Browsing through the museum’s early collections of dress and couture, this thesis emphasizes the curatorial approach of several historically important fashion exhibitions, surveying the controversy and boundary breaking exhibitions.
Of all the museums that exhibit fashion design, this thesis focuses more on the Victoria and Albert Museum (the V&A), the world’s leading art and design museum. The V&A has collected both textiles and dresses since its earliest days. Additionally, the V&A was the museum that started the contemporary fashion exhibition. It’s complete past and sophisticated experiences in curating exhibitions helps when thoroughly sorting out exhibition history. My research investigates the elements on how the V&A held Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition, one of the most popular exhibitions in fashion history.
1-2 Research Objectives
n Research Motivation
This research probes into one of the most visited fashion exhibitions in history:
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from March 14th to August 2nd, 2015.
There are several aspects as to why Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition is an ideal research case. First, on the museum level, the Victoria and Albert Museum is one of the earliest and leading art and design museums in the world. The V&A has collected costumes since its beginning in 1852 and has held several groundbreaking contemporary fashion exhibitions.
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition was held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) for the first time in 2011. Savage Beauty is also one of the most popular exhibitions in both museums’ history. The same exhibition that was held in the Met offers a comparison to the case in the V&A the art and design museum. Both museums also held the earliest contemporary fashion exhibition at the end of the 20th century. Taking Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition as a case study helps examine its pivotal position in the fashion exhibitions’ history in a comprehensive way.
Secondly, on the iconic British designer himself, Alexander McQueen is the collective memory of British people. More recognized as an artist than a designer, McQueen was best known for his theatrical catwalk show and for stunning the world with his genius-like creativity. Drawing inspiration from history, literature, play, music, dance, and his Scottish heritage. He constantly pushed the boundaries and challenged the
limitations of fashion and runway shows. He also influenced the fashion industry, its aesthetics, and its reflection upon the society.
In McQueen’s aesthetic, he saw beauty in the contradiction. His collections often reflected paradoxical relationships such as life and death, lightness and darkness, melancholy and beauty. The way he combined the polarized oppositions is like when fashion meets museum; the exhibition Savage Beauty blends fashion and art, provokes analysis as well as the reflections of its visitors. Lastly, on the exhibition itself, it adopts the theatrical setting from McQueen’s runway. However entertaining it is, Savage Beauty’s elaborate designer’s philosophy and its inspiration from art history. It possesses both the entertaining and the educational functions the museum seeks.
The boiling social media, news, and magazine discussion, even before the exhibition began, were overwhelming. When the exhibition was first held in 2011 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met )in New York, people signed a petition, demanding that Savage Beauty should come home to London where McQueen was cultivated.
The past research on Alexander McQueen and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition are mainly focused on the exhibition’s content and Alexander McQueen’s aesthetics, yet often neglect to weigh in on the curatorial thesis, installation techniques and on its overall influence on the museum, the visitors and fashion exhibition history.
Personally, I admire Alexander McQueen as a controversial rule breaker. He exceeded the boundaries of the imagination and manifested the wonders of his wildest dreams. Therefore, as the museum decided to hold his retrospective, monumental exhibition, he and his work could return back to the center of the spotlight in almost every media as if he were alive again. Although the exhibition was first held in the Met for the first time in 2011, Savage Beauty in the V&A in 2015 was truly a homecoming. I was
really thrilled in the first place, but couldn’t help but wonder if the exhibition was sincerely a tribute to Alexander McQueen? How much of this exhibition was a desperate move to advertise and revive Alexander McQueen the company? Why was this exhibition held in the museum instead of anywhere else? What is the role of the museum in a fashion exhibition?
n Research Questions
Fashion exhibition study is a relatively new discipline. There has been a deficiency in critical evaluation and a clear context in fashion exhibition with a focus on corporate sponsorship. The target is to examine and interpret the discourse formation through the struggle of the V&A and corporate sponsorship and pinpoint this exhibition in fashion exhibition history. Summarizing the controversies, I mentioned above, there are three core issues revolved around the legitimacy of fashion exhibition in this research.
1. Why does the museum exhibit fashion design? What is the museum’s role in exhibiting fashion design? Does the museum consider fashion as art? Is fashion exhibition a pursuit of democratization?
2. How does the museum construct the exhibition discourse and discursive practices?
What is the poetics and the politics of the display? How is the fashion exhibition different from the runway show?
3. How does the corporate sponsorship execute in this case? How does the corporate sponsorship influence the discursive formation in the museum? What is the influence of the corporate sponsorship?
4. What does the audiences comment and responses? How does the visitors perceive the exhibition, the museum and the brand?