RADAR
TWO NEW EXHIBITIONS invite us to ponder once more the relationship between fashion and art. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the work of Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo is on show, while London’s Victoria and Albert Museum highlights that of Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga.
The “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” exhibition was a hit at both venues in 2011 and 2015, and the museums will be hoping for more of the same. Signiicantly, all these designers have made clothing that aspires to something we already recognize as art: McQueen’s oeuvre has a theatricality that quotes from the stage; the work of Balenciaga and Kawakubo has strong sculptural and abstract qualities.