Wore my heart on my sleeve and FIT ripped it out
by Hanna Mordekhai
The Museum at FIT, located on 28th Street and Fashion Avenue, offers an experience grand as the Metropolitan upon arrival. The entrance is accompanied by a security guard that will politely tell you to throw out your drink and put your umbrella in an umbrella bag. There are also, apparently, censors on the dresses, so don’t get too close. The exhibition is titled “Statement Sleeves”, curated by Colleen Hill, and is showing from January 24th to August 25th, 2024.
The entryway sign is green and illustrated with a range of different types of sleeves. One One of the depictions closely resembles a ruffled sleeve that took fashion week by storm about a month ago at Chloe’s FW24 show. The collection, debuted alongside new creative director Chemena Kamali, featured a chiffon ruffled mini dress, with sleeves ruffled until the ground. This look was regarded as quite sensational by critics. Other than the Chloe-look alike sleeve, no illustration stands out. No matter how big and detailed you make the diverse set of arms, how interesting can a sleeve really be?
Historic work of designers like Thierry Mugler, Christian Dior, and John Galliano, can be seen throughout the dim lit hallway. The patience held for intrigue, excitement, an “oooo”, an “ahhhh”, can only last so long. What seems to be the attempted anecdote for the boredom is a “crayon” sleeve by Christain Francis Roth, who was apparently the “Schiarparelli of the 90s”. Yes, this may be a wake up call mid-exihibit, but more of a splash in the face, rather than the sound of birds.
As a corner is turned in the exhibition, taken literally and not, there are two installations that scream “no, no, no”. Two arm mannequins are quite physically coming out of the wall, with it’s esteemed “sleeve” being displayed. A few sleeves left, two puff sleeves, who seemed to have borrowed puppet strings from Sesame Street, are flying out the wall. By then, the ambiance alludes more to an escape room, or haunted house, than a luxury fashion exhibition.
The dress who owns the sleeves of the one of Chloe-runway-doppleganger is located at the end of the exhibition. It is much less sensational than what is seen on the runway. It is a plain, knee lengthed wool dress, with white chiffon puffy sleeves, designed my Rudy Gernrich.
Although the exhibition was less than appetizing, the curation of such a niche part of dressing is a flattering ode to the designers who put so much time, effort and attention into making them. So they say, creatives like Rudy Gernrich could walk so Chemena Kamali could run. All we can hope is that these designers, from their homes or from their graves, now feel a sense of acknowledgement and accomplishment in their fine work in sleevery.
