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About Time: Fashion and Duration
Traces fashions from 1870 to the present along a conceptual, disruptive, and nontraditional timeline of fashion history
About Fashion and Duration traces the evolution of fashion, from 1870 to the present, through a linear timeline of iconic garments, each paired with an alternate design that jumps forward or backward in time. These unexpected pairings, which relate to one another through shape, motif, material, pattern, technique, or decoration, create a disruptive fashion chronology that conflates notions of past, present, and future.
Virginia Woolf serves as “ghost narrator,” and excerpts from her novels reflect on the passage of time with each subsequent pairing. A new short story by Michael Cunningham, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Hours , recounts a day in the life of a woman over a time span of 150 years through her changing fashions. Scholar Theodore Martin analyzes theoretical responses to the nature of time, underscoring that time is not simply a sequence of historical events. Fashion photographer Nicholas Alan Cope captures 120 fashions with sublime black-and-white photography. This stunning book reveals fashion’s paradoxical connection to linear notions of time.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Exhibition The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(October 29, 2020–February 7, 2021)
About Fashion and Duration traces the evolution of fashion, from 1870 to the present, through a linear timeline of iconic garments, each paired with an alternate design that jumps forward or backward in time. These unexpected pairings, which relate to one another through shape, motif, material, pattern, technique, or decoration, create a disruptive fashion chronology that conflates notions of past, present, and future.
Virginia Woolf serves as “ghost narrator,” and excerpts from her novels reflect on the passage of time with each subsequent pairing. A new short story by Michael Cunningham, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Hours , recounts a day in the life of a woman over a time span of 150 years through her changing fashions. Scholar Theodore Martin analyzes theoretical responses to the nature of time, underscoring that time is not simply a sequence of historical events. Fashion photographer Nicholas Alan Cope captures 120 fashions with sublime black-and-white photography. This stunning book reveals fashion’s paradoxical connection to linear notions of time.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Exhibition The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(October 29, 2020–February 7, 2021)
- GenresFashion
400 pages, Hardcover
Published June 9, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 1, 2020
Stunningly beautiful book of oversized full- page black and white photos that juxtapose details and compare images of iconic fashion to contemporary creations. Perfect in every way! Eat your Wheaties before attempting to heft this behemoth volume.
November 25, 2024
"That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun." -Ecclesiastes 1:9 NKJV
While I did not attend the original expo at which these iconic fashion pieces were displayed, I feel this book is the perfect companion that stands independently after looking through it.
It is almost enhanced even by displaying each piece in black and white, giving more attention to the fine details and silhouettes.
Looking retrospectively at old runway shows many get caught up in the nostalgia of it all, looking at fashion then and today. Speaking of how "forward-thinking" collections were telling how details from old collections show up in mainstream fashion today. Often missing the bigger picture of the even older source of inspiration that even those pieces drew from.
To have a collection of some of the greatest designers and fashion houses pieces displayed alongside the source they drew from when making select pieces all in one book makes it feel like a must-have/read for any lover of modern fashion.
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun." -Ecclesiastes 1:9 NKJV
While I did not attend the original expo at which these iconic fashion pieces were displayed, I feel this book is the perfect companion that stands independently after looking through it.
It is almost enhanced even by displaying each piece in black and white, giving more attention to the fine details and silhouettes.
Looking retrospectively at old runway shows many get caught up in the nostalgia of it all, looking at fashion then and today. Speaking of how "forward-thinking" collections were telling how details from old collections show up in mainstream fashion today. Often missing the bigger picture of the even older source of inspiration that even those pieces drew from.
To have a collection of some of the greatest designers and fashion houses pieces displayed alongside the source they drew from when making select pieces all in one book makes it feel like a must-have/read for any lover of modern fashion.
July 28, 2025
i love fashion references i love fashion history i love this book
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews