104. The Met Gala

 “Luxury is a point of view. It is not what you pay, but what you make of yourself. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere. It's the life you're living in, the dress and the sort of life you had lived before and what you will do in it later.”
-Diana Vreeland 

Transcript

 “Luxury is a point of view. It is not what you pay, but what you make of yourself. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere. It's the life you're living in, the dress and the sort of life you had lived before and what you will do in it later.” This quote from Diana Vreeland starts us off today's podcast all about how you can take inspiration from a possibly unlikely source the Met Gala. 

Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. I'm Doctor Amy Backhouse and I am your hostess on this audio creativity journey. If you have yet to sign up for this month's workshop called Bridging and Bonding. All about communication. What are you waiting for? This is a class that is essential in this time and meeting the demands of the now. We all have to focus on our ability to communicate with others and be able to self-regulate and manage ourselves. When other people are communicating in ways that are disrespectful or rude or aggressive. You can find the link in the show notes, and I would love to see you on the inside at The Modern Creative Woman. We're talking all about aesthetics today. Let's get into this. Let's get this started. What are your thoughts about style and the ever changing, always evolving fashion? Creativity is an essential component of our day to day life, and what we put on our body is part of that creative expression. I want to dive into the Met Gala because, as you probably know, it's a fundraiser for the arts and we are at significant risk of losing funding for the arts. It's always the first thing to go in school. Budget cuts and the arts are on the chopping block in the United States. This year's Met Gala raised $31 million, and this is a record for them. I read some wonderful comments on social media that have compared this year's Met Gala to the capital in the book and movie, The Hunger Games. What's happening in that book is the extremely wealthy people gather and celebrate and live in luxury, while most of the rest of the country lives in extreme poverty. And I have to admit, it might look completely ridiculous to be engaging in such opulent behavior. However, this is about art and the benefit of viewing art, experiencing art, participating in art through fashion. And it's about funding the arts. Now. This gala was established in 1948 and the Costume Institute resides at the met. However, the Costume Institute is responsible for raising its own funds. It lives off charity donations and originally it was mostly just high society people offering funding, you know, for a nice party. And then Diana Vreeland came to be a consultant for the Costume Institute in the 1970s. And the gala began to evolve into, of course, this global, glamorous affair. And it started to attract celebrities at the time because it was focused on the idea of experiencing fashion as a living, breathing entity, honoring fashion by showing up as a participant in the art. So the celebrities who showed up quite well dressed took, understandably, a lot of delight in participating in the art process, and they showed up working with designers who were able to showcase a very unique gowns and suits to an increasingly broader audience. And this kind of luxury couture evolved over time. And designers are invited to the gala, and they're invited to bring someone dressed in their particular design. That's just for that event. It really is designed as a celebration of the arts and the invitation to participate in the arts. Anna Wintour took over as the chairperson in 1995. And she began to expand it so that there was a more public focus on it. It was no longer just the New York set or the celebrity set. She really began including designers in a meaningful way, and made it available for many people to see how we might participate in fashion. It's also this sort of unique rule, which I love, I hate and I love. There's no phones, no cameras inside the event, and the idea is that people feel free to express themselves through costume, and then they're free to sit down and enjoy themselves. That it initially is a press experience, followed by they get to enjoy a meal and have a look at the fashion exhibit. As I mentioned, three $1 million, $31 million is a lot of money. And the idea that the particular branch of the met needs this. Might make you wonder why. And I want. That's what I want to talk about with the historic and cultural significance of the Costume Institute. And it's really designed as a place to document fashion history. And it really is a testament to culture, not just fashion history. It supports scholarship and allows a space for students to study fashion history, textile history. And it is a space that we're all allowed in. The idea of engaging with art and culture through fashion is available to all of us. I looked up a little bit about the met, and their collection stretches back to the 15th century into the present, and it includes, you know, of course, the clothing, accessories and an understanding that they're able to offer us about the social, cultural and artistic trends of the time. As a woman who appreciates the arts, you might like to know that the Institute supports ongoing research into not only fashion history, but textile conservation and design theory. And the holdings there are really a specialized library as living archive of culture. And it's not just fashion history that's being preserved, it's art history, sociology and anthropology, all of which are deeply relevant to everybody. We all participate in fashion. We choose what we put on our body. There is an idea, I think some of the women that I've worked with have is that if they can't participate in the Fashion Olympics, then why bother? It's simply not true. The idea that what you put on your body is for your own pleasure, how it feels. This relates directly to psychology. If I'm working with someone who's experiencing anxiety, one of my early interventions, besides figuring out if they're sleeping enough, how much caffeine they're consuming, what they're doing to manage stress is how are their clothes fitting? Do you have a guess why? Why would I ask that question? Well, the research shows that when our clothes are too tight, our shoes are too tight. We experience an increase in anxiety and agitation. You've no doubt experienced this. If you've gone to a wonderful dinner with your family and you wore the wrong pants and it starts to feel uncomfortable. Now putting on clothes that are ill fitting day after day gives you incredible dis ease. It feels bad. And many women I know say they don't want to buy new clothes until they lose weight, and that's incredibly disrespectful to the self. Your clothes need to fit your body that you're in so that you love your body, and you can then treat her in the way that will give you the results you want. So look down at your pants. If anything's too tight on your clothes. It's time to get rid of that. You can put it in the back of the closet if you want. Maybe get something fresh. It really matters that you are in clothes for your own well-being. Do you see how the psychology that we talk about directly relates to this art of the mat? There's also a piece with the Costume Institute that relates to engagement and education with the public. They offer exhibitions, lectures, educational programs, of course, the books that come out of this, and they offer a deeper understanding into, of course, fashion as an art and as a craft and the cultural significance of it. Did your mother, grandmother, great grandmother, great great grandmother, so init? Probably somebody in that list did. Maybe all of them. All of my list did. My mom all the way back learned to sew. I learned to sew when I was little as well, and I learned to knit. And the idea that this kind of attention to what we wear with care and love, it's practical. Sewing quilts out of old clothes that no longer fit. It's practical. It's environmentally friendly, and it connects us generationally to a skill that our foremothers used. Again, the pragmatic piece, but also the aesthetics, the beauty. If you've ever seen someone with a quilt that they made out of old clothes, it's precious. It's a treasure. When people do that with their child's old baby clothes, it becomes so beloved. The idea of transforming, creating something that is usable and aesthetically pleasing, it really matters. I've mentioned before Ellen Dissanayake. She's a cultural anthropologist who writes a lot about art and how it helps us advance as a society. She writes about the idea of making special that every day doesn't have to be the same, that we can make days special through art. Costume and dress. Costume doesn't have to be like, we're just going to a fancy. Dress up occasion. I mean, costume as in. I'm going to work. What's my work outfit? I'm going to luxuriate on the sofa. What's the appropriate outfit for that? The idea that we choose to make the event special using art is really, really important for how we as individuals and as a culture evolve. Now, the preservation of costume is all based on science. The students who go into textile preservation and costume preservation know so much about chemistry. It's a huge list of prerequisites before people can go to fashion school for conservation. The prerequisites are all about chemistry and understanding the impact of environment on the fibers. Again, think of psychology. The environment has a huge impact on us, and the idea that we can create a safe environment in the museum for ourselves. It's extremely important. If you watch the Met Gala yesterday, you already know that the theme was super fine, and they invited the guests to wear something that was tailored for you. And super fine comes from the idea of black style and tailoring. And if you're unfamiliar with a black dandy, I really encourage you to have a look at how men's fashion in the black community has been a source of joy and light and self-respect. It's a really wonderful idea of using fashion to elevate the whole community. This part delighted me to know, and the guest curator, Monica L Miller, wrote her dissertation about the black dandy in fashion and later published it as a book. And the book is called Slaves to Fashion Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. So just think of this. This topic was her dissertation, and she created it in a way that spoke to so many people. And it led her to this show at the Met Gala. And I want to read you a quote from Miller. Fashion and dress have been used in a contest of power and aesthetics for black people from the time of enslavement to the present. And Dandyism has long served as a vehicle through which one can manipulate the relationship between clothing, identity, and power. She goes on to say, the History of Black Dandyism illustrates how black people have transformed from being enslaved and stylized as luxury items acquired like any other signifier of wealth and status to autonomous self fashioning individuals who are global trendsetters. That observation really struck me from being a person who was a symbol of luxury. The owning another person was a symbol of luxury to becoming their own autonomous self, fashioning individuals. It's so powerful to think of it that way. If you have a look into Dandyism, it was originally this aristocratic style, but it evolved with the Atlantic slave trade. And Miller writes all about this in her book that the Dane defied black servants. In the 18th century, England were forced to wear gold and brass and silver collars and padlocks to signify their owners wealth. Now the slaves that arrived in America had few belongings, and Miller writes that they were stripped of their identities and their possessions. And so the idea of adding their own flair to their Sunday best became increasingly important. And then, post emancipation, black Americans had a new chance to reclaim autonomy. And then she writes a lot about the Harlem Renaissance. And from the 1920s to the 1930s, that neighborhood became a wonderful hub for black cultural expression. And the Renaissance was a time of living and dressing boldly. And Black Americans during this Harlem Renaissance were incredibly stylish. Women were wearing fur and beaded dresses. Men were experimenting with traditional tailored fabrics, but also billowing fabrics, fedora hats, the two tone Oxford shoes. And of course, we're all familiar with the idea of the zoot suit that high waisted drapey pant with the oversized jacket. When fashion uses more fabric, it is often a subversive action. It's about taking up space. There were many fabric rations during World War Two, and you know this in women's fashion from Dior's New Look, right? So taking up space with the fabric and the costume is an expression of being able to take up space in life. I grew up in Cleveland, so I have some familiarity with black men's fashion, and I've always loved it. And I started to develop a real curiosity and came across Dapper Dan, who's been a fixture in New York as the black man who creates black fashion in this incredible way. So if you don't know who Dapper Dan is, I want you to look him up. It's really an amazing story. But let's get back to the psychology of why this really matters. I've always appreciated and loved fabric and fashion, and I remember as a kid falling in love with particular materials, either in my mom sewing basket in my drawer. I had an amazing bikini when I was probably five years old that had strawberries on it and little green background, and it is the first time I really loved having an object and wearing an object. And from there I started convincing my mother to make me outfits and she would, with my input, design them, make them, and I was hooked. I've always wondered how fashion might fit into art therapy, and I think it's a natural fit. The idea of self-expression is extremely important, and whatever makes us feel good matters. We certainly know from the research that dressing for the task can help us perform better at our tasks. Let's talk about the personal experience of it. The idea of looking at myth and archetypes. And when you think about the Met Gala, it's really serving as a public stage for archetypes. It's about storytelling. It's about identity expression. In the past, the gala has focused on particular designers Rei Kawakubo, Karl Lagerfeld. It's also focused on themes such as Sleeping Beauty. The idea of using fashion to tell a story is nothing new. If you look at your favorite movie or TV show, those clothes are chosen very carefully to convey some quality of the character. It's the same if you go to the theater. The opera people are dressing to tell you something about the story. There's also the idea of taking creative risks, and I want to definitely talk about that in terms of your own life. Creative risks are available to you all the time and every day. And clothing is such an easy way to take a creative risk. Are you convinced yet that the Met Gala and the Costume Institute really do have something to do with you yet? We all express ourselves by dressing the part. I mentioned earlier what you might wear to work versus what you might wear if you're luxuriating on the sofa with the book Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell all wrote about myth and identity. Clarissa Estes also writes about women and archetypes, and the idea of experiencing you as part of your storytelling through costume. If you think that you're not dressing the part, you are it. It might feel unconscious or unintentional. That's okay, but you can very quickly change your mood by changing your clothes. A new suit, a new dress gives you a chance to be someone else. We tend to stand taller when we're dressed in a way that makes us feel good. So what about the neuro aesthetics of this? Remember, neuro aesthetics is how the brain responds to beauty and color. Texture. Novelty. Beauty is often a word not included by architects when they're describing buildings, because they find it to be so subjective. However, neuro aesthetics has discovered that the brain responds to something that we find beautiful. There is a quality of feeling good in a space. There is a sense of your brain feels good when you're dressed in a way that you are proud of and feel good in. Remember not too tight and something that feels authentic. There is incredible emotional and cognitive impact when we see something beautiful, when we wear something beautiful that feels authentic. On our Paris retreat last year, we had a visit with an incredible designer, Paloma Castillo, and she invited all of us into our studio. She talked about her business, and then she had women try on some of her designs. And the first woman out of the dressing room was in tears. And not just like tearful was in tears because something was selected carefully for her that would suit her. And she saw herself as beautiful as the designer had imagined it could be. So there's something about being able to see yourself through someone else's eyes that's very powerful. Being willing to have that experience where someone else can. Select something beautiful for you and help you see yourself in that way. It was so incredible. We're going again this summer to the same designer, and I cannot wait to get into her atelier and see what comes next. Many women have lots of cognitive experiences of negativity, of judging ourselves, judging our bodies, judging how things look on us. But the neuro aesthetics gives you an opportunity to perhaps learn about which clothes flatter your body, which colours flatter your body, and then trying again, not trying to fit into ill fitting clothes or colours that are not right for your skin tone. The neuro aesthetics is about finding a way to tap into beauty in your life. Aesthetic pleasure really does activate the reward centre in your brain. There's no other like simple way to describe it. It feels good when you see beautiful things. Now I want to shift from kind of the history of the Met Gala and from the psychology of why we need beauty and fashion, beauty and style. Fashion changes. Your style is you. You can translate all of this into your everyday creativity. I really want to encourage you to have a look at some of the costumes at the Met Gala, but go a little deeper. Look up why that designer created that shape, that style, that fabric, and understand the history behind it. And it's a completely different experience. You can then look at the design with the knowledge in your mind, the historical references, and you become a greater appreciator of that outfit. So just pick one outfit as you're scrolling through and do the research behind it. There was a gown inspired by Josephine Baker. There were gowns inspired by Andre Leon Talley. He always wore a long cape. And so there are men in these incredible capes. Add in the history and the culture to the aesthetic. We'll also give you kind of a well-rounded experience. It's a wonderful exercise for learning to look and learning to see the difference. Being looking is just using your occipital lobe real quick. Seeing is about integrating what you're looking at into what you already know, or learning some more things about it, and allowing yourself to appreciate what it is in front of you. A designer gown is unnecessary for you to feel good about your own fashion. If you have yet to explore your fashion and you tend to buy the same things in the same color. You have a a color palette that you stick with that's beige and gray or black. You might want to think about where you see color that you find beautiful. So you can you don't have to change your wardrobe. You can find a favorite color and integrate it in simpler ways. A scarf issue about allowing you to infuse some meaning into your outfit. If you find hot pink to be your power color, then have a look in your wardrobe and see like where do I have hot pink? Maybe I can add a scarf. Maybe I can add earrings. When we reify an object, we infuse it with meaning. It gives us a whole bunch of cognitive strategies throughout the day. If you catch yourself looking at your hot pink shoes, you're going to be reminded constantly that that's your power color. This is a immediate change in what's happening in your brain. You're thinking new thoughts because you're wearing the color that has meaning infused by you into it. If you think about where you are in your life, what color, what texture, and what archetype is speaking to you right now, and if you want to embody strength, You might choose one color if you want to embody romance. I pick another color. So if you are going to your own ball, your own special experience, as Dissanayake says, your own making, special moment. How would you dress? How do you want to show up for that? What theme would represent this season of your life? And I can almost hear half the audience saying, I don't want to wear a costume that doesn't feel authentic. Let me reassure you. It takes a little practice, and creative identity is not about a costume. It is about stretching yourself to express yourself more and more authentically. It's letting go of the way that you imagine people might be judging you, and stop thinking about that stuff. You don't want judgment and start thinking about what you do want, which is to feel good to wear clothes that fit your body. That you like the texture of. And again, it does not have to be some expensive gown. This is about small changes that allow you to feel really good. Consciously choosing something, not picking it up off the floor from yesterday is sometimes the first step. But if you're beyond that step and you do choose your outfits, I want to invite you to consider how color impacts that and how your own creative expression allows you more freedom and more movement. Experimenting stretching directly impacts your creative expression. Have a wonderful rest of your week! Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level, I want you to know you have options inside the membership. And if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Backus. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month. All those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at. Com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.