The most ambitious exhibition to date from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute kick-starts with a question: Who gets to be American? A red, white, and blue silk sash from the grand finale of Prabal Gurung’s 2020 10th-anniversary collection bears the phrase, and it greets visitors from the threshold of the Anna Wintour Costume Center. It’s a query every immigrant must consider—but shrouded in golden light at the outset of a fashion retrospective, it takes on a new verve. “It was important to open with that,” says Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s Wendy Yu Curator in Charge. “It tackles this notion of acceptance and belonging, which recent events have brought to the fore. Of course, these are questions that have always been present—but there are moments in history when they’re more resonant and resounding.”
“In America,” the museum’s two-part exploration of all things made in the U.S.A., is a yearlong celebration spanning three centuries of fashion. The first part, which includes pieces from such American standard-bearers as Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and Calvin Klein alongside the current vanguard of millennial talent, opens on September 18, with part two opening on May 5, 2022. (While the pandemic forced the cancellation of last year’s Met ball, “In America” will debut with a splash on Monday, September 13, closing out New York Fashion Week with a gala cochaired by Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Amanda Gorman, and Naomi Osaka—with Tom Ford, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri, and Anna Wintour honorary chairs.)
