Modemuseum Hasselt reveals different meanings of ‘vulgarity’
Exposition of exuberant clothes within a philosophical framework
Vulgar, one word with a lot of meanings. Historically related to the popular social class, anything that was “commonly prevalent”. Through the years this word became something negative. Pretension or ambition are words that can describe what is for our society the meaning of this term.
We can say that people always want to feel superior and not established in the common and popular, that’s the main reason of why vulgarity is considered so negative now. So we can say that rich people use to get things to let the others know about their high-level life, something that maybe was vulgar in the past. We can assure that “Vulgarity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, it is an emblem of artificiality” like Judith Clark says, the curator of this magnificent exhibition in 11 sections.
We can see “prèt-a-porter” clothes as well as “high-couture” in a juxtaposed way between clothes of the Renaissance, like a mantua of the 17th century. Present pieces are also shown, like the ones of Karl Lagerfield which took place in the Grand Palais as a supermarket. So what we will be asked by Clark and Adam Phillips (a psychoanalyst who helped her) is the short distance between the good or the bad taste
The first phrase you can notice in a kind of enormous coin of 50 cents is “The vulgarity exposes the scandal of good taste”, something that helps us to internalize the main idea of the exhibition.
Sections like ‘Too Much’, ‘Showing Off’, ‘Puritan’, ‘Common’ and ‘Extreme Bodies’ will be shown in this exposition. Clark tells Vogue.com that “is absolutely essential as the exhibition does not point the finger. It does not say, ‘This is vulgar.’ It says: ‘If a copy of something is vulgar, or is vulgarizing an original, does that also apply to Madame Grès imitating the drapery of a Grecian statue? Or a YSL Mondrian dress? . . .
If the 18th century was about decadent excess, what are we quoting, when we quote it?”. This fashionable and philosophical dialogue can make us think about the way we see the fashion, not from a historical but rather a globalizing form. Also, it’s a nice way to see beautiful silhouettes, because in this exhibition we are going to see designs of Prada, Alexander McQueen for Givenchy, Alessandro Michele for Gucci, Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, Raf Simmons or even Christian Dior.
“There is always anxiety around fashion,” Clark explained via email to Vogue.com, about “its worth, its divisiveness, the kinds of beauty it proposes, how it relates to class, who fashion excludes, but at the same time, how the designers incorporate these issues into their often exquisite designs [is fascinating].”
This exhibition has been shown up in the Barbican in London, in Wien at the “Winter Palace” and now in the Modemuseum in Hasselt. Located nearly in the middle of this little city, this was an ecclesiastic place to take care of patients. It normally have temporary exhibitions like this one, but it’s normal to see pieces of their own collection shown there.
Some of you will be asking why a small city like Hasselt has a museum like this one. As always, the solution can be given by the history. In the 15th century Hasselt started with textile industry in the Raamstraaat, now the most expensive street there, the place where clothes where dried. After World War 2, lots of fashion designers came here, so that’s why nowadays there are such high level shops. Hasselt, along with Antwerp are the two cities of fashion in Belgium.
The prizes are:
