Anglomania Exhibit at Metropolitan Museum

[Mark Seitelman]

The "Anglomania" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum features Savile Row bespoke suits along with punk and street attire of the last 20 years.

The exhibit is set in the Met's English period rooms. Mannequins wear both English "traditional" and "transgression" clothes in settings entitled the ball, the hunt, the hunt ball, and the mens club. The traditional consists of court and and upper class clothing (Savile Row) against the "transgression" clothes of Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, and other contemporary designers. Burberry sponsored the exhibit, therefore, it has a couple of items in the show.

The exhibition recalls the "Dangerous Liasons" exhibit of about a year ago where French costumes of the 16th to 18th centuries were shown on mannequins in the French period rooms. Mannequins are posed in lifelike stances.

Savile Row is featured in the clubroom exhibit which simulates a gentlemens club. At one end are white tie and tails and dinner jackets. The corner features something that Beau Brummell might have worn for evening, a navy suit with a buff vest and white linen shirt and stock. Unfortunately there was no descriptive placard for these clothes. I assume that the placard was missing. At the other end were traditional Savile Row clothes. In the middle were the punks standing on the table and raising a ruckus. Although the mannequins were faceless, the Savile Row ones seemed to stand in reserve and in bemusement at the antics of the clowish "transgression" mannequins who have invaded the sancity of their club.

The Savile Row representation included suits by Poole, Kilgour, Richard James, Richard Anderson, and Huntsman. These suits were classic and are exemplars of the Brummell ideals of male dress, i.e., simplicity, line, and precise tailoring. These clothes were so "un-showy" and classic that they stole the show.

In the other rooms there were clothes by Poole (an elaborate liveried servant uniform), Bernard Weatherill (fox hunting clothes and hunt ball dress), and Huntsman (fox hunting and hunt ball dress).

Curiously, the exhibit covered mens clothing farily well whereas there was a giantic gap in womens clothes of the 20th century. British greats, such as Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies, were unrepresented.. Womens clothing seemed to jump from the 19th century to the skinhead era.

"Anglomania" is worth a visit. It does not equal the "Windsor" exhibition of two years ago, however, it is a fine display of English clothing in all of its extremes.

Unfortunately, photography was not allowed, and there is no catalogue. The exhibit runs till mid-September.