Creative Fashion Forum

  • About
  • Costume Design
  • Curation
  • Exhibitions
  • Collecting
  • Contact

Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire

05.18.2015 by Belinda Naylor //

Exhibition Review: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City – October 21, 2014–February 1, 2015.

This Costume Institute exhibition explores the aesthetic development and cultural implications of American and European mourning fashions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The exhibition is situated in The Costume Institute, deep in the bowls of this vast museum. Whilst it’s not a ‘headliner’ in the manner of Alexander McQueen, I found the lack of signage frustrating – it takes some determination to find it – is this a sign that fashion doesn’t matter at the Met?  The visitor walks down a set of stairs and there is a large round sign on entry entitled ‘Death Becomes Her’.

On entering the gallery the viewer sees a number of raised white podiums on which stand small clusters of female mannequins wearing mourning dress in chronological order from the 1830’s through to the beginning of the 20th century.  There is no natural light and given the subject matter, probably appropriate and suitably sombre music plays throughout.  The walls are black and on them are displayed numerous quotes in white lettering from etiquette books and personal letters about mourning dress:

Black is becoming: and young widow, fair, plump, and smiling with their roguish eyes sparkling under their black are very seducing.
The Illustrated Manners, 1835

This was a device that worked well initially as it allowed an eclectic mix of quotes and reflections on mourning dress, however, these texts faded in and out after around 30 seconds to be replaced by additional text.  I thought it unnecessary and a little infuriating and overheard some visitors commenting on how annoying this was so I was clearly not the only one.

There was an extraordinary mannequin of Queen Victoria who it is well known, wore mourning for the majority of her life but in order to represent her full figure, the mannequin looked like she had pillows stuffed up her dress. Whilst we are familiar with the plump figure of HRH in mourning dress, because it was a headless mannequin and bore no resemblance to her, it just looked clumsy.

Although the clothes were displayed on a white podium, it was hard to see the detail because they were all black, so any embroidery or beading was hard to see.   There were quite detailed descriptions of the dresses with more text on how and why mourning dress was worn.  What struck me was that all these clothes were worn by middle/upper class women (and it was all women apart from one man and one child).  So the clothes themselves were high end garments – Lucile, Charles Worth and similar.  I could see no representations of working class mourning dress – we learnt that women of all classes dyed their clothes when they were required to go into mourning and that it was a costly exercise so it was a shame not to see examples of clothes worn by women with little or no income.

Off to the side of the main gallery was a smaller room in which mourning hats, pictures and jewellery were displayed.  I felt the thread had been lost and would have preferred to see them displayed alongside the costumes to keep the flow – a whole wall of the fading quotes could have been lost to make room for the mourning accessories and would have strengthened the narrative.  I think these were a crucial edition – the display enabled one to see plenty of detail and as with most fashion exhibitions you should leave wanting to own at least one item.  Whilst few of the dresses called to me, some of the jet jewellery definitely did.

Overall I liked the concept but felt there were some missed opportunities.  An exhibition comprised almost entirely of black dresses is a challenge and there were some fine examples of mourning dress.  However, there a little too much going on – music, disappearing quotes and an ante-chamber that should have been placed in the body of the exhibition.  It didn’t quite come together for me.

Belinda Naylor, Fashion Curator
Mobile: 07932 774 576

Categories // Exhibitions

About Us

The Creative Fashion Forum

Susan Bishop developed the Creative Fashion Forum to showcase her work in fashion, costume design and fashion curation, which also includes guest film and exhibition reviews. Read more

Connect

  • E-mail
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Recent Posts

  • Ethical and Sustainable Fashion
  • Susan’s Vintage Tour
  • The Spectacle of Fashion at Barkers Department Store 1928-1930
  • Fashion Curation – Wimbledon College of Arts (UAL)
  • Fashioned from Nature – V&A
  • Historic Embroidery Techniques – School of Historical Dress
  • Motivations for Collecting Vintage Jewellery–Old Bangles and Beads
  • Modernist Plastic Jewellery – Bakelite, Celluloid and Lucite

About

Susan Bishop developed the Creative Fashion Forum to showcase her work in fashion, costume design and fashion curation, which also includes guest film and exhibition reviews.

Latest Articles

  • Ethical and Sustainable Fashion
  • Susan’s Vintage Tour
  • The Spectacle of Fashion at Barkers Department Store 1928-1930

Connect

  • E-mail
  • Pinterest

Copyright © 2023 Creative Fashion Forum

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT