blog.mode and meta-blogging at the Met

Junya Watanabe, AW2000-2001

blog.mode: addressing fashion is opening at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute December 18. “Designed to promote critical and creative dialogues about fashion,” the exhibition presents the Costume Institute’s recent acquisitions, which range from a Miguel Adrover 2000 ensemble made from Quentin Crisp’s discarded mattress to a 1730’s English suit.

The exhibit is meant to foster a discussion with museum visitors, as it invites the visitors to share their reactions via a blog, which is accessible both in the exhibition space and via the Met’s site. Comments from the blog together with the curators’ commentaries will be included in a book to be published after the exhibition closes. Meanwhile, in a classic instance of meta blogging, you can follow the curators—Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton—blog about blogs.mode on T magazine’s recently launched blog.

We were struck by Andew Bolton’s description of the blog as a way for the viewer to add to the strata of meaning and the history of the garments. Talking with W magazine, he mentioned how “Every object in the museum has a particular life history, and we hope the comments will contribute to the life history of [the clothes].”

It is a rather lyrical way to conceptualize a blog, especially the ability to contribute to these garments’ history and to some extent modify it. It seems to suggest a virtual way of adding traces and stains onto the clothes.

Francesca