NEW YORK — Make Anna Wintour do it. Who can say no to her?
That’s what curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art rather cleverly decided when organizing this year’s new fashion exhibit, “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations.”
The exhibit, on display through Aug. 19, reveals some 140 pieces from the lines of two legendary Italian designers—Elsa Schiaparelli (that’s skap-uh-RELL-ee) and Miuccia Prada. But the focal point is this “chat” between the two women, which wasn’t easy to create, given that one is shy and the other dead. (Schiap’ died in 1973.)
“He has to pick up the phone when it’s Anna on the line,” says the Met’s Costume Institute curator-in-charge Harold Koda…smiling. “If Miuccia and Anna are involved, ‘no’ doesn’t come into it,” Luhrman agrees.
They’d originally thought of using avatars, but (thankfully) decided to go Hollywood instead—and top tier Hollywood at that, enlisting acclaimed director Baz Luhrmann. But how to get a busy A-List director on board?
Enter Anna.
“He has to pick up the phone when it’s Anna on the line,” says the Met’s Costume Institute curator-in-charge Harold Koda…smiling.
“If Miuccia and Anna are involved, ‘no’ doesn’t come into it,” Luhrman agrees.
Luhrmann was a natural choice—he’s pals with Prada, and he and his wife, Catherine Martin (a production designer on his films) are fans of the Met. “We use it a lot in our work,” he says, noting they often research wardrobe ideas here.
The film shoots for this project turned out to be almost as impossible as the “conversation” itself, what with having to coordinate the schedules of Prada, Luhrmann and Emmy winner Judy Davis (who plays Schiap’). But the resulting videos, sprinkled throughout the exhibit, bring these two women from two different eras to life, and reveal striking similarities in their fashions—and personal lives.
SCHIAP
You know, Miuccia, I hate talking to designers. It’s the worst. So this impossible conversation between us is something like an exception for me.
PRADA
Yes, I can talk about fashion with so few people….
Alexander Who?
The big question, of course, is can the Met really do it—top last year’s record-breaking exhibit on the career of the late Alexander McQueen?
Or…put another way: Can Elsa and Miuccia out-McQueen McQueen?
Last year’s show featured a male designer and outrageous runway looks, many of which were never produced. This show features female designers and clothing that’s actually been worn. And by real women—not just Bjork.
“We didn’t even try,” says Koda.
Instead they flipped the fashion coin. Last year’s show featured a male designer and outrageous runway looks, many of which were never produced. This show features female designers and clothing that’s actually been worn. And by real women—not just Bjork.
“A dress has no life unless it is worn,” Schiaparelli once declared.
Inspired by Miguel Covarrubias’ “Impossible Interviews” (fictional chats between unlikely duos—Greta Garbo and Calvin Coolidge, Sigmund Freud and Jean Harlow—published in Vanity Fair in the 1930s), the Met exhibit is a visual treat, whether you’re looking at Prada’s fooled-ya, trompe l’oeil. faux-pleats dress from her fall 2004 line (set next to a 1931 Man Ray photo of Schiap’ wearing a gown she designed with real and faux, painted pleats down the middle). Or their experiments with “ugly chic.” Or outré outfits—Schiap’s 1937 “shoe hat” (made with surrealist Salvador Dalí) and suit embroidered with lips on the pockets and lapels (compared with Prada’s similar use of lips in her Spring 2000 line).
No one will believe I don’t use her for inspiration, Prada told Koda. (She’s actually inspired by the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, Koda explains.)
“But it’s sort of magical,” he says, “that two such different women can actually have these similarities.”
SCHIAP
You know, I was the most impossible, super-impetuous child….
PRADA
Yes, I was searching for what was the strangest, most silly things to do, and mime at this time—
SCHIAP
Mime??
PRADA
Yes, the most crazy thing I could do. In Milano.
Elsa, meet Miuccia
The exhibit is at times like a carnival fun house, with aisles of Plexiglas cases, video screens and mirrors. If you find yourself walking toward a fabulous person who looks just like you—STOP! You’re walking into a mirror…which happens a lot.
But it’s the films, with their “tongue-in-cheek playfulness,” that “animate the exhibition beyond any of our original expectations,” says Koda.
The women share tales from their past, and disagree on whether fashion is art. (Schiap says sí; Prada, no.)
The setting in each video is the same—an ornate room, with Prada sitting at one end of a table, Schiap’ on the other.
Think My Dinner with André, says Bolton, but with Luhrmann at the helm.
“There’s no one like Baz,” Hugh Jackman confirms. “He’s an actor’s dream.”
Luhrmann knew the shy Prada would appear stiff performing with an actress, so he shot the women separately—Prada first, in New York, talking with Luhrmann, who was off-camera. (At a second shoot, he was stuck in Sydney, and communicated with Prada via Skype.)
“He wanted it to be very informal, very real,” says Bolton.
At times Luhrmann was so surprised by Prada’s remarks he interrupted her, which upped the ante for Davis, who shot her sequences later, using dialogue inspired by Schiap’s autobiography—part improvised, part carefully scripted, so that she interrupts Prada at the exact moments Luhrmann did. The two sides of the conversation were then edited together
The women share tales from their past, and disagree on whether fashion is art. (Schiap says sí; Prada, no.)
For the record, the Met’s curators side with Schiaparelli.
It's one thing for designers to dream up over-the-top “statement” pieces that express an artistic viewpoint—and make headlines. But Prada and Schiaparelli have both managed to create fashions that are invested with ideas…yet totally wearable.
“It’s hard to do—to make a dress have an idea without it being somehow…extreme,” says Koda.
So…on the question of whether fashion designers are artists? The gals will just have to agree to disagree.
SCHIAP
I wonder—if we lived together at the same time…would we be friends or foes?
PRADA
I think friends.
SCHIAP
So now we can agree that fashion designers are artists.
PRADA (laughing)
No never, Schiap’. Never.
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“Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St., New York), through Aug. 19; for more info, call 212-535-7710 or visit metmuseum.org/impossibleconversations.
