It is one of those ironies rarely discussed in the fashion industry \u2014 a world focused, largely, on catering to (or exploiting, depending on how you look at it) the dreams and identity of women \u2014 is run mostly by men.<\/p>\n
Men run the biggest luxury groups; men make up the largest percentage of the chief executives; and for years the most celebrated designers who take their bows at the end of the runways of the biggest global brand names were men.<\/p>\n
To a certain extent, that dynamic has finally begun to shift: In 2016, Dior named its first female creative director for women\u2019s wear, Maria Grazia Chiuri; in 2019, Chanel appointed its first female designer since Coco, Virginie Viard; Herm\u00e8s has women at the head of its women\u2019s and men\u2019s lines, Nad\u00e8ge Vanhee-Cybulski and V\u00e9ronique Nichanian; and Phoebe Philo\u2019s return this fall under her own name may be the most anticipated new line of the year.<\/p>\n
But LVMH, the largest luxury group in the world and Dior\u2019s owner, has only two other female designers at its 14 total fashion brands (plus a partnership with Stella McCartney). Kering, the second largest fashion-focused global luxury group, has but one female designer among its six ready-to-wear brands: Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen. There\u2019s still a long way to go.<\/p>\n
Which is why the announcement that the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will devote its fall show to a survey of the work of female designers is so striking. Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that this is the Costume Institute\u2019s first such retrospective in the roughly 85 years of its existence.<\/p>\n
While the Costume Institute has held a sprinkling of single shows dedicated to the work of women who changed fashion (Coco Chanel, Madame Gr\u00e8s, Rei Kawakubo, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada), it has never before taken a broad look at the female fashion canon \u2014 or, indeed, posited that there is a female fashion canon and that it should be a larger part of the general fashion canon.<\/p>\n
Even more notably, when the Met show opens on Dec. 7, it will be the punctuation mark at the end of months of museum shows celebrating women.<\/p>\n
The correction starts in September with \u201cAnn Lowe: American Couturier\u201d at Winterthur in Delaware, the largest exhibition yet of the work of the visionary behind Jackie Kennedy\u2019s wedding dress and a Black designer who remained unsung for decades.<\/p>\n
Next up, in October, is \u201cMood of the Moment: Gaby Aghion and the House of Chlo\u00e9\u201d at the Jewish Museum in New York, the first major exhibition devoted to the brand and its founder to be held in the city. That will be followed in November by \u201cIris van Herpen. Sculpting the Senses\u201d at the Mus\u00e9e des Arts D\u00e9coratifs in Paris. All of which should add up to a potent reminder of the breadth and contributions of women designers \u2014 not to mention a spur for the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be complicated to do a show based on identity,\u201d said Mellissa Huber, an associate curator at the Met\u2019s Costume Institute and the co-curator, with Karen Van Godtsenhoven, of the museum\u2019s show \u201cWomen Dressing Women.\u201d \u201cWe don\u2019t want to categorize all female designers as working the same or being the same. Perhaps that\u2019s one thing that deterred people in the past. But this exhibit really is intended to be about celebration and acknowledgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if happens, Ms. Huber and Ms. Van Godtsenhoven had proposed similar female-focused retrospective shows to Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute\u2019s curator in charge, around the same time in 2019, the year before the 100th anniversary of women\u2019s suffrage. They decided to team up, but the Covid-19 pandemic intervened, postponing the show to this year.<\/p>\n
The result showcases the work of about 70 designers held in the Costume Institute\u2019s collection, which stretches from the turn of the 20th century to today and includes names both famous (Jeanne Lanvin, Claire McCardell) and little known (Augusta Bernard, Madeleine & Madeleine). And it is a reminder that once upon a time, the industry looked very different.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe \u201920s and \u201930s were a period when women designers were incredibly active and prolific, and it\u2019s the one moment in history when women actually slightly outnumbered men in leading the creative direction of fashion,\u201d Ms. Huber said. \u201cBut that moment never really, truly occurred again.\u201d<\/p>\n
As to why the shift, Ms. Huber said it had to do with \u201cgender and social change and a lack of confidence on the part of the financial community to invest in women\u201d after World War II. \u201cWhen we had the New Look in \u201947 with Dior, there was a major tidal change,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe\u2019ve never entirely recovered.\u201d<\/p>\n
To illustrate how we got here, the Costume Institute show traces the work of female designers from their anonymous beginnings, when, Ms. Huber said, \u201cmany women were working in a field that didn\u2019t recognize the contributions of individual makers\u201d through the hegemony of the French couture houses, when Chanel, Schiaparelli, Vionnet and Gr\u00e8s dominated.<\/p>\n
Then it moves on to what Ms. Huber calls \u201cthe boutique generation\u201d of the 1960s \u2014 designers like Mary Quant and Bonnie Cashin, who cleared their own path \u2014 culminating in pieces by designers working today and are \u201cthinking collaboratively, considering notions of sustainability and inclusivity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along the way the exhibition rights a few historical wrongs, such as the often mistaken attribution of the famous Fortuny Delphos gown solely to the Fortuny founder, Mariano Fortuny, instead of to his wife, Ad\u00e8le Henriette Negrin Fortuny.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Delphos dress is a great example of something that is very canonized, very familiar, even to nonspecialists,\u201d Ms. Huber said. But the patent that had been filed for the gown includes a handwritten note from Mr. Fortuny noting \u201cthat Henriette Negrin Fortuny was actually the rightful inventor and that essentially he filed it under his name for expediency,\u201d Ms. Huber said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo realize that there was actually another person behind the dress who had been removed from the historical record for so long was astonishing,\u201d Ms. Huber added.<\/p>\n
The show also enabled the curators to add the work of at least a dozen new names to the museum\u2019s holdings, including Marine Serre, Anifa Mvuemba of Hanifa and Hillary Taymour of Collina Strada, thus carving out a permanent space for them in the historical record and ensuring, Ms. Huber said, that this is simply the start of \u201ca much longer ongoing conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a very exciting moment for women designers,\u201d she added. What really matters is what happens next, now that \u201cthis critical mass of voices is suddenly coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n