Death Becomes Her: 

A Century of Mourning Attire

October 21, 2014-February 1, 2015

The Costume Institute’s first fall exhibition in seven years, is on view in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Anna Wintour Costume Center from October 21, 2014, through February 1, 2015. The exhibition explores the aesthetic development and cultural implications of mourning fashions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Approximately 30 ensembles, many of which are being exhibited for the first time, reveal the impact of high-fashion standards on the sartorial dictates of bereavement rituals as they evolved over a century.

With the reopening of The Costume Institute space in May as the Anna Wintour Costume Center, the department returns to mounting two special exhibitions a year, once again including a fall show, in addition to the major spring exhibition. This is the first fall exhibition The Costume Institute has organized since blog.mode: addressing fashion in 2007.

“The predominantly black palette of mourning dramatizes the evolution of period silhouettes and the increasing absorption of fashion ideals into this most codified of etiquettes,” said Harold Koda, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, who is curating the exhibition with Jessica Regan, Assistant Curator. “The veiled widow could elicit sympathy as well as predatory male advances. As a woman of sexual experience without marital constraints, she was often imagined as a potential threat to the social order.”

Exhibition Overview
The thematic exhibition is organized chronologically and features mourning dress from 1815 to 1915, primarily from The Costume Institute’s collection. The calendar of bereavement’s evolution and cultural implications are illuminated through women’s clothing and accessories, showing the progression of appropriate fabrics from mourning crape to corded silks, and the later introduction of color with shades of gray and mauve.

“Elaborate standards of mourning set by royalty spread across class lines via fashion magazines,” said Ms. Regan, “and the prescribed clothing was readily available for purchase through mourning ‘warehouses’ that proliferated in European and American cities by mid-century.”

The Anna Wintour Costume Center’s Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery orients visitors to the exhibition with fashion plates, jewelry, and accessories. The main Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery illustrates the evolution of mourning wear through high fashion silhouettes and includes mourning gowns worn by Queen Victoria and Queen Alexandra. Examples of restrained simplicity are shown alongside those with ostentatious ornamentation. The predominantly black clothes are set off within a stark white space amplified with historic photographs and daguerreotypes.

Related Programs
In conjunction with the exhibition, a Halloween event on October 31, 6:30–8:30 p.m., will encourage visitors to chart their own path through the galleries and join drop-in,
interactive experiences with art.  Ms. Regan will give a Friday Focus lecture, Women in Black: Fashioning Mourning in the 19th Century, on Friday, November 21, at 4:00 p.m. Musical programming includes a special pop-up concert featuring Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir on October 17 at 6:00 p.m., and a performance by vocalist Theo Bleckmann on February 7 at 7:00 p.m.

The Museum’s website, www.metmuseum.org/deathbecomesher, features information on the exhibition and related programs.

Click here for a review of the Death Becomes Her by Elle Magazine

Harper’s Bazaar reviews the show here and includes a 

slideshow of the best mourning costumes in film.

On my recent trip to France, I fulfilled a lifelong desire to see the Bayeux Tapestry, that iconic portrayal of the Norman version of William I’s invasion and conquest of Britain in 1066.

As some of you may recall, when Victoria and I were first planning the Duke of Wellington Tour, I was anxious to schedule a side trip to the old Granada Studios in Manchester to see the set of Coronation Street. The entire production has since moved to a new set at a larger facility, where every house, every cobble and every shop has been faithfully recreated. The old set is now open for daily tours and I so wanted to get there in order to see it all before it was dismantled. Unfortunately, a side trip to the north of England was not in the cards this trip over. However, I did find an amateur video that a fan (stunninglad1) kindly recorded during their trip to the cobbles and you can watch it here. The video includes an overview of the street, a look at the individual houses, all the shops, Rosamund Street, the bus stop and even the ginnel! Night falls towards the end of the half hour video and you can see the lights come on as night falls over this beloved section of Weatherfield. A true trip down memory lane that we hope you’ll enjoy. 

I turned away from the United desk and began the journey up the escalator to the security checkpoint whilst carrying the incredibly heavy black bag, with the incredibly heavy purse now slung like a cross-body around my torso. My little toes screamed with every step and I silently screamed back.

“Just a bit longer,” I told myself, “and you’ll be in England for nearly a month. A month. You can do this!” Of course, there were many more passengers waiting to go through security than there were security check points to deal with them efficiently. The line crawled along and I inched my way towards the scanners one painful step at a time. Who knew that my most comfortable sandals would turn into devices of torture simply because I’d been forced to carry an extra forty pounds or so?

Finally, I made it through security and retrieved my belongings from the conveyor belt before I scanned the signs overhead to see where my gate was. The sign read “Gates 1 to 2,034 to the Right.”
I wanted to cry. My gate was literally the last one. The absolute furthest from where I now stood.

I longed to remove my shoes, but thought better of that – no telling what was embedded in the floors after millions of passengers had trod on them. I thought about having a drink, but didn’t see any bars. Finally, I thought about the men who had comprised Wellington’s armies and how far they’d been asked to walk on a daily basis. Surely 19th century boots had to have been more uncomfortable than my sandals after walking miles in them whilst carrying heavy packs on their backs, along with weapons and ammunition. And canteens. All whilst wearing red woolen coats. In the heat of the Peninsula. Or in India. At least at the end of my journey I’d be at the plane that would be flying me to England. A much better destination than a battle at Waterloo, surely.

“Just a bit longer,” I told myself, “and you’ll be in England for nearly a month. A month. You can do this!”

The longer I walked, the more painful each step became. Before long, I was limping along like an old lady. A really old lady. And I still hadn’t passed a single bar. Finally, I spotted a maintenance worker by a trash can and asked him, “Where’s the nearest place I can get a drink?”

“Huh?”

“A drink. Liquor. A cocktail. You know, a bar?”

“Oh, right. Well, there’s an Irish pub down that way, right across the way from Gate 2,034.”

Thinking that there may just be a God after all, I slowly completed the last painful mile that separated me from the nearest bottle of Bacardi.

Arriving at last at Mecca, I sat down at the bar and ordered a double rum and coke and a tall glass of water, which I finished half of in a few gulps as soon as it arrived. The water, not the rum and coke. Then I called Hubby to let him know I’d arrived in Newark and allowed him a couple of I told you so’s in regards to my present problem regarding overweight luggage. When we’d hung up, I spotted a redhead climbing onto the stool beside mine. The bartender came over and she ordered herself a white wine. We both sat sipping at our drinks for a few minutes before she asked me if I were going to Dusseldorf.

“No. London,” I said curtly, not being in the mood for casual chit chat. I picked up my glass of water and finished it off in another few gulps.

“You shouldn’t drink water, you know. It’ll poison you. Our kidneys can’t process all the poisons in water. My kidneys haven’t worked for fourteen years.”

Oh, great. A health nut.

“I only drink wine. White wine. The red stuff has too many chemicals in it. It’ll kill you.”

Sigh.

“I always drink wine, whether I’m at home or traveling. I’m going to Dusseldorf for the weekend,”

Against my better judgement, I said, “You’re flying all the way to Dusseldorf just for the weekend?”

“Yeah. I fly to Europe for the weekend once or twice a month. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve been doing it for years.”

“How do you manage that, I mean with the dialysis and that.”

“What dialysis?”

“You said that your kidneys hadn’t worked in fourteen years,”

“Oh, that. No, I’m not dialysis. I still have my kidneys, they just don’t work. They haven’t worked since I fell into a canal in Venice.”

I finished off my rum and coke and ordered another.

“See, the water in the canals is filthy, just filthy. And when I fell in, I was attacked by this type of parasite that lives in the water there. The parasites invaded my body and attacked my organs and my kidneys and they shut down and haven’t worked right since. Water will kill you, believe me.”

Oh, great. Not a health nut. Just your average, garden variety nutter. No way was I going to ask her how she’d managed to fall into a canal in the first place.

“I believe you. That’s why I only drink rum,” I said instead as I slid my credit card across the bar towards the bartender. While I was waiting for my receipt, I fished around in my purse for my sleeping pills, shook a couple out into my hand and downed them with a swallow of rum and coke. I had an hour until my flight boarded and, with any luck, I’d be nice and drowsy by the time we lifted off.

Limping my way across to my departure gate I told myself, “Just a bit longer and you’ll be in England for nearly a month. A month. You can do this!”