MoMA explores the present, past, and future of 111 "indispensable" fashion items — garments, accessories, and accoutrements — of the modern age
From Converse All Stars to Diane Von Furstenberg's wrap dress.
ABOUT THE BOOK: An A to Z Encyclopedia of vernacular fashion: Includes Levis, Adidas, the backpack, little black dress, Dashiki, Brooks Brothers Oxford shirt, the Hoodie, and Havainia flip flopsThe entries tell the "story" of the clothing i.e. The Bucket Hat starts as an Israeli Settler hat to South Africa staple to LL Cool J the American rapper with a stop on Bob Denver's head on Gilligan's Island.
PRESS & PROMOTION Exhibition at MOMA will Fall 2017 and is the museum's first fashion exhibition in 60 years. Already lots of media coverage including The New York Times "...deliriously diverse... from kaffiyehs to kilts, flip-flops to guayaberas, pencil skirts to moon boots, Speedos to Spanx.”WWD "“…an investigation of 111 garments and accessories that have had a profound effect on the world over the last century…runs the gamut from Levi’s 501 jeans and Nike’s Air Force 1s to Chanel No. 5’s bottle and a Vivienne Westwood x Louis Vuitton fanny pack.”
Edited with text by Paola Antonelli, Michelle Millar Fisher. Text by Luke Baker, Anna Burckhardt, Stephanie Kramer, Mei Mei Rado, Jennifer Tobias.
Items: Is Fashion Modern? presents 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a profound impact on the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Arranged A-Z encyclopedia-style, it includes designs as iconic as Levi’s 501 jeans, the pearl necklace and Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, and as ancient and rich as the sari, the Breton shirt, the kippah and the keffiyeh.
The catalog accompanies the first fashion exhibition to be mounted at MoMA since 1944. An essay by curator Paola Antonelli opens the volume, highlighting the Museum’s unique perspective on fashion and exploring the latter's role in the changing international landscape of design. The 111 texts that follow trace the history of each item in relation to cultural forces past and present, touching on labor, marketing, technology, religion, politics, aesthetics and popular culture, among many others. These concise essays are richly illustrated with a lively mix of archival images, fashion photography, film stills and documentary shots.
Punctuating the book are newly commissioned portfolios by five international contemporary photographers—Omar Victor Diop, Bobby Doherty, Catherine Losing, Monika Mogi and Kristin-Lee Moolman. Each photographer was assigned to represent the objects in one alphabetically ordered section of the book, and their diverse responses bring a vibrant creative energy to the project.
Design objects are complex indicators of larger social, cultural, political and economic contexts, and fashion is no exception. Kaleidoscopic yet exacting, Items takes readers through the history and significance of clothing that has changed the world, from the bucket hat’s multifaceted sartorial journey to the ubiquity and perennial popularity of the white t-shirt and the ever-changing silhouette of the little black dress. It locates new centers of gravity for the field of fashion and asserts its role as an incisive and confident contributor to the broad pantheon of design and the visual arts.
Paola Antonelli is Senior Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design as well as the Director of R&D at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The New York Times
Guy Trebay
To trace the history of fashion through objects and their ancient archetypes, the show’s organizers dipped into the material slipstream and fished out 350 objects representing 111 'typologies.' Just how deliriously diverse those typologies are was made clear by the museum…with the release of a list itemizing the things to be displayed. And what a list it is, from kaffiyehs to kilts, flip-flops to guayaberas, pencil skirts to moon boots, Speedos to Spanx.
WWD
Lisa Lockwood
…an investigation of 111 garments and accessories that have had a profound effect on the world over the last century…runs the gamut from Levi’s 501 jeans and Nike’s Air Force 1s to Chanel No. 5’s bottle and a Vivienne Westwood x Louis Vuitton fanny pack.
Vogue.com
Steff Yotka
What makes MoMA’s approach to fashion design unique is that rather than delve into the specifics of a single idea or designer, Antonelli and her curators are looking at the larger role fashion plays in our lives. If that sounds incredibly broad, well, it is—there are more than 350 pieces in the upcoming exhibit. But not every LBD [Little Black Dress] is created equal, and just 10 have made the MoMA cut: Chanel, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Thierry Mugler, Rick Owens, Arnold Scaasi, Versace, Wolford, Nervous System, and a ’40s utility dress.
The Garbwire
Melissa Ogier
Items: Is Fashion Modern? At MOMA will highlight 111 iconic garments and accessories that have become paragons of Design.
Complex
Trace William Cowen
MoMA's first fashion exhibit in 73 years includes Supreme, Kaepernick, and Yeezy.
It's Liquid
...explores the present, past – and sometimes the future – of 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a strong impact on the world in the 20th and 21st centuries – and continue to hold currency today. Among them are pieces as well-known and transformative as the Levi’s 501s, the Breton shirt, and the Little Black Dress, and as ancient and culturally charged as the sari, the pearl necklace, the kippah, and the keffiyeh.
W
Felix Burrichter
...it also brings into the fold iconic non-Western staples, such as the sari and the dashiki. Antonelli says the show addresses questions of sustainability, gender, and the means (and problems) of industrial production in a globalized world.
SURFACE
Sasha Levine
Why MoMA's ' Items: Is Fashion Modern?' Is not the exhibition you were expecting.
Ai-Ap
Peggy Roalf
...asks a question whose answer lands squarely in the sensibility of the know-it-all now-ness that is New York City.
Racked
Eliza Brooke
MoMA has identified the most game-changing clothing in the world- feel free to disagree though.
Observer
Michelle Honig
Of course fashion is Modern-- MoMA just took 7 decades to acknowledge it.
New York Magazine, the Cut
Emilia Petrarca
...along with ta Louis Vuitton one of similar size and shape, are what the museum chose as examples of "Monograms". The criteria? They had to have changed the world.
CNN
Jacopo Prisco
Which garments have had the most profound effect on the world over the last 100 years? This is the beautifully simple, yet daunting question that a new exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art aims to address with a display of 111 items that represent fashion's most significant contributions to popular culture.
Fader
Ben Dandridge-Lemco
Colin Kaepernick’s jersey is now on display at the MoMA...His 49ers jersey will be part of a section dedicated to sports’s influence on fashion.
NYLON
Taylor Bryant
The New MoMA fashion exhibit isn’t afraid to get political and those are its most powerful moments.
Fashionista
Maria Bobila
The Museum of Modern Art's, 'Items: Is Fashion Modern?' is an ambitious exploration of the everyday wardrobe with nearly 350 (!) objects on display, visitors will rethink a garment's past, present and future.
Hollywood Reporter
Stephen Sporn
...more than merely a tracking of trends, Antonelli and her team sought to address industry issues ranging from sustainability and labor practices to diversity and religious modesty.
VIBE
The quarterback’s jersey will reportedly be displayed in the museum’s “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” exhibit. The exhibit reportedly examines how sports have influenced fashion and culture.
Accesories Magazine
Lauren Parker
...it’s a fun and informative walk down memory lane. With “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” opening Oct. 1, the museum explores iconic fashion/accessories items, many of which received cult status and essentially changed the fashion landscape ...
Newsday
MoMA's first fashion and design exhibit in more than seven decades looks at iconic apparel...
AM New York
Keira Alexander
Museum takes its first look at fashion since WW!! with 'paragons of design'.
New York Times
Guy Trebay
...taken garment by garment, it is full of wonderful rabbit holes of narrative and information.
The New York Times
Roberta Smith
The Modern’s second-ever fashion exhibition proposes a global canon of 111 emblematic widely used items …a compact mine of information, rather like a handbook, arranged A to Z with in-depth entries and a pleasing combination of matte and glossy pages.
in stock $45.00
Free Shipping
UPS GROUND IN THE CONTINENTAL U.S. FOR CONSUMER ONLINE ORDERS
FROM THE BOOK
Excerpt, BALLET FLATS
Derived from the original heeled and buckled version worn by female dancers of France’s Académie Royale de Danse starting in 1681, the ballet flat’s progenitor developed around 1730, when French dancer Marie Anne de Cupis de Ca- margo removed the heel from her shoe to improve her mobility, thereby becoming one of the first ballerinas to dance in flat soled shoes.
Across the Atlantic in 1887 an Italian immigrant named Salvatore Capezio opened a small shoe repair shop near the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Capezio’s creations eventually caught the eye of trail-blazing American designer Claire McCardell, who commissioned Capezio to add a hard sole to the soft dance shoe for her 1941 collection. While wartime leather shortages were the impetus for the collaboration, McCardell nonetheless recognized the potential of the ballet flat for the modern woman whose life had become increasingly multifaceted. The shoe proved a success and was soon promoted by such stores as Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus, and in 1949 a bright yellow pair of Capezio ballet flats appeared on the cover of Vogue.
As the ballet flat increasingly became associated with modernity, the style was soon adopted by a range of different women, from subcultural trendsetters to Hollywood actresses. Considered one of the first to develop a Beat style, Diane diPrima paired her ballet slippers with a black nylon leotard and jeans as a freshman at Swathmore in 1951, observing that “blonde girls in cashmere sweaters with single strands of pearls seem to own this place.” Taking a cue from her costuming in such films as Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954) and Funny Face (1957), Audrey Hepburn became a famed promoter of the ballet flat, both as an elegant foil to a dress, as well as a modish complement to an all-black pants ensemble. In fact, shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo was so inspired by Hepburn’s espousal of the look, that in 1954 he designed a round-toed flat called the “Audrey.” However in 1956 the ballet flat reached its pinnacle when Bridgitte Bardot wore a bright red pair with red capri pants and a Breton top in the Roger Vadim film, Et Dieu... créa la femme (And God Created Woman). Commissioned by Bardot herself from French designer Rose Repetto, whose namesake shop near the National Opera of Paris had been supplying shoes to dancers since 1947, the “Cendrillon Ballerina”, as the shoe was named, ignited a new wave of popularity for the ballet flat, as Bardot’s combination of sex appeal and tomboyish nonchalance endowed the shoe with a spirit that resonated with women.
This week, Items: Is Fashion Modern? opened at The Museum of Modern Art, and all the fashion world rejoiced. The first “fashion” show at MoMA since 1944, Items collects 111 game-changing twentieth and twenty-first century articles of clothing and accessories and presents them encyclopedia-style, A-Z. Featured here: Item 033, Door-Knocker Earrings, as seen on members of the M.I.S.S. crew in clothes from the Mama fall/winter 2008 Mi Vida Loca collection, San Francisco. Photograph by Amanda Lopez. continue to blog
Question: Is fashion modern? Answer: Yes. Reproduced from Items: Is Fashion Modern?—available for preorder from MoMA—this pair of 1890 Levi Strauss & Co. waist overalls is just one example of the ultimate fashion paradox: jeans. “At once universal and highly personal, they reflect our anxiety about both fitting in and standing out,” Stephanie Kramer writes. Other fashion “items” featured in the book include aviator sunglasses, capri pants, dashikis, fanny packs, fleece, hoodies, kippahs, miniskirts, red lipstick, safety pins, sunscreen, Swatch watches, turtlenecks, Wonderbras, and yoga pants. continue to blog
The Bucket Hat. Sixties sit-com character Gilligan wore it. Seven Samurai director Akira Kurasawa wore it. Paddington Bear wore it. And here, members of the South African Rozary Productions pantsula dance crew wear it in Johannesburg, 2014. Analyzing the hat, known as ispoti in South Africa, Items: Is Fashion Modern? contributor quotes Wanda Lephoto of the Johannesburg design collective, the Sartists: “There are several types of fold[s] regarding ispoti: one to the front, one to the back and several to the sides. . . . These attitudes are usually based on ‘gangster’ mannerisms and wanting to appear as ‘hardcore,’ for lack of a better word.” continue to blog
Reproduced from Items: Is Fashion Modern?—which the New York Review of Books calls MoMA’s “fashion ‘canon’ for contemporary life”—this photograph from Monika Mogi’s photo essay shows Capri Pants, Converse All Stars and a Fitbit. “Items offers a satisfaction similar to that of a completed list or a well-organized room,” NYRB’s Hilary Reid writes. “It is the catalog, though, that transforms the items from familiar to historically significant… To fully appreciate the pieces in Items, it is the viewer’s duty—delight, really—to imagine how she has encountered and used each item over time. That the playful and delightfully bizarre contemporary fashion photographs in the catalog offer a vision of our mundane items beyond what we already know is the show’s most rewarding surprise.” continue to blog
In MoMA’s historic new survey, Items: Is Fashion Modern?, five rising international photographers—including Omar Victor Diop, Bobby Doherty, Catherine Losing, Monika Mogi and Kristin-Lee Moolman—were asked to interpret some of the articles of clothing featured in the show. Featured here is one image from Kristin-Lee Moolman's eight-page photo essay produced in collaboration with IB Kamara. For it, pieces from Pierre Cardin’s Cosmos collection, a Swatch watch, and YSL Touche Éclat face highlighter were gleaned from a secondhand store in the center of Johannesburg. Collectively, all five photographers used the 111 items in the exhibition as “lenses through which to investigate form, color, gesture, environment, and more,” Paola Antonelli writes. “The resulting pictures embrace fashion photography and yet carry us beyond fashion into the realm of design and its many intersections with culture, technology, art, anthropology—in other words, with the world.” continue to blog
Tuesday, November 28 from 6-8PM, The Museum of Modern Art, ARTBOOK | D.A.P. and Rizzoli invite you to a presentation and signing of Items: Is Fashion Modern? with Paola Antonelli,Michelle Millar Fisher and Stephanie Kramer from MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design. Join us for a discussion around MoMA's first major fashion exhibition since 1944. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8 x 10 in. / 288 pgs / 350 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $60 ISBN: 9781633450363 PUBLISHER: The Museum of Modern Art, New York AVAILABLE: 10/24/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Edited with text by Paola Antonelli, Michelle Millar Fisher. Text by Luke Baker, Anna Burckhardt, Stephanie Kramer, Mei Mei Rado, Jennifer Tobias.
Items: Is Fashion Modern? presents 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a profound impact on the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Arranged A-Z encyclopedia-style, it includes designs as iconic as Levi’s 501 jeans, the pearl necklace and Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, and as ancient and rich as the sari, the Breton shirt, the kippah and the keffiyeh.
The catalog accompanies the first fashion exhibition to be mounted at MoMA since 1944. An essay by curator Paola Antonelli opens the volume, highlighting the Museum’s unique perspective on fashion and exploring the latter's role in the changing international landscape of design. The 111 texts that follow trace the history of each item in relation to cultural forces past and present, touching on labor, marketing, technology, religion, politics, aesthetics and popular culture, among many others. These concise essays are richly illustrated with a lively mix of archival images, fashion photography, film stills and documentary shots.
Punctuating the book are newly commissioned portfolios by five international contemporary photographers—Omar Victor Diop, Bobby Doherty, Catherine Losing, Monika Mogi and Kristin-Lee Moolman. Each photographer was assigned to represent the objects in one alphabetically ordered section of the book, and their diverse responses bring a vibrant creative energy to the project.
Design objects are complex indicators of larger social, cultural, political and economic contexts, and fashion is no exception. Kaleidoscopic yet exacting, Items takes readers through the history and significance of clothing that has changed the world, from the bucket hat’s multifaceted sartorial journey to the ubiquity and perennial popularity of the white t-shirt and the ever-changing silhouette of the little black dress. It locates new centers of gravity for the field of fashion and asserts its role as an incisive and confident contributor to the broad pantheon of design and the visual arts.
Paola Antonelli is Senior Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design as well as the Director of R&D at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
