The Tamesis
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s annual spring exhibition, the mannequins have long since become more than just mannequins. In 2025’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” artist Tanda Francis used André Grenard Matswa, one of the original Sapeurs, as a model, mimicking the features of a mannequin; parts of “Sleeping Beauty: Reviving Fashion” did away with silhouettes entirely, displaying the show’s most fragile garments in coffin-like glass cases.
For “The Art of Costume,” curator Andrew Bolton once again combines the exhibition’s central concern (in this case, how art and fashion interpret the human body) with the way objects are displayed. This year visitors to the Condé Nast Gallery will see a number of fashionable pieces in “The Art of Costume,” whose silhouettes are based on nine very real characters, covering a range of body types and mobility abilities.
The mannequins, 25 in total, are spread across two of the exhibition’s 12 thematic sections, each organized around a body type or aesthetic. One is the “Disabled Bodies” section, which features mannequins modeled after the style of Sinéad Burke, author and founder of Tilt Lens; athlete Amy Mullins; model and musician Aariana Rose Philip; model and Freedom Is Fly founder Antwan Tolliver; and model and swimsuit designer Sonia Vera. The section also includes a mannequin based on the image of the late drag performer Bunny Girl.
Photo: Anna-Marie Kellen/Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Meanwhile, the “Corpulent Body” section features looks based on models Jade O’Belle and Charlie Reynolds, artist and fashion designer Michaela Stark and singer-songwriter Yseult. Nine living inspirations of the mannequins were submitted to a 3D scanning process called photogrammetry in order to recreate their likenesses for “costume art”.
Photo: Anna-Marie Kellen/Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
