"Punk: Chaos To
Couture" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art traces the punk aesthetic and
its influence on high fashion. The exhibition is replete with multimedia
representations from punk's two former centers, New York and London. There are
videos of punk performances; a recreation of the London shop
"Seditionaries," owned by designers Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm
McLaren, and a recreation of the New York punk club CBGB's notoriously grungy
and graffiti-laden bathroom. The fashion items most representative of punk
culture are Westwood and McLaren's T-shirts, with political and sexual
statements and images designed to shock. Following this look at the early days,
the show surveys punk's influence on current couture–and here its message
becomes muddled. Viewers examine dresses festooned with safety pins, rips,
spikes, studs, chains, splatters of paint and, at times, political statements.
These designs are created by the most prominent names in fashion. It's clear
that, despite the museum's signage stating that the designers are
revolutionaries, they've actually co-opted punk's rebelliousness and created
expensive costumes enabling the wealthy to pose as renegades.
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