Last Sunday I attended the showing of the Heavy Metal Exhibit curated by Sam Stern in the Human Ecology Building. I had seen the exhibit a few times going in and out of classes, but was excited to learn more about what it was exactly about.

To start off the tour, we saw the Fiber Arts and Wearable Art Exhibition in the Jill Stuart Gallery. Since I am a Fiber Science major, I had classes with the people who had designed these exhibits. I really enjoyed seeing what each person had created and learning more about the thought process behind each as well. The Fiber Science and Apparel Design program is something that totally fascinates me, and I was thoroughly impressed with each of their exhibits.

Following this, we started the real reason for our visit, the Heavy Metal exhibit. Starting with the invisible metals, we saw undergarments throughout time and how they shaped the ideals and goals of the people who were wearing them. Next it moved onto the ‘Rock’ stage where metal was more than just a material; it was also a way of living during this time period. This was followed by some Chanel Pieces that had the classic metal finishing. The last part of the exhibit contained six outfits that all had metal incorporated somehow. Because of the technology of the time, if dresses were to have gold or silver quality to them, they would be made completely of 16 karat gold. These dresses were no exception. We learned the history of both the dresses and those who wore them. Another outfit was a swimsuit that was bought for one of Frank Sinatra’s mistresses that was made completely of gold as well. In addition to dresses and swimsuits, there was one Indian sari that was also made of metal. The entire collection was beautiful. Seeing these pieces and learning about their history was extremely interesting and informing. In addition to seeing how metal was used throughout the history of fashion, it also illuminated how much apparel changes over time. It was interesting to see these changes in the collection as well.

In addition to this amazing exhibit, we were able to see the collection that the Fiber Science and Apparel Design program has. In this collection we saw pieces designed by the Martha Van Rensselaer herself along with the very dress that Eleanor Roosevelt wore to her husband’s presidential inauguration. Having these pieces of history so close to where we learn is amazing to me. I really enjoyed the tour and exhibit and learning more about the history of fashion.

Last week, I took a tour of the Heavy Metal: The Malleability of Fashion exhibit in the Human Ecology Building. The curator Samantha Stern received the Charlotte A. Jirousek Undergraduate Research Fellowship  from the college in order to fund her collection. Stern wanted to look into the variabilities of metal within the world of fashion — the way metal was used as both a method to achieve an ideal shape and style, as well as a fashion choice.

Stern was attracted to the metal culture of the 1980s because of its animalistic tendencies. Metal as a music genre was meant to be a rebellion in and of itself; not only was the word “metal” representative of the material metal, but it reflected a hardcore attitude during the Cold War era.

One of the first pieces that we were shown was the dress she designed as part of the Barbara L. Kuhlman Scholars’ showcase. Her piece, called “Malevolent Empowerment,” was based on fashion from the 1920s “Flapper Era” made entirely out of metal. Stern described the dress as made to be stylish and easy to look at, but completely unwearable; the piece inevitably traps the wearer within its weight. “The weight of the garment itself is intrinsic to the struggle that I am trying to represent. The aged effect is as bright gold slowly becomes darker illustrates the many years of struggle that women have faced.”

“Malevolent Empowerment”

Stern also showed us a display titled “Invisible Metal,” showcasing many underwire bras, girdles, corsets, and other ways in which women have used metal throughout the 1860s and 1930s to achieve the perfect body shape. Throughout history, a perfect body was one that was considered to have an “S” shape — large in the front and large in the back. One of the pieces that caught my eye was what Stern called a maternity girdle. In the 1860s, pregnant women would use girdles to keep their ideal shape while they were pregnant. Stern highlighted through this case that even today, with the underwire bra, women still go to lengths to achieve their perfect body shape through clothing.

Examples of underwire bras and girdles used in the 1860s-1930s.

Another case I particularly found interesting was the Couture Case, where more ethnic and time period-sensitive dress made of metal were displayed. Stern explained that in the early 1900s, some of the more expensive and lavish dresses for the nobility were entirely made of gold — there were no means of making synthetic material for dresses, so designers would cut metal into fine, thin strips to make them malleable for dresses, which then felt like silk. Stern went into great lengths to describe each piece and its history, such as the Paul Poiret coat, insured for $60,000. There was also a metal-sequined bikini within this case. The bikini originally belonged to a Las Vegas showgirl who happened to be one of Frank Sinatra’s mistresses.

Metal bikini next to a Romanian wedding dress – the sequins for both were all metal and hand cut. For The wedding dress was considered to ward off evil spirits and show family’s wealth.

More gold dresses, featuring the Paul Poiret coat, center left.

Overall, I found this exhibit to be quite fascinating. I loved seeing how many different uses metal has had in the fashion industry and I especially liked seeing Stern’s enthusiasm for her work. Wishing her many successes for the future!

Art and Fashion as Modes of Socialization and Liberation for Women – The Oxymoronic fashion available to women throughout history.

Form over function – the underlying and forever perpetuated theme that constantly reminds us that what we wear is more than just what we wear. Especially if you are a woman. The limited collection of men’s clothing on display were of military men and firefighters – all examples of function and form. Men are, according to this exhibit/ the items on collection (in the College of Human Ecology), wear clothing that fits their tasks. They wear flame retardant clothing and colors that help the camouflage during their militarian days.  Women on the other hand, were socially forced to wear corsets even during pregnancy. The never changing form of the woman doesn’t fit her function(s).

Corset for pregnant women, can be adjusted through pregnancy terms, but is still used to keep the “womanly” curves.

Fashion is more than just what we wear. It is a telling history of political, social, and economic movements. The broad shoulder pads that women in male-dominated professions donned was more telling of the need for women to look more masculine to gain more respect within their fields. Yet the dress must be adorned in teddy bears to keep femininity high. You are to have the broad controlling shoulders of a man to gain respect, but you are nevertheless not allowed too much power with the need to include soft, nurturing, and mothering prints such as teddy bears – an oxymoron of sorts.

Teddy bear printed dress. In form, it included broad shoulder pads, but still accentuated society’s need to always show the feminine form.

Although not part of the Collection, Samantha Stern’s ‘Malevolent Empowerment’, perfectly encompassed the reality that most women battle with in the name of fashion. The dress featured a 300 pound brass/wire&metal mesh petticoat/train, but exhibited an unapologetic top piece, where if the wind blew a certain direction the top would be exposed in numbers of different degrees. This beautifully highlights the 1920s feminism – exposed but immobile, discrete yet uncaring. The impossibility of movement within the piece is clearly symbolic of the immobility of women within society, yet there is still the illusion of progression through the exposure of free sexuality.

Heavy train/petticoat, with loose, organic fabric movement on the top structure.

Rachel Kwong’s Metal Expanse, a visual representation of form over function

Kwong’s dress perfectly encompasses the forever fading, yet harsh reality of fashion – it is either liberating or socializing us all. For a very long time, women’s fashion was about the form (the over sexualization and accentuation of the feminine form and how that form has to be). Not until recently has more mainstream fashion resulted in function for women, however we still see the prevalence of the form in all the things we wear. The need for a synched waist is seen across all types of fashion and across ethnic boarders. Through fashion, we are socialized to fit a certain mold, but through fashion we are also liberated to explore the different mediums of empowerment and privilege. Fashion it’s self is contradictory, it is oxymoronic – it is both good and bad for the woman. How we wear things and What we wear are indicators of not only the societal conditions of women in the era, but also indicators of the progression (or lack there of) of feminist movements.

Metal as a form of conforming to form, but also metal as a malleable and changeable substance. Perhaps the status of women is not more telling than the fashion of metal – status of the woman is changing, but it is changing slowly.

Robin Reynolds’ piece on humanity and art.

Samantha Stern (’17), the curator of the exhibit, grouped the pieces featured in the photos as ‘Invisible Metal’. Aside from the usage of metal in under garments that can still be found in present day society, she noted how metal was used to shape women into who they should be and what they represent, even during pregnancy.

The exhibit pushed me to think about how metal was used to form society, literally and figuratively. The use of metal to take women of all walks of life, body types and more, and make them ‘ideal’ is concerning. As there are many reasons why this is concerning, the most important to me is the mediocrity. To me, using ‘invisible’ metal to shape what women should look like, in turn makes the women themselves ‘invisible’, for the visibility of American society.

While this may seem less true for present day society, as woman do not walk around wearing corsets and crinolines as often, it is not. I love how Samantha was able to bring this molding concept of metal to the present day with bras. Though I believe that the bra is a handy piece of underwear, this exhibit brought to light some concerns. One thing is obvious, not every woman has the same pair of boobs. Why then, do we try to conform all women with metal bras? Some women do not have large breasts, or two, due to certain circumstances. Do they really need bras? Why do we allow bras to be pushed onto young girls, who feel the need to stuff them? Realistically, most men with boobs do not wear bras, so why should we?

In my opinion bras are slightly tragic. However, I will never say bras should not be worn, as they serve other purposes like ‘keeping things together’. Most importantly, I will never stop supporting or wearing bras, because my world has been molded and shaped to believe that wearing a bra means that I am an intact woman; I am apart of a visible society and must remain a figuratively invisible me.

Earlier today I attended an awesome event regarding metal as clothing called “Heavy metal”. As a group of 6, we got a a very personalized small tour from the exhibit curator herself, Samantha Stern. Samantha is very interested in metal as fashion, which stemmed from her interest in collecting metal purses while she was younger.

Before we began our tour of her exhibit, we got to see one of her pieces below. It is made from brass, and is extremely heavy. The fact that is is “unwearable” yet considered fashion was strange yet interesting for me.

Samantha Stern ‘Malevolent Empowerment’

After this piece, we got to see the real exhibit. I really enjoyed getting to see the various uses of metal in fashion throughout history. The first piece we saw was hidden metal, or metal beneath/in clothing used to shape apeparance. I thought this was pretty neat because of how prominent metal was to change appearance and how little it exists now. Although dangerous, it is hard to say if it is more or less dangerous than plastic surgery, which is used to alter appearance today.

Hidden Metal

Below are some early on pieces. What I really liked from this was the item 2nd from the left. It is a ‘throwaway’ dress made from aluminum foil. So, it would be worn several times, then just discarded and not washed. This idea was a new concept to me, and it seemed quite funny. It’s really no different from very cheaply made clothing today, but the fact that it was metal made it interesting.

Very early on Pieces

Below are are pieces made from gold. This was really cool to learn about that you could make something so delicate and intricate from a metal. Although very cool, the several thousand dollar price tag made it less appealing.

Pieces made from Gold

Lastly, the below was my favorite item because it was another unwearable dress. It looks like it was made from the tops of soda cans which seemed funny, and why I won’t ever understand fashion. Additionally, it ws extremelty heay, so it did not make sense to wear. However, that didn’t stop people from trying, as it was shown on the runway with a nude model underneath. Very different from today!

Unwearable soda dress

Overall, I thought this was a great even because of the personalized tour we received from Samantha. She was very friendly and took the time to tell us all of the interesting facts about each piece.