A Perfumed Pearl

Un Costume sur mesure.Illustration by Armand Vallée (1926)

1930 c. Josephine Baker at the piano. Pinterest.

Clara Bow in Get Your Man (1927)

Clara Bow in Get Your Man (1927)

MET GALA "Costume Art" Exhibition 2026 pls help me get out of debt donating to: ko-fi.com/fashionrunways or dinahlance-shop.fourthwall.com The idea, curator Andrew Bolton said, is “to reflect on your own lived experience, hopefully to create a connection, empathy, compassion towards each other.” Not only does this interactive element transform a visit to the museum into a small voyage of self discovery, but it is a bodily experience that cannot be replicated digitally. This at a time when humans are being replaced by machines and AI anxiety is pervasive. “The whole show is structured around a typology of bodies, and these are bodies that you see across the museum when you encounter artworks,” Bolton explained. “The simple thesis for the show really is the fact that the dressed body is the connecting thread throughout the entire museum.” What you won’t see anywhere else at the Met are mannequins of diverse body types modeled after named individuals, like those commissioned for “Costume Art.” And this is transformative in many ways. As the scholar Llewellyn Negrin notes in her catalog introduction, not only do mannequins project a beauty standard, but their “dimensions often dictate the sizes of the garments shown, and the garments’ sizes correspond to the idealized proportions of the preferred mannequins, resulting in a mutually reinforcing process that perpetuates the privileging of culturally esteemed body types.”

Stella McCartney Spring 2016

'les garconnes,' group of parisian lesbians photographed by jacques henri lartigue, french, 1928.

The Art Deco peacock doors, Chicago 1925

The New Movie, July 1931

Christian Dior ‘Flamant Rose’ gown S/S 1948.

Eva Herzigova @ Thierry Mugler Spr/Sum 1992

from my herbarium collection

Christian Dior by John Galliano Peach Satin Lace Cami Top With Bows

Diamond, nephrite, and rock crystal lily of the valley brooch (at 1stdibs)