New York (AFP)

How to tell the story of American fashion?

Like a patchwork of emotions, responds the Metropolitan Museum of New York (Met), which pays tribute to the diversity and inventiveness of creators in the United States in a foretaste of the traditional retrospective of the "Costume Institute".

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the museum had to give up last spring, for the second year in a row, its fashion exhibition which always goes hand in hand with the Met Gala, New York's social gathering par excellence. under the leadership of fashion priestess Anna Wintour.

Organized precisely to finance the "Costume Institute", the Met Gala is also an opportunity for major fashion brands to dress the stars who flock to the red carpet.

With a "dress code" always linked to the exhibition.

The gala and the exhibition are in principle launched on the first Monday in May, but in order not to wait until next spring, the calendar has been jostled: the gala takes place on Monday evening and the exhibition "In America: a lexicon of fashion "opens September 18.

The latter is the first chapter of a larger anthology expected in spring 2022.

Through a hundred pieces, from the 1940s to the present day, the commissioner of the "Costume Institute", Andrew Bolton, wanted to break the image of an American fashion essentially "sportswear", defined by "its practicality, its functionality. or egalitarianism, "he told AFP.

"And often, there is no emotional vocabulary", more readily associated with European fashion, such as haute couture in France, he adds.

The result is a patchwork, through 12 major families of emotions, from nostalgia to consciousness, from confidence to strength, from pleasure to joy.

A dress designed by American designer Christopher John Rogers, entitled exuberance, exhibited on September 13 at the Metropolitan museum in New York TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP

More appropriate words are added to certain clothes: "liberty" for the famous wrap dress by Diane von Fürstenberg (born in Brussels but long established in New York), "exuberance" for this red checkered dress, cinched in the waist and then very voluminous. Christopher John Rogers, "playfulness" for this tunic while buttons by Jeremy Scott.

There are also famous designers Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren, but also recent or avant-garde brands such as threeASFOUR, Collina Strada or Imitation of Christ.

"There are a hundred definitions of what American fashion is," concludes Andrew Bolton, even though he now sees a sector "driven by young designers who engage in deeply political and ethical issues" .

© 2021 AFP