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'Charles James Ball Gowns,' 1948. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Cecil Beaton, Beaton /Vogue / Condé Nast Archive. Copyright © Condé Nast.

Charles James exhibit to open in May at Met Museum

'Charles James Ball Gowns,' 1948. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Cecil Beaton, Beaton /Vogue / Condé Nast Archive. Copyright © Condé Nast.
‘Charles James Ball Gowns,’ 1948. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Cecil Beaton, Beaton /Vogue / Condé Nast Archive. Copyright © Condé Nast.

NEW YORK – The inaugural exhibition of the newly renovated Costume Institute in spring 2014 will examine the career of legendary 20th-century Anglo-American couturier Charles James (1906–1978). “Charles James: Beyond Fashion,” on view from May 8 through Aug. 10, 2014 (preceded on May 5 by the Costume Institute Benefit), will be presented in two locations–the Costume Institute’s new galleries as well as special exhibitions galleries on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s first floor.

The exhibition will explore James’s design process and his use of sculptural, scientific, and mathematical approaches to construct revolutionary ball gowns and innovative tailoring that continue to influence designers today.

“Charles James considered himself an artist, and approached fashion with a sculptor’s eye and a scientist’s logic,” said Thomas P. Campbell. director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “As such, the museum, and in particular, the new Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery in the Costume Institute, offer the ideal setting in which to contextualize the complexity of James’s work.”

In celebration of the new Costume Institute and the exhibition, the museum’s Costume Institute Benefit will take place on Monday, May 5, 2014. The evening’s Chair will be Aerin Lauder. Co-Chairs will be Bradley Cooper, Oscar de la Renta, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch and Anna Wintour. This event is the Costume Institute’s main source of annual funding for exhibitions, acquisitions and capital improvements.

“Charles James was a wildly idiosyncratic, emotionally fraught fashion genius who was also committed to teaching,” said Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute. “He dreamt that his lifetime of personal creative evolution and the continuous metamorphosis of his designs would be preserved as a study resource for students. In our renovated galleries, we will fulfill his goal, and illuminate his design process as a synthesis of dressmaking, art, math and science.”


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


'Charles James Ball Gowns,' 1948. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Cecil Beaton, Beaton /Vogue / Condé Nast Archive. Copyright © Condé Nast.
‘Charles James Ball Gowns,’ 1948. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by Cecil Beaton, Beaton /Vogue / Condé Nast Archive. Copyright © Condé Nast.