TROPOLISM

New York is home to not one but two fashion shows that are not at the Costume Institute at The Met. Special Correspondant Barrett Feldman gives us her take:

"I went to two thoughtfully curated shows on Fashion: The Fashion of Architecture: Constructing The Architecture of Fashion at the Center for Architecture and Fashion in Colors at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. It was interesting to go to both fashion shows back to back. The show at the Center for Architecture had a few pieces by Lucy Orta's which challenges us to rethink the boundary between body and city. The show uptown at the Cooper Hewitt was categorized primarily according to color, such that each room had designs from the 1820s to 2005. I learned that in the 1700s red pigment was made from beetle juice and tumeric! The clothing in both shows had a level of complexity in which each stitch, pleat and hem worked not only to clad the body but to create an exterior layer which is well-crafted, surprising, and the interface layer with the world. It reminded me that architecture emerges as much from its relationship to the body as it does from its relationship to site."