L’Of/ciel Style 37
WH AT: CAMP: NOTES ON FASHION
WHERE: The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
WHEN: Until 8th September 2019
WHY: For the past few years, the Costume Institute at the Met has tended to favour
rather straightforward themes for its annual spring exhibit—recent shows explored
the relationship between handcraft and high-tech, the influence of Catholicism and
China, or the legacy of a single designer like Rei Kawakubo—but this year they decided
to delve into the esoteric, conceptual and abstract idea of camp. Curator Andrew
Bolton thinks it fitting and necessary for our times as “camp comes to the fore as
the defining aesthetic of the times during moments of social, political and economic
instability—when society is polarised—to subvert and challenge the status quo.”But how to define camp itself? The show takes as its starting point Susan Sontag’s
seminal 1964 essay ‘Notes on Camp’ which outlined 58 principles of camp—in short it
is a sensibility rooted in irony, parody, humour, artifice, theatricality; a sort of studied
triviality that finds substance in the glorification of style. Featuring over 250 objects,
which include 170 pieces of fashion, the exhibition spans the history of camp from its
beginnings in 17th-century Versailles to the cutting wit of Oscar Wilde to its modern
fashion incarnations in the works of the likes of Franco Moschino and his spiritual heir,
PHOTOGRAPHY Jeremy Scott.JOHNNY DUFORT / THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART