Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s PUNK: Chaos to Couture at The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Left: Sid Vicious, 1977. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph © Dennis Morris - all rights reserved Right: Karl Lagerfeld (French, born Hamburg, 1938) for House of Chanel (French, founded 1913), 2011. Vogue, March 2011. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph by David Sims.
Every once in a while f-a-s-h-i-o-n takes itself way too seriously and fails to remember the heart + soul that is the inspiration for its being. There, I have said it. I wanted to love PUNK: Chaos to Couture at The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. But when you take the grit out of a movement and distance it from its authenticity, what's left are derivative pieces which, when standing alone, are lost in the vapor that is a hot flash of fashion. Sanitizing iconic punk style to what could be a Broadway musical version for the matinée fashion set. Are you for real? Where's the chaos? Where's the historical appeal? A "replica" of the CBGB bathroom attempts to set the mood.

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