The First Monday in May

Let Mrs Pratt be a warning to you, Ms Wintour.

(dir. Andrew Rossi)

TVC attended a premiere of this film which officially opens on May 12.  Vogue editor, the infamous Anna Wintour (time to lose the bob, Anna) and Andrew Bolton (director of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) plan The Met’s most-attended fashion exhibition – “China: Through the Looking Glass” and the astounding opening party.  Is fashion art? On a par with  “The September Issue” and  “Dior and I“. Fascinating for fashionistas.  Not for anyone else.

MINORITY REPORT BY Peter

I respectfully agree: this was rather fascinating, albeit a little too long, with some repetition.  What irks me about the whole melange though?

  1. I’ve no difficulty in conceding haute couture as art, occasionally great art.  As for wearing it, forget it, but as Oscar Wilde remarked, all art is quite useless.  But when these guys banged on about art, I was thinking about money, power and status.
  2. The use of Chinese artefacts to serve as background chinoiserie to the orientalist fashions was an obvious and artless act of exploitation.  The documentary picked up on that and didn’t cover it up.
  3. But the consulting Chinese ‘experts’ committed far baser political acts by requiring some sort of tasteless homage to Chairman Mao.  I would have gladly done a painting of the disgusting old creep with blood dripping from his marshmallow hands…
  4. The fellow driving the whole exhibition was so clueless, that he kept forgetting to put on his socks before putting on his shoes.  It is really hard to know what he was thinking, or if he was thinking.  Occasionally, he glanced down at his naked shoes as if to admit he was making-up his abstract piffle as he went.
  5. Anna Wintour obviously works hard at the ‘Dragon Lady’ image but she is no Anna May Wong.  In fact, one suspects there is no there, there, behind her Chanel sunnies.
  6. The “Fancy Party” looks the type of thing one waits years to avoid.  When Ms Wintour scratches your passé name off her list, you might as well throw yourself in the Hudson River.  I imagine the fancy bench-tops at the Met bathrooms got a fair workout during the Big Do!  (Well, if one of the major art galleries of the world is going to debase itself in grubby materialism and faux culture, why not wallow completely in the mire?)
    Yves knew a thing or two about dress-making

Yves knew a thing or two about dress-making

1 Comment

  1. Reply

    Smug of Glebe

    May 12, 2016

    How come you Adelaide arrivistes manage to see this two weeks before the rest of us? I'm in outroar and uprage! All the same, I totally agree with your review!!


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