The venerable Metropolitan Museum of Art, sentinel of centuries past, has officially joined the 21st: in its new exhibit, “blog.mode : addressing fashion,” you can gaze at a classic Dior gown and then—oh, la la!—blog about it. Blog.mode blends the physical and the virtual: garments (mostly, though not entirely, womenswear; heavy on gowns, but also including shoes, necklaces, bags, and other accessories) are exhibited both in the Met’s galleries and also, via photos, on the blog.mode Web site, where viewers are encouraged to comment on the pieces displayed.
The idea is that fashion is somehow more universal—and, thus, more blog-worthy—than other art forms. “Unlike its haughty siblings,” the exhibit’s curatorial statement notes, “fashion—even in its most extreme and avant-garde expression—does not estrange us from the belief in the essential aptness of our judgment.”
The first two posts—“Incroyable,” natch, displaying an early-19th century, green-velvet suit from France; and “L’Air du Temps,” a 2007 Olivier Theyskens/Nina Ricci ball gown—have already elicited some telling responses, ranging from the less-than-auspicious (“this suit is pretty darn sweet,” wrote one capitalization-averse commenter about the French garment. “i would totally wear it, even in today’s day and age… and i would look darn spiffy in it too”) to the considered (“I appreciate your selections and would have loved to see more sturdy words from Horyn, Menkes, and Givan placed in these hallowed halls,” wrote Susan Cernek. “Also, three well-deserved cheers for the inclusion of Rodarte”).
The blog.mode exhibit opens today and will run until April 13, 2008. We’ve seen what citjos can offer; here’s to the citcrits.
Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.