I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Monday to view the opening of the Costume Institute's new fashion exhibit, Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy. I went out of curiosity. Well, really I wanted to see the Wonder Woman costume. You see, I was Wonder Woman every year for atleast the first five years of my life. I wore the Ben Cooper version of the costume. My little brown hands peeked out from underneath the plastic one piece that looked nothing like the sexy bathingsuit Lynda Carter wore. And in the cool New York October air, I usually wore the costume over a sweatsuit and sometimes a winter coat. As a child, I thought Wonder Woman was awesome. Like most kids, I watched the show with Lynda Carter every Friday night on CBS at 8 p.m. I longed to stop bullets with my blue bracelets and trip up an escaping criminal with my headband. The best part of the costume was the Magic Lasso that forced criminals to tell the truth (I wish I had that today.)
The Metropolitan Museum of art kicked off the exhibit Monday morning with a press conference that included Anna Wintour, editor and chief of Vogue Magazine and body conscious designer, Giogrio Armani.
But the point of this exhibit, was to show how Superhero garb reflects American fashion through dreams and fantasies of the body perfect. Some of the connections were strong like Catwoman's clothing, that translated well into bodysuits. Other pieces were a stretch. Exactly how the Incredible Hulk lack of clothing is seen in football uniforms went over my head. Performance clothing modelled after Spiderman and Flash Gordon costimes were cool and made sense. It was easy to see the aerodynamic qualities here.
Wonder Woman was part of an exhibit with the Patriotic Body. Along with Captain America it made sense to show Wonder Woman as an All-American woman, albeit an Amazon, who fought for justice in stars and stripes. The costume on display was the original 1976 designed by Donfeld. But now, 30 years later, the costume was faded. The blue bottom was more purplish and there was no cuffs to stop the bullets. In all this larger than life imagery, the costume was surrounded by glittery totally unwearable creations by the House of Dior, I was reminded that at the end of the day, despite their powers Superheroes and their costumes age.
For more on the exhibit, read The Inquirer on Wednesday.
