In the first of many posts to come.

[trinityvixen]

I went to see the Met's Superheroes exhibit on Saturday, and I was completely off my nut about it. I bought the exhibit book for $30. I had to talk myself out of getting the $50 hardcover version just 'cause I wanted it to last forever. Seriously, you cannot surround me with fabulous couture AND the Mark II Iron Man suit, the new Bat-suit, and the skin-tight vinyl of my very favorite and first lesbian crush. I mean, Catwoman's costume (from Batman Returns, the only Catwoman that matters) WAS RIGHT THERE. I wish the stupid book of the exhibit displayed that instead of a production still. There's nothing quite like it. It's just...sex.

It's also something of a disillusionment to see up close. It just proves the magic of movies and comics that I never noticed that the stitches that supposedly keep the entire thing together are really just pasted on patches with lacing. It's hard to describe, so everyone should go see it. (If they'd let me take pictures, I'd never have left.) Things that stayed fucking impressive on closer look? Definitely the Mark II armor and the new Bat-suit and Mystique's scales, which they put on a dummy and painted it and its eyes so it was the only dummy in the place to have any life to it.

I mean, there's this goddamned AMAZING Thierry Mugler dress that is supposed to be a take off on the mutant body, and it is devastating to see. (Best pic of the Catwoman costume, too.) BUT LOOK AT THE MODEL AND HOW SHE IS PAINTED AND HOW SHE MOVES!!! (Dress in question appears at 2:22) viridian already has dibs on this one, but wow. If I had no waist at all, I'd be all over that shit. I'd hit it like a freight train.

I need to figure out how to copy pictures from my book without destroying it so I can babble some more about these clothes. In the next installment of Trinity Goes 'Splode Theater, I will talk about all eighty pairs of highly impossible shoes THAT I MUST HAVE.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

But--we were going to organize a group outing! :'(

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

When are you thinking of going? And who's we? I'd totally go again. I get in free with my student ID because my school totally pays them a lot of money.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry about that. I thought I e-mailed everyone who had expressed interest in my LJ entry on the Superhero exhibit, or who I thought would be particularly interested in going...

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Also, I bring you something to rant about. You can thank me later.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no, that's bad for my blood pressure.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

That's very cool. Any idea how long that exhibit is there?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Until Sept. 1.

Aside from one panel talking about how the Hulk is really a giant penis, it's fine for kids. Yours can't read, right? 'Cause then they're totally good.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you'd be better off not reading a single word of the text. The authors clearly knew nothing about their subject and provided no actual information, just typical fashion-writing gasbaggery.

It was too bad, since they could have provided lots of historical context to the costumes: Why did Siegel and Schuster create the Superman costume? (He isn't wearing one in the first sketches.) What was their inspiration? The Golden Age costumes weren't always skin-tight; why did it become the norm? Why were certain colors used? (Robin, for example, was introduced to put a little color in the Batman comics.) Why did Marvel put uniforms on the Fantastic Four (they originally wore street clothes)? In other words, they could have acted like this was a museum exhibition and not an article in Vogue.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Don't forget though: this is a superhero exhibit at the Costume Institute. Despite the name, the Costume Institute is actually really only interested in couture. The superhero costumes were entirely a lure to get Joe Schmoe in to see the couturiers' work. Naturally, they're going to be coming from a point of view of fashion, not comics history. If you interpret the superhero through fashion, not history, that's what you get.

But don't be too hard on the exhibit. A lot of the designers were immediately influenced by the superhero costumes, and the respect for the cultural penetration and significance more than makes up for a slight oversight or two. Also, the book to the exhibit has an introduction by Michael Chambon (of The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, like you didn't know that) in which he talks extensively about the influences on costume in the comics. I'll happily loan it to you if you like. His essay is pretty brilliant. He looks at where Superman's costume came from (wrestlers popular at the turn of the century) and examines what makes superhero costumes, well, prove that the person wearing them is the superhero.

Not surprisingly, it comes back to the human form. In essence, exactly as fashion does. Fashion is about form--the most idealized versions of human body shape, just as superheroes are. I don't want to spoil the essay because it is brilliant. I didn't think the panels on the walls were shoddy, either. They were abridged from the full segment (available online or in the book), but they weren't altogether incorrect.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Chabon's essay was OK, but he had already published it, months ago, in The New Yorker, so it was nothing new to me.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

See, I thought his essay really worked through the history and the bullshit of mythology that often surrounds comics. I love comics history, don't get me wrong, but it's an art form like any other, and like all other forms of art, it borrows heavily from its surroundings. After a while, it's nice to cut through the swath of people comparing green and green belts and seeing a difference (The Devil Wears Prada reference!) and just get back to what purpose similar art forms share. In this case, it is a love of the body, especially the naked body. Only skin has ever been as elegant, malleable, and smooth (when it's in its physical peak) as we've had artists draw comics characters.

I guess I'm just saying it's too bad that this wasn't a retrospective of costumes through the ages, but it wasn't meant to be. The roughly chronological setting of the pieces in accordance with the body types seems almost entirely an accident. (In fact, it contradicted itself by putting The Armored Body beyond the The Paradoxical Body. After all, there was no Catwoman before there was a Batman.) The exhibit was trying to hit all the archetypes, not necessarily every place superheroes have gone and the evolution between. They couldn't. The fashion world isn't as linear--you might have cohesive looks between houses in a season, but there's no trend that continues from year to year. Case in point: the link to the Thierry Mugler outfit I provided is from a 1997-1998 season show and that went with The Mutant Body. The Balanciaga armored leggings were from 2007. In the rough chronology of the comics, we hit mutants second, armored outfits first. They had to work with what they had.

A comic or movie museum would be better served to follow those distinctions. Alas, I don't know that any but us would be interested in the results.

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

I wanted to touch those costumes SO BADLY. I should have. It would have been worth the penalty.

I found the patchworked nature of the Catwoman costume to be more impressive than any other part of the exhibit - I could totally believe Selena Kyle cobbled that outfit together from scraps lying around her apartment.
How the hell did Michelle Pfeiffer squeeze into that? The outfit looked more painted on than Mystique's scales (which I never noticed were patterned to suggest underwear before the exhibit).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I swear, they poured latex over her naked and then painted on the details, that suit was so tight and so tiny. But no, apparently not. I remember an interview with Carrie-Ann Moss who played Trinity in The Matrix describing her costume in the first movie--also skin-tighy vinyl--as being surprisingly flexible and breathable. Apparently, it's not really what it seems and was, in fact, created by a dancer who knew what movement you could get out of it and adjusted accordingly.

That's not to say that it's all sunshine and roses when working with latex/vinyl. Persephone (http://www.reelcollectibles.co.nz/images/posters/matrix_pers.jpg) wore a latex dress in the sequels and she ripped/busted out of that shit all the time.

The strength of the Catwoman suit is that it was really one solid piece meant to look like it had been ripped torn. That's the part I meant about the pasted-on tears. There were holes in the suit that reflected the story--as Selena took more damage, more of the stitches gave way until she had the slit on the thigh and the mask almost in pieces. Since actually stitching the costume together would have torn the flimsy, easily tearable material apart (not to mention, it would have left gaps visible because nobody stitches vinyl that tight with that big a thread size), they sort of soldered the slashes in the fabric and laced that together. Pull the laces, and the gap protecting the fabric opened. Firmer tear, less likely to splinter apart. They still probably went through a million of those suits.

The fact that Mystique's costume is painted on is the point of the exhibit: superhero costumes are impossible. Look at the trouble they've had with the Batsuit that was finally addressed in The Dark Knight--to get the comic-book shape of the cowl, Batman would have to sacrifice his ability to move his head. (Because nothing forms that blocky, no-neck shape without turnings your neck into a literal block.) Look at the X-Men wearing black leather instead of spandex! Look at the Spider-Man and Superman of recent films and you'll see that no matter how ripped Tobey Maguire or Brandon Routh got, they still had to put muscle plates under the uniform because the material bites into any part of your body that isn't freakin' bone and makes you look pudgy. When you get down to it, naked with spray-paint costume is really how the comics characters look. In that respect, the Mystique costume is the only one to come close to what comic book artists have drawn for decades.