Exhibition Overview
Fashion In/Action: Dressing for Global Unrest tells the story of 2020 through the lens of fashion, a medium that has emerged as an important site for building community, solidarity, and advocacy during a time of crisis. Through the tectonic events of the past year—the Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests—daily life and social relationships have been defined and enhanced by clothing in unprecedented ways as citizens have responded to two competing calls to action: one to stay home and another to take to the streets in the name of equality and justice.
On December 31, 2019, Chinese health officials reported a mysterious illness to the World Health Organization; by the end of January, a global public health emergency was declared. What ensued was quarantine on a world order: citizens were asked to disappear from public life, and social distancing became a civic duty in order to flatten the curve of this deadly new disease. Students and workers adapted to a virtual way of life, while millions more were forced home by staggering job losses. At the same time, countless frontline workers selflessly put their lives on the line to provide essential services, their utilitarian clothing, practical shoes, and personal protective equipment—in some cases homemade—earning recognition as the uniform of a new kind of hero. Those able to work from home found solidarity in garments of comfort: the anxiety of a global populace seeking the safety and refuge of home was manifest in the attendant trappings of coziness. Everyday outfits were replaced by loungewear, slip-on shoes, and nostalgic DIY (do-it-yourself) crafts in a domestic nod to wistful longings for simpler times.
Amid this global pandemic, the tragic killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 set off a chain of Black Lives Matter protests. In the seething tension of this fraught and fearful world, a second call to action arose, one that demanded citizens take to the streets in the name of equality and justice. People congregated for the first time in months to protest structural racism and police brutality against people of color, long systemic ills of the American way of life exacerbated by the unjust ravages of Covid-19. Masked protestors—covered but not silenced—found new ways to speak, using sartorial choices to communicate activism and social change. Fashion became the medium to express solidarity, to send a message, and to provide protection.
Between these dual traumas, fashion has become a place of refuge, a source of strength, and a locus of unity. In the earliest weeks of the pandemic, the fashion industry nimbly responded more readily than many governments, pivoting their manufacturing to PPE and hand sanitizers. In the months since, designers have found creative inspiration in the new realities of daily life. They have provided joyful and whimsical versions of garments now required to keep us safe, and have emerged as leading advocates for change. Fashion In/Action explores the ways in which fashion has aided these contradictory calls to stay home and to publicly protest, and how the industry has functioned as an early responder during turbulent times.
Curatorial Credits
Fashion In/Action: Dressing for Global Unrest is curated by the NYU Costume Studies Master’s candidates: Laine Weber Callahan, Shelby Ivey Christie, Juliana Cirillo, Mimi Eltemur, Mary Kate Farley, Emily Elizabeth Lance, Tessa Ina Laney, Anna Marie Tendler, Emily Mushaben, Leia Pellot, Stephanie Ray, and Victoria Sperotto, under the direction of Mellissa Huber, Assistant Curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute.
About NYU Costume Studies Master’s Program
Since 1979, the MA program in Costume Studies at New York University has focused on the history of costume and textiles in its broadest aesthetic and cultural context. It was the first curriculum in the United States to educate specialists in this field. Part of the Department of Art and Art Professions at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, the program offers courses that emphasize the relation of costume studies to material culture and the fine and decorative arts.
About 80WSE Broadway Windows
Founded in 1974, NYU's 80 Washington Square East is a not-for-profit gallery presenting contemporary and historical exhibitions, under the curatorial direction of Lucas Quigley, Acting Director. Recent shows include Louise Lawler, Lutz Bacher, Dora Budor, Harun Farocki, Nina Beier and John Miller, Diamond Stingily, Patricia L. Boyd, Peter Gidal, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Duane Linklater. The gallery exhibits in two further locations, at Broadway Windows (Broadway and East 10th Street), and Washington Square Windows (next to the gallery), both on view 24/7. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please visit https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/80wse/
Acknowledgements
From NYU’s Steinhardt School we would like to thank Jordan Bennett, Tammy Lee Brown, Ken Castronuovo, Monica Driscoll, Vonetta Moses, Paula Rondon, and Jamie Sterns. We are especially grateful to Nancy Deihl, Chair of the Department of Art & Art Professions, without whose dedication to the field this course and exhibition would not have been possible, and to Dr. Rachel Lifter, Director of the MA program in Costume Studies, for her unwavering support and enthusiasm.
We thank the staff of 80WSE for their dedication, support, and thoughtful advice, including Acting Director and Gallery Manager Lucas Quigley, Exhibitions and Installation Administrator Jon Huron, and Exhibition Technician Olivia Andrews.
For their generosity we would like to extend gratitude to our lenders, as well as their invaluable liaisons: Batsheva Hay (Batsheva); Mercedes Pedrero (Brother Vellies); Imani Nia (Brandon Blackwood); Caitlin Culligan; Frannie Gilligan (Clare V.); Paige Gilligan, Lindsey Soloman, and Hillary Taymour (Collina Strada); Melissa Layton, Ryan Roccaforte, and Molly Wilhel (Crocs); Daria Dee; Korina Emmerich (EMME); Catherine Eschert and Erica Morelli (Reese Cooper); Andrea Lauer (Risen Division); Bianca Bianconi, Madison Kendrick, Catherine Lewis, Rachael Troiano, Jocelyn Warman, and Emily Gebler (Christian Siriano); Shara Sprecher; Kaitlyn Holohan and Erin Moroz (Argent + SuperMajority); Johanna Tamoka; and Brooke Bailey.
Several individuals have lent their time, support, or creative expertise towards realizing important elements of this project. We extend our sincerest thanks to Andrew Bolton, David Kennedy-Cutler, Joyce Fung, Darnell Lisby, Xiaoxi Chen Laurent, and Giana Ricci. We are especially grateful to Christian Siriano, whose kindness, enthusiasm, and generosity as a lender and participant were essential to this exhibition’s success; and to Korina Emmerich, who has graciously remade objects for inclusion in the exhibition, inspired us all with her commitment to activism in fashion, and whom we are honored to feature as our symposium keynote speaker.
We would also like to thank the following photographers, whose witness to the events of 2020 have empowered the message of this exhibition: Xavier Burrell, Simbarashe Cha, Bryan Denton, Sekiya Dorsett, William Farrington, Demetrius Freeman, Claudio Furlan, Justin Lane, Paul Martinka, Kyla Milberger, William Miller, G. N. Miller, Sean Rayford, Ian Reid, and Charlie Riedel.