Costume Institute's blog.mode is Up and Running
December 21, 2007
We haven't gotten there yet, but this week, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its latest exhibition, blog.mode: addressing fashion (intentional lowercase, like k.d.lang). A certain amount of groaning accompanied the news that the show would be designed to be "interactive" with computer terminals allowing visitors to comment on individual pieces as well as blog allowing comment from on line visitors. Clearly, this is a gimmick meant to cover the fact that it is a show of new acquisitions with no overriding curatorial theme, however, after a few days, it looks like the experiment may be an intriguing success, and one that can easily be applied to any sort of exhibition.
Any regular Costume Institute visitor knows that people get very vocal in those galleries, often recalling clothes they one wore that were similar to those on display, or just expressing their opinions as if they in Bloomingdale's. The blog is an entertaining record of the public's response, and, so far, it looks like the commenters are taking it pretty seriously, although we are pretty sure that the "Gloria Guinness " who offered her opinion on Olivier Theyskens' frothy Nina Ricci ballgown is not the famous socialite by the same name who died in 1980. But, hey, use the opportunity to invent a clever alias for yourself like a favorite character from a novel, or perhaps a porn star.
The blog can be found here. Each day features a new item from the show, like the Nancy Gonzalez bag pictured above, and the opportunity to comment or just lurk and read what random other people of varying degrees of expertise have to say.
The exhibit runs through April 13th which should give them plenty of time to amass a copious amount of opinion, probably more than they actually want.
blog.mode: addressing fashion at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue from 80th to 84th Streets, Upper East Side
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