By Jessica Pepper
Who knew that spandex tights and iron suits were in this season? Apparently the curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art knew and they also asked some of the comic book world’s most famous names to lend a few choice fashions from their wardrobes.
It’s not often that the art world readily embraces the ideas of pop-culture but the exhibit
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy does just that. The exhibit demonstrates how the many runways of the fashion world have been influenced by the form fitting uniforms of some of our favorite superheroes.
For the most part there aren’t a lot of things in this exhibit. It is mannequins sporting a superhero costume surrounded by more mannequins dressed in fashion inspired ensembles. Who knew that Superman’s iconic red underwear and blue tight combo would have inspired torn T-shirts and red piled hair with Coke cans in them? Maybe the fashion world is from another planet after all?
All jokes aside, the exhibit raises a few striking comparisons. Let’s face it girls, we’ve all seen the tiny waists, buxom breasts, and shapely legs on the runway models and thought that these were impossible proportions. You can say the same thing about Witchblade or Supergirl - real women don’t look like that!! Bodies like that can only exist in… comic books?
Exactly!
That’s were the worlds of fashion and superheroes combine. They both idealize the human form. The clothes are meant to be form fitting, the bodies themselves are meant to sleek, sexy and well.. super. Fashion is not just about expensive logos or the perfect black cocktail dress – it’s about our bodies. It’s about how our bodies can be transformed to something beyond human while simultaneously showing us our very human desires. How else can you leap tall buildings in a single bound?
A secondary comparison explored in the mirrored halls of the Met’s Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy exhibit is that of high art and low art. High art, by many, is the works of the fine artists of the past and present, names like Van Gogh, Dali and Warhol come to mind. Low-art, or kitsch would be say the portraits of dogs playing poker and anything pop-culture- like anime or comic books.
Oddly enough, some notable artists who are defined as being part of ‘high art’ have glorified popular culture, such notable famous names like Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and more recently (and perhaps infamously) Takashi Murakami. People like this have taken pop-culture icons like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson and made them extraordinary aspects of high art.
Much in the same way that this exhibit and the fashion world have glorified the world of comics.
Comics are largely viewed as the refuge of dreamers, losers and those with a ‘Peter Pan’ complex- those who don’t want to grow up. Even though there is a certain level of disdain for comics as a medium it continues to shine through and the high stakes world of fashion has perhaps embraced it – as evident through the Spiderman inspired gowns and Mystique’s incredibly sexy painted body suit – that are showcased in this exhibition.
And finally, where else can you see comic book geeks and fashionistas gawking at the same thing? Sure they are there for different reasons. The geeks certainly know Tony Stark, Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne. Ask them who Armani or Louis Vuitton are and they might be hard pressed to give you an answer. The fashionistas could tell you tell you that Clark Kent’s glasses look like they are Marc Jacobs, but would ask who was Clark Kent in the first place.
But maybe there is a little geek in all of us? Underneath that Armani suit- there might be a superhero…
Or at least a fashion forward comic book reader. :_D
The exhibition Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy is now open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through from May 7, 2008 through September 1, 2008.
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J.R. Pepper, is a trained Art Historian and Photographer as well as being a full time geek, tea addict and guinea pig slave. When not at work she can be found wandering through the anime conventions, working on many personal projects,schooling kids in Guitar Hero and trying to educate her non-geek boyfriend for the upcoming “ Xfiles” movie. Check out her site at www.pepperart.com or www.myspace.com/pepperart, leave a comment why don’tcha!
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
I love this article! And it’s interesting that you mention Warhol in the same breath as Van Gogh and Dali as far as “high art”, because there was a time when Warhol wasn’t considered high art at all. Some people still don’t consider him such. Hell, some people don’t consider fashion art. But I think that’s exactly where we’re going for comic books, too. Already comics and graphic novels are more mainstream than they ever have been. Now, with college courses being taught about them, and university libraries like Columbia’s stocking their shelves with them, there will come a time when comics are considered a reputable art form, and not just “pop.”
As Stan Lee said at NY Comic Con (and I’m sure in other places): If Shakespeare and Da Vinci were still alive, and decided to collaborate on a comic book, would it still be considered frivolous? The worth of a comic has nothing to do with the inherent worthiness of the medium, and everything to do with who’s creating it.