Step inside the Met's 'About Time: Fashion and Duration' costume exhibition

The Costume Institute’s exhibition 'About Time: Fashion and Duration' opens in New York this weekend – and will trace 150 years of fashion, from 1870 to present day, along a disrupted timeline. The exhibition – which was meant to guide the theme for the 2020 Met Gala (which was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic) – is being put on in honour of the museum's 150th anniversary.

"Employing philosopher Henri Bergson’s concept of la durée — the continuity of time — the exhibition explores how clothes generate temporal associations that conflate the past, present, and future," a press release for the museum explains. "The concept is also examined through the writings of Virginia Woolf, who serves as the exhibition’s 'ghost narrator'."

The exhibition will feature a timeline of 125 fashions dating from 1870 to the present, which will unfold in two adjacent galleries fabricated as enormous clock faces and organised around the principle of 60 minutes of fashion. Each 'minute' features a pair of garments, with the primary work representing the linear nature of fashion and the secondary work its cyclical character.

"All of the garments are black to emphasize changes in silhouette, except at the conclusion of the show, where a white dress from Viktor & Rolf’s spring/summer 2020 haute couture collection, made from upcycled swatches in a patchwork design, serves as a symbol for the future of fashion with its emphasis on community, collaboration, and sustainability."

The exhibition will run from 29 October 2020 to 7 February 2021. If you aren't able to get the United States to see it in person, head to the Met's website here for more information, or scroll through to see some highlights from the exhibition.