深入大都會藝術博物館《Costume Art 服裝藝術》展覽：人體即是一座美術館，放大每一種不同的美，擁抱身體多樣性｜人物專訪｜Vogue Taiwan

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:01]Fashion is [music] the first thing we see about each other. So, it's incredibly powerful.

[00:00:07]Fashion can tell [music] a story. At its best, it expands what the body can be.

[00:00:12]There are just so many ways in which the human [music] body takes form. And how then does that impact what we layer on top of it?

[00:00:19]>> No longer [music] can we debate the idea that fashion is art. Fashion has always been art.

[00:00:27]The pressure.

[00:00:35]We're in the Costume Institute. For the moment, we're using it as a way to store our mannequins and dress some of the pieces for the exhibition. But, these are actually our traditional galleries.

[00:00:45]But, not anymore. Not anymore. Yeah, it's so so exciting. We're now moving upstairs into the lights. The Met collects many things: painting, sculpture, textiles, arms and armor, but especially also fashion. And we want to make sure that it's understood that fashion [music] is a fantastic form of art. To do that, we want to make sure that the galleries devoted to that would be centrally located. [music] The Great Hall is one of the most recognizable interiors in New York City. Our galleries come directly off of that space. We sort of started by taking a deep dive into the museum building itself, looking at old drawings, understanding the way it came together.

[00:01:23]But, it's actually not one building.

[00:01:25]It's 20-something buildings that have grown and shifted over time.

[00:01:31]>> [music] >> The title of the show is called [music] Costume Art. It has two connotations.

[00:01:38]One, it references our history. So, before we were founded [music] in 1946 as a curatorial department at the Met, we were known as the Museum of Costume Art, and it was an independent entity. But, also a statement [music] about the status of of fashion itself. I think that when you walk around the museum, what see these wonderful examples of the dressed body, but it's just a representation of the dressed body. I think where fashion has the edge over art is the fact that it's about our living [music] embodied experience. So, I very much wanted the exhibition to focus on that distinction between the representation [music] of the dressed body and also fashion as this living art form in which it expresses very complex ideas about identity.

[00:02:22]I think it's been interesting >> [music] >> working with different curators. We've done shows in the past where we've collaborated with specific departments.

[00:02:28]We've never done a show before where we've collaborated with [music] every single department in the museum. And Navina was actually the first person I spoke to.

[00:02:34]>> The Met is an amazing place that can [music] tell global stories because it has the ingredients, it has everything at its fingertips. We have a wonderful painting from the 18th century [music] from one of the courts of India from Hyderabad which shows a woman in a [music] very transparent muslin. It's so light, it's so fine that the body looks almost nude under it. In every case, Andrew [music] has found a response in contemporary fashion to these pieces and that's what's making them come alive. So, I wanted to start off the exhibition with the art historical [music] distinction between the naked and the nude.

[00:03:07]The naked is really about one's lived vulnerability, [music] whereas the nude is a sort of mediated construction that's often posed or aestheticized in any time or place, the naked body is never naked. It's always [music] dressed in the cultural ideals of a particular moment in time.

[00:03:25]And then you go into the main part of the [music] exhibition and it's separated into two main galleries. One is focusing on a [music] sort of diversity of bodily being and we start off with the classical body in that section because I wanted to look at [music] and start off with a body that has often been valorized. It's a body that has [music] always been reified both in arts and also within fashion.

[00:03:49]And then [music] we progress to a section called the abstract body which is in a way the opposite of the classical body, where we have many women's bodies that are contorted and distorted [music] through undergarments like the corset, the crinoline, the pannier, and the bustle.

[00:04:03]>> [music] >> Even though they seem radically opposite of the natural body, they're both about achieving an ideal of beauty.

[00:04:11]So, opposite [music] the abstract body, we focus on something we call the reclaimed body. And the reclaimed body mainly feature of female designers [music] who do the opposite, who use under structures, padding, bindings to challenge these normative conventions [music] of beauty. So, it's the opposite of what the abstract body is about. The reclaimed body is is sort of introducing three other body types and reclaiming [music] these bodies within both art and culture. The pregnant body, the corpulent body, and the disabled [music] body. So, that's the first half of the exhibition, and the second half it's all about universality and commonalities, everything we all share. So, skin, [music] the anatomy, blood, but also our experiences of life, like aging and [music] death or or or mortality. So, we have bodily diversity in one gallery and body universality in the other. Then we end with um something I'm calling the epidermal body, which in a way is [music] the largest and most salient organ. We all have skin, but all of our skin tones and textures are very different. So, it brings them together and in a way [music] ends with a celebration of plurality and the pluralistic body.

[00:05:15]I think in the past, you know, [music] in my previous exhibitions, whenever um we talk about diversity, I've always integrated [music] it within our exhibitions. But I do think we're particularly now, I don't think we're at a place where we normalize diversity.

[00:05:28][music] It has become otherized, and you see it reflected in fashion.

[00:05:34]What's special about Costume Art is that [music] the question it asks is, is fashion already art? Or does it become art through embodiment?

[00:05:42]>> [music] >> I have dwarfism. I have a physical apparent disability. Fashion has always been incredibly important to me because it's a vocabulary.

[00:05:51]>> [music] >> It's an armor. And that's still, I think, how many people use clothes, whether or not they make that conscious decision.

[00:05:57]>> [music] >> So, to be able to put that in place in this exhibition with the explicit inclusion of different kinds of bodies, putting them on pedestals, what it will mean very physically >> [music] >> when people come into this exhibition is that for the first time they will look at bodies that maybe they have overlooked with a sense of awe and wonder because they are looking up.

[00:06:17]I spent my life looking up.

[00:06:19]So, I'm really [music] intrigued and curious about what that change will mean for others within that space.

[00:06:27]I think for me, like, the body obviously means something very specifically to me as a trans woman. I think that it has always kind of been a point of conversation for others, but I think to reclaim that [music] and really find what makes me feel beautiful as an individual and makes me feel supported and loved and able as an individual is quite >> [music] >> quite special. For me, it means express things and show the strength that I have in my body, show the muscles that I have, show the the ass that I'm hopefully going to have on the McCallister day, but like all of these different things.

[00:06:55]>> I can't tell you how much it means to me to be a part of this. Like, I feel like disability and disabled people in the world overall is the most like underrepresented, underserved population. As we can see, I have congenital cerebral palsy. I am visibly disabled and I use a wheelchair.

[00:07:13]And [music] so, to be recognized in the arts in this kind of way and fashion in this way is so deeply touching and meaningful. As a performer and as an artist, my body is my instrument. And [music] I often say that it's my first costume. Like, the skin I'm in and the body that I have, as a dancer, it's what we're working [music] with. Two of the things I love most in the world, costume and art. The way our body can be changed and subverted, the way our form can alter and inform our mental state [music] is something so divine to me.

[00:07:50]>> [music] >> You know, this show is really focusing on the body and really focusing on the idea of one's lived embodied [music] experience. We felt it was very important to actually include mannequins [music] based on real men and women, particularly in the corpulent body and the disabled body [music] sections.

[00:08:07]>> Andrew had written me to ask if I would be a mannequin in the show and the outfit that [music] was made for me was already going to be in the show. It was important to me that it actually be on my body, especially my body now. You go into [music] this room that has about a hundred SLR cameras positioned. And even just thinking about getting my body made into a mannequin >> [music] >> was an incredibly vulnerable process. I was in the middle of this thing. I was sitting right here and then around me were like thousands of cameras just scanning me and taking pictures of me to make the model. And it was really awesome. I felt like I was in like a a 90s futuristic anime. They sent them off to Italy where they [music] would be converted into a 3D scan and then carved.

[00:08:55]I was saying within exhibitions, one of the challenges is how do we sort of >> [music] >> bridge the gap between the art you're looking at, the artworks you're looking at and the visitors. So, I'd always sort of thought about the idea of using [music] a mirrored face as a way of diminishing that gap between the visitor and and and the artwork.

[00:09:11]I came across the work of Sam Hajjaji, an extraordinary artist who had used polished steel faces.

[00:09:19]And what was so interesting about them is because they're made out of polished steel rather than mirror, there's a depth to [music] them. It's like your reflection in a wishing well or a pool.

[00:09:28]It's not a sort of mirror-mirror idea.

[00:09:30]It's slightly distorted and I think that how [music] we all see ourselves in the mirror is always slightly distorted.

[00:09:35]It's never true.

[00:09:38]I love and also think the polished faces are really funny.

[00:09:41]Which, you know, I'm really glad Andrew's not sitting beside me because he would probably shake his shoulders at me. I'm really interested to see what people take from it. It's very interesting. I love that idea that they chose to do that. I feel like it speaks to a lot.

[00:09:55]They're going to see themselves reflected in me and I'm going to see myself reflected in them.

[00:10:08]I think one of the ambitions [music] for the show is we're not trying to sort of like reverse a hierarchy that's always existed within art museums where fashion's at the bottom rung of the ladder. It's more about focusing on [music] equitability. So, the idea of equitability between objects, whether it's art or fashion, but also an equitability of bodies, whether [music] it's the classical body or the disabled body. There is a risk that if you don't honor them in this way, [music] people moving through the space go through it passively without noticing that it is different. But also for those who live in those bodies >> [music] >> to see their bodies singled out with respect, grace, admiration, and with psychological safety at the heart of it.

[00:10:47][music] What can that be a catalyst for? When you have the opportunity to work with [music] a range of body types, you're going to get an incredible range of results. And I think that's something that's important about [music] seeing more diversity in in fashion. You know, and I think about it so connected to, you know, the way [music] I talk about the importance of having more diversity in classical dance. That when you see different body types exploring [music] the same type of movement, it's going to look completely different. It's really amazing for someone like me to be there, but also like there's a lot of really amazing women and men and everything in between who are a part of it. And I think that that's really special and really unique.

[00:11:27]And I hope that I serve for all of us.

[00:11:30]Pressure.

[00:11:32]The emphasis on the individual.

[00:11:36]What it is that makes us unique.

[00:11:38]What it [music] is that makes us different.

[00:11:41]It is about seeing those moments, >> [music] >> seeing those pockets of individuality, and highlighting their beauty.

[00:11:49]I think it's so important that there is representation and equity and diversity and and and inclusivity again when the world as it's standing in our social political climate is trying so hard to like [music] destroy that. It's It's so important more than ever to uplift these communities of people who are going through so much and who are being persecuted so much. Fashion [music] listens to the market. So when the market's demanding to reflect what actually is like in our society, [music] fashion will follow suit.

[00:12:25]This show hopefully it'll resonate and hopefully it will foster ideas of empathy and compassion towards each [music] other. It's going to open up a conversation about the beauty in us as human beings.

[00:12:36]There's so many stories to tell.

[00:12:37]Hopefully it will mean that [music] when we start to look at fashion as an art form, it isn't just about new. It isn't just about now. It is about the voyage that we all go on through our lives. I'm personally so tired of being an other.

[00:12:50]I'm tired of being an other even though I am black and disabled and trans, I'm still Aaron Philip and I'm still a musician and an artist and a model. I'm just like you.

[00:13:03]>> [music]