Fragile Fashion: Queensland Museum’s Sleeping Beauties and the Met Gala

By Tess Shingles – Assistant Curator, Queensland Stories

The first Monday in May.

When celebrities, fashion, and museums collide at the Met Gala. A glamourous way to raise money and awareness for one of the world’s most renowned museums, The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tickets for the first Gala in 1949 cost $50, but the event has grown so dramatically that tickets in 2023 cost $50,000. That is, if you make the exclusive guest list.

The theme for this year’s Met Gala is “The Garden of Time” and it coincides with the Met’s spring exhibition Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.

Inspired by the story The Garden of Time by J. G. Ballard, the exhibition features costumes that are fragile due to age, wear, or construction and interprets them through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, projection, and animation.

The Garden of Time tells the story of Count Axel and his wife, the Countess, who are secluded in a beautiful villa full of antiques and fine art. The villa is steadily being invaded by an amorphous and threatening crowd that Count Axel deters by harvesting magical crystal flowers that reverse time. Eventually both flowers and time run out and the villa is overrun. The story emphasises the inevitability of degradation and decay, the natural world vs human nature, and the role of art in enriching human existence.

So, how might we consider some of Queensland Museum’s costume collection in relation to these themes?

We have many ‘Sleeping Beauties’ in our collection that are exquisitely beautiful, but too fragile to go on display. Often age and wear have taken a toll on garments before they arrive, and although our conservation team aims to prevent further deterioration, further interventions are required to bring them back to life.

At the peak of each stem was the time flower, the size of a goblet, the opaque outer petals, enclosing the crystal heart.“

-The Garden of Time

This 18^th century embroidered silk waistcoat is one of the oldest costumes in the collection. Like the fictional time flower in Ballard’s story, this waistcoat is delicate and shows some deterioration.

The condition of any garment in our collection is an important consideration as it tells the story of its use. In this case, the fabric near the underarm has split near the seams which is common for silk of this age. The vibrancy of the colour and the cleanliness of the fabric indicate that the garment was very well cared for and valued by the wearer and subsequent custodians.

Highly decorative waistcoats like this were common in the 18th century when a gentleman wasn’t considered properly dressed without one. The high collar and short pockets date this version to the late 1700s when the style shifted from long sleeves and tunic to accommodate a more active and outdoor lifestyle.

…the Countess clasping the brilliant dying jewel, the air closing in upon them…“

-The Garden of Time

These beautiful Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical vestments are adorned with nature motifs using Byzantine and Ottoman liturgical textile design.

The ensemble is made of six layered pieces. The silk jacquard chasuble, shattered with age, has been painstakingly conserved. The loose threads were carefully aligned and supported with laid couching stitches in an attempt stop the clock and the ravages of time, like the Countess from Ballard’s story who grasps the last time flower.

These vestments were gifted to Australian army chaplain, Canon David Garland in WWI. He was heavily involved in supporting the welfare of soldiers, forming strong positive relationships with the local Coptic Church community, and key to establishing the first Anzac Day commemorations. You can read a more detailed history of this garment on the Queensland Museum blog.

Gradually the crystal dissolved…”

-The Garden of Time

This Balmain hat made of tulle and veiling was once adorned with these bundles of teal and yellow leaves. The hat must be handled carefully as tulle, whether silk or synthetic, is a material that becomes fragile with age.

The original owner refashioned the hat, removing the leaves possibly to make it more versatile in her wardrobe. Human intervention, like the decorative leaves being removed from this piece and the deconstructed condition reminds us of the temporary nature of beauty and fashion.

Pierre Balmain garnered acclaim during the fifties for his creations embroidered with leaves, cherries, or flowers. His unique shapes and nature motifs made a distinctive contribution to postwar fashion that referenced regeneration and the spirit of a new age following the destruction of war.

the vanguard of an immense rabble appearing from below the horizon.”

– The Garden of Time

In The Garden of Time, the luxury and natural beauty of the villa is under threat by “an advancing throng.” This amorphous, barbarous crowd of men, women and ragged soldiers threaten not only the serenity of the villa, but also the sensibilities of the aristocratic Count and Countess.

This convict’s cap from the Queensland Museum Collection also embodies a history of class warfare. Between 1788 and 1868 Britain transported some 171,000 convicted felons to Australia, establishing the foundation European population and instituting a process of colonisation.

Like our other ‘Sleeping Beauties’, this hat is fragile due to age, regular wear, and insect activity prior to donation. However, it is a powerful symbol of colonialism, class and social aspiration and evokes the “ceaseless tide of humanity” from Ballard’s story.

…he selected a large flower on the stem nearest the wall…and with his strong fingers snapped it off.”

-The Garden of Time

This wedding dress, worn in 1915, is made of weighted silk satin. Historically, weighting silk was the process of adding a chemical compound, like salts of lead or tin, after the dyeing process. The weight gave the silk more structure, which resulted in a better drape, but compromised the strength and durability of the fabric.

The extra weight meant extra profits when the fabric was sold by the weight. The process still occurs today but it is not as common and alternative techniques are used.

Despite its extremely fragile condition at the time of donation, this dress was chosen for the State Collection as it was the first representation of wedding fashion made by the Brisbane department store, Finney Isles and Co.

While it is currently too fragile to go on display, this dress has been given a second life through our online collections where anyone can admire its beauty.

Queensland Museum’s costume collection houses over 1500 garments and covers roughly 255 years of western fashion, from clergy to convicts, models to brides. The Garden of Time theme of the Met Gala is a great opportunity to highlight some of the ‘Sleeping Beauties’ in our collection.

Our online collection reawakens the garments allowing them to be viewed anywhere in the world. These fragile beauties have slept long enough.

Sources

• Fizer, Alexandra. “Press Release: The Met Announces The Costume Institute’s Spring 2024 Exhibition and Gala.” THE MET. Last modified November 8, 2023.
• Ostberg, Rene. “Met Gala.” Brittanica. Last modified March 11, 2024.
• Hacke, Marei. 2008. “Weighted silk: history, analysis and conservation.” Studies in Conservation 53 (2): 3-15.
• Ballard, J. G. 1962. The Garden of Time.  Accessed April 5, 2024.