I did a quick yet idea provoking walk through the MET’s exhibition “model as muse” yesterday.  The exhibition’s been getting a lot of press, rightfully, as it’s both excellently curated and art directed.  Two things struck me while walking through the show.  First, how incredible Dior has been in the history of fashion (duh), and how it remains to be under Galliano.  The recent Dior Couture they had on display was incredible.  It’s the sort of stuff that makes me want to photograph clothing.  Second, I was amazed at both how many people were at the exhibit and how interested they were in it.  Which seems like a silly thing to say, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many people so interested in any exhibit I’ve been to.  It was a reminder of how fashion and this aspect of our culture really is mass, and while it feels like it can become isolated to the little bubbles of NYC, Paris, London, etc, it’s so much larger than that. Maybe Penn summed it best in stating, to paraphrase, I take photographs for the housewife in the mid-west.

The museum also posted it’s curator talks in 9 parts, which are a nice history of models and fashion’s social/cultural functions in general:

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