The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
at 82nd Street
212-535-7710
New York
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy
May 7-September 1, 2008

As superheroes enjoy a surge in mass popularity not seen since the golden age of comic books in the 1940s, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will explore the symbolic and metaphorical associations between these fictional characters and fashion in Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, an exhibition at the Museum from May 7 through September 1, 2008. The exhibition will feature approximately 70 ensembles including movie costumes, avant-garde haute couture, and high-performance sportswear to reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body.

“Today, superhero imagery has suffused almost every aspect of popular culture, said Andrew Bolton, Curator in the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute. “The superhero’s iconic costume of cape, mask, and bodysuit finds many fashionable permutations. But fashion’s embrace of the superhero extends beyond iconography, to issues of identity, sexuality, and nationalism. Fashion shares with the superhero an inherent metaphorical malleability which fuels its fascination with the idea and the ideal of the superhero.”

The exhibition, in the Museum’s first-floor special exhibition galleries, will include movie costumes as well as radical fashions that literally and figuratively reference superhero iconography, including Bernhard Willhelm’s 2006 royal blue dress emblazoned with a red-and-yellow “S” emblem, a 1996 Walter van Beirendonck pink vinyl inflatable jacket, and a John Galliano for Christian Dior Haute Couture corset and bikini bottom from his 2001 “Wonder Woman” collection. A Thierry Mugler motorcycle bustier with polychrome handlebars and side-view mirrors evokes Ghost Rider in its comic-strip exaggeration, while a Hussein Chalayan Airplane dress with battery-operated moveable flaps shares the Flash’s streamlined aerodynamics. Also included is an array of second-skin body suits for extreme sports, as well as luminous, glow-in-the-dark clothing.

Other designers in the exhibition include Giorgio Armani, Balenciaga, Pierre Cardin, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rudi Gernreich, Givenchy, Eiko Ishioka, House of Harlot, Michiko Koshino, Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, Moschino, Nike, Gareth Pugh, Paco Rabanne, Jeremy Scott, Speedo, and Three As Four.

Objects will be organized thematically around specific superheroes, whose movie costumes and superpowers will be catalysts for discussion of key concepts of superheroism and their expression in fashion. Superman and Spiderman costumes will address the subject of The Graphic Body, relating Superman’s S chevron to designer logos and branding. Batman and Cat Woman will represent The Fetishistic Body — their sexually charged costumes have inspired a variety of PVC, rubber, and leather fashions. The stars and stripes of Wonder Woman’s uniform, a composite of the American flag, epitomize The Patriotic Body and designs that appropriate patriotic emotions implicit in the character. The Hulk, a metaphor for male potency, will introduce a section on The Phallic Body, which includes inflatable clothing that swells to exaggerate the male physique.

The Flash — a character who possesses superhuman speed — will address the Aerodynamic Body as manifest in high-tech sportswear such as Nike’s “Swift Suit” and Speedo’s “Fastskin Suit,” which enhance athletic performance in sprinters and swimmers respectively. Iron Man’s costume will represent The “Mechatronic” Body, and examine avant-garde fashion that combines mechanical and electronic components. The Mutant Body, denoted by the X-Men, will highlight clothing that morphs men into beasts. Ghost Rider, the biker-demon with flaming skull, and The Punisher, the vigilante who sports a giant death-skull emblem on his T-shirt, will symbolize The Postmodern Body that suggests an anti-hero identity through the eclectic mixing of street styles.

The exhibition is organized by Andrew Bolton, Curator, with the support of Harold Koda, Curator in Charge, both of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute.

A book, Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, will accompany the exhibition, and will feature an introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.

Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga, spring/summer 2007, Photograph courtesy of firstVIEW.

Gareth Pugh (British), spring/summer 2007, Photograph courtesy of firstVIEW.

Thierry Mugler, fall/winter 1995-1996, Photograph courtesy of Christopher Moore.

Thierry Mugler, spring/summer 1992, Photograph © Patrice Stable.