 Finally, an answer to one of fashion’s most puzzling riddles may be within reach: Who was more stylish, punks or hippies? All right, that may be a stretch. When you’re weighing spikes against bell-bottoms, is there really such a thing as a winner? Besides, if there is one thing that punks and hippies have in common it is that their styles were actually explicit statements against fashion. And yet for fashion designers and historians, both subcultures have retained a surprisingly potent allure. At least we have some indication of which was more broadly impactful in its own time, and which for posterity, thanks to a pair of coincidentally timed museum exhibitions. In regard to the legacy of Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren and the punks’ embrace of detritus like trash bags as wardrobe essentials, in New York the current Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition “Punk: Chaos to Couture” states fairly definitively that spikes are here to stay. Several pieces in the show, which has performed relatively well despite mediocre-to-eviscerating reviews, are contemporary ones from Rodarte, Comme des Garçons and Gareth Pugh. But it took a good deal of time and recontextualization for the shredded look to make its way to Chanel (in 2011). As for the hippies, their style was thoroughly reflective of fashion in their own time, as illustrated by “Hippie Chic,” an exhibition opening on Tuesday at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. While the Met draws a picture with CBGB urinals and angry-looking displays, the MFA is going groovy, with bits of shag carpeting, spinning lights and faux-bois wallpaper. Some of the displays being installed resemble stage design as if by Monty Hall. The hippies exhibition was originally planned two years ago, but was postponed to secure a larger gallery space and more acquisitions for the growing fashion collection at the museum, which aspires to compete with the big guns of the Met’s Costume Institute. While a show like “Hippie Chic” may suggest a subject that, from a fashion perspective, has the potential to be, well, a tad trippy, the curator, Lauren Whitley, focused only on designer clothes from the late 1960s and early 1970s that reflected a hippie spirit. (Jason Allen, a designer for the Boston Lyric Opera and the Boston Ballet, is creating period-appropriate wigs for an added awe factor.) The results are amusingly rich, even surprisingly Woodstock-inappropriate, like acid-toned dresses by Hanae Mori, Geoffrey Beene and Thea Porter, or a floral peasant dress by Giorgio di Sant’Angelo. And tie-dye, from Roy Halston? “We think of Halston being the king of minimalism,” Whitley said. “But in 1969, he loved tie-dye and did many pieces with some of the premier tie-dye artists of New York.” Whitley argued that hippies were actually ahead of the punks not only in chronology, but also in style. “The message of punk was quite different, but with the anti-establishment stance and the questioning of authority, I think the hippies broke down that door first,” she said. “DIY did not start with punk.” Fashion inspired by hippies and punks may well be able to sustain serious debate by curators, but the real point here may be that museums, in the wake of the Met’s 2011 Alexander McQueen blockbuster, are clearly attracted to subjects with the potential both to provoke and to draw crowds. As of last Sunday, more than 285,000 visitors had seen the “Punk” exhibition, which opened on May 9 and closes on Aug. 14. While the attendance does not suggest a blockbuster in the making (only the most popular shows at the Met have exceeded 500,000 guests during their entire runs), at least the exhibition will likely top last year’s Schiaparelli and Prada pairing. Take that, hippies. http://www.queeniedress.com/pink-homecoming-dresses
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