May

6

The “Couturing” of Comics

Filed Under Art Fart 

The Green Hornet Sans Kato

It appears that comics and fashion are institutionalizing a trend of sorts in their reacquainted art-meets-avant-garde dominion.

In the art world, touring exhibitions (in North America) are celebrating pop and deco; Takashi Murakami and Gerald Murphy. In fashion, the Gap’s comeback is complete with the “Blam!” and “Kapow!” of the original Batman television series. And cosmetic giant, Mac, has changed tactics. Instead of insisting with their usual campaign that the new woman is a man, Mac has reconsidered that the new woman is a cartoon of herself – specifically, a clown-doll trannie – as depicted by French-illustrator superstar, Fafi, (and the real-life equivalent, dynamic fashion duo, Traver Rains and Richie Rich of Heatherette.)

Threadless might be the proponent of the fashionomix (Fashion + comix + economics! Oh yeah! I’m copyrighting that!) explosion, of Batmobiles on our backs, but the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is taking the trend (Bloff!) to a whole new level.

On view from May 7, 2008 – September 1, 2008 is the show, “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” at the Costume Institute, located in the basement of the Museum. The main thrust of the exhibit looks into the role of fashion as empowering the human body and design as it contributes to technical (superhero!) performance.

My particular fascination is concerned with the element of the disguise; not so much masks, but how coats (The Green Hornet) and suits (Penguin, The Joker) brought an element of class to society’s-castaways-turned-villains. I hope I get a chance to check this show out!

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