This was my third visit to the Museum at FIT and my favourite exhibition to date. The museum has FREE admission so you can go as often as you like and every six months or so there is a new exhibition. On this visit I particularly came to see the Fairy Tale Fashion exhibition. It was magical! (No pun intended!).
The exhibition is about fashion that has either been inspired by fairy tales or where a connection can be made to a particular fairy tale where the story provides much description and focus on clothing or shoes.
It really gets you thinking about the iconic outfits or discriptions used in stories and film that refer to fashion, like Dorothy’s magical red slippers in the Wizard of Oz or Cinderella’s rags to her ball gown.
The clothes are displayed beautifully, with great scenery to illustrate the different fairy tales. When you enter you feel like you are walking into an enchanted forest and see Snow White laid out asleep and the evil Queen standing over her. The set design really draws you in.
It is amazing how they found handbags, shoes and fashion that tell the story so well, like this poisoned apple. As fairy tales are not set in a specific time period the clothing used span from the 18th Century to the present day. I bet the curator had a lot of fun selecting the various pieces for the exhibition that fitted with each story.
There were 15 fairy tales depicted, some I had never heard of, but of those I had,the items selected were perfect and once you read the summary of the fair tale, everything fitted together. Some of my favourites were Snow White, Wizard of Oz, Alice’s adventures in Wonderland and Little Red Riding Hood.
For the Wizard of Oz section you could see clothing that Dorothy wore and clothes from Emerald City and the Wicked Witch as well as shoes that have been inspired by the famous red slippers or look like they could be Dorothy’s shoes.
The exhibition is made up of clothes from many designers and include a lot of well known designers such as Tom Ford, Christian Louboutin and Dolce and Gabanna. So even if you are not well versed in fashion, there will definitely be names you recognise.
The fashions used for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland did a great job of telling the story and the characters from the tale. My favourite was the white rabbit with the playing cards. That dress was actually created by Manish Arora to celebrate the release of Tim Burton’s remake of Alice in Wonderland.
For Little Red Riding Hood it was of course all about the red cloak and different designers interpretation and creation of the red cloak. Each item on display has a small card to indicate the designer, the date it was created and any information about the item, such as the inspiration or the collection it was designed for. It really helps to paint a picture in your imagination and helps you place the item.
Other great displays were The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
I absolutely loved the Christian Louboutin shoes that looked like the beasts feet! If it weren’t for the expensive price tag I would probably buy these shoes if I saw them, I thought they were great. Shoes and accessories actually play a bit part in the exhibition and there were some excellent pieces that fitted perfect with fairy tales.
Fairy Tale Fashion is a delightful exhibition and makes you feel like a child again, getting excited re-living the tales and seeing them brought to life. The exhibition runs through to April 16, 2016 so there is plenty of time for another visit! For a fashion student I image the exhibition takes on a greater appreciation, but I think anyone with an interest in clothes will enjoy this exhibition, even younger audiences.
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