A youth-driven Met fashion exhibit, for a changing world

NEW YORK (AP) — “How do you define American fashion?” It was three years ago, and Andrew Bolton, the longtime curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, was pondering that question.

He knew he was going to do a major exhibit on American fashion in 2021 to coincide with the Institute’s 75th anniversary this year — and, as always, to launch the annual Met Gala.

But as he struggled to define American fashion, he now says, he realized that the whole point was NOT defining it — but rather recognizing and celebrating that it is many, many different things to different people.

“There are 100 different definitions of American fashion," Bolton said this weekend as he showed a reporter around the new show, which opens to the public later this week. “We’re not coming up with a neat definition, because it doesn’t work! I’m trying to finding a new language or vocabulary to get people to think about it differently.”

Hence the title “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” part one of a larger “In America” show, which launches Monday’s “mini” Met Gala — a smaller version of the extravaganza that usually happens the first Monday in May.

Unlike past shows, this first part will last a full year, coinciding for several months with part two, “An Anthology of Fashion,” which will open in early May — when, everyone desperately hopes, a full-sized Met Gala can be held.

If the second part is more historical, this first part looks squarely at the present, at issues that “we are all grappling with,” Bolton says. It focuses on social justice, diversity and inclusivity, and body acceptance. Most importantly, though, it emphasizes youth: Some 60-70% of its garments come from younger designers, many of whom have never had their creations shown in a museum before or even imagined...