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| Wong Kar Wai In The Mood For Love in China: Through The Looking Glass Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute exhibition China: Through The Looking Glass, with The Grandmaster director Wong Kar Wai as artistic director, has been extended to run through Monday, September 7, 2015. The exhibition includes clips from films by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Zhang Yimou, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jiang Wen, Yonggang Wu, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Leone, Richard Quine and Vincente Minnelli that are expertly edited and placed throughout three floors of galleries, including the Anna Wintour Costume Center, which magically merge film with fashion and the museum's collection.
Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations in 2012 with Baz Luhrmann as creative consultant was not nearly as popular. Up until this point, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty was the most attended and the only other Costume Institute exhibition to be extended. China: Through The Looking Glass, also curated by Andrew Bolton, has already surpassed it in the number of visitors.
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| The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
Billie Holiday's rendition of These Foolish Things, the lyrics inspired by Anna May Wong, welcomes you to the permanent Chinese collection as the Met is transformed into an imaginary wonderland of dialogue between Western fashions and Eastern arts, where Yves Saint Laurent's Opium drawings meet a gourd-shaped vase from the 18th century. No other fashion exhibit has made me contemplate the fabric of time quite like this. Centuries and continents separate some of the garments you thought were twins.
"Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through," says Lewis Carroll's Alice, and like her, you lose control as the enchantment kicks in. "Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will have viewing hours this Friday and Saturday until midnight to accommodate the large crowds.
