MOMA, Is Fashion Modern?

The show, Items, Is Fashion Modern?, just opened at the MOMA this week.   I went there before speaking at LIM, down the street, a college dedicated to the business around fashion, so my first stop was MOMA couldn’t have been more fitting.

The exhibit shows how fashion design is part of our everyday life.  How some items are iconic yet we probably don’t think about those items in that way.  For instance, I loved that they just hung one white t-shirt.

Or the hooded sweatshirt.

Of course, the exhibit begins with a handful of little black dresses.

There are bodysuits

Shoes

and of course, the DVF wrap dress.

The baby bjorn, a game changer.

Who hasn’t owned a good sweatsuit at one point?

I remember the Prada backpack hit the streets.  I first saw it at the original Barneys on 18th Street.  How could high-end fashion be so street?  Ends up, that was the beginning of that movement.

After the show, I spoke at LIM where I talked about my career and connections to the retail/wholesale/fashion/brand world.  Not one word to describe the industry anymore.   I always enjoy talking about those days as that foundation really set my career in motion.  I have been doing a lot of reflecting these days on how I got from there to here so the timing was great.  Answering questions and talking to the young people in the audience is always a highlight.  Questions are the best.  Seeing all of their excitement and concerns about their career ahead are ones that I didn’t spend a lot of time pondering about at that age.  These days I am pondering more and my guess is that the conversation that evening reflected that.