The long-reigning fairy godmother of New York nightlife gets an (overdue!) tribute to her “30 years of sartorial self-expression and its influence on the global fashion scene.” The exhibition at the museum at FIT, curated by Valerie Steele and Susanne Bartsch, will be accompanied by a book by Steele and Melissa Marra. A two-day symposium will feature a range of designers, performers, and scholars speaking on fashion, creativity, nightlife, and performance art. It runs September 18 – December 5, 2015.
And the party Friday night is the first ABSOLUTELY-MUST-ATTEND ta-doo of the season, don’t you know. Everybody who is ANYBODY in the downtown/fashion/art/will be there. Are YOU going?
From FIT:
Susanne Bartsch has been the queen of New York City nightlife since the 1980s when she became renowned for creating spectacular parties where she and a diverse mix of individuals—uptown, downtown, gay, straight, multiracial—dressed up in their own versions of high fashion, street style, drag, and Mardi Gras extravaganza. Her first party took place in 1986 at a club near the Chelsea Hotel, where she has lived for many years. Bartsch says;
“It was about seeing and being seen.”
Bartsch and her friends have long constituted a fashion underground of creative individuals who take dressing up to the level of performance art.
“Style is about expressing yourself. You can be whatever you want to be—a silver-screen star, a Marie Antoinette baroque creature, a Victorian punk. I love that about fashion and makeup.”
A muse for fashion designers and makeup artists, Bartsch has also been a catalyst for the cross-fertilization of ideas between creative people in a range of fields. Today, she is increasingly creating events that explicitly link fashion and art.
Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch opens with a small introductory gallery of images and videos about Bartsch and her world. In the main exhibition gallery, the first section focuses on the 1980s English fashions that Bartsch introduced to New York displayed in a mise-en-scène evoking her surreally styled boutiques. The second and largest section features a variety of the creations that Bartsch and her friends have worn at her famous club nights at Savage, Copacabana, and Le Bains, with a special section devoted to the AIDS balls. The final section evokes her apartment at the Chelsea Hotel, the center of her creative world. Videos and projected photographs throughout the exhibition document Bartsch’s 30 years of sartorial self-expression and its influence on the global fashion scene.
Designs by Rachel Auburn, The Blonds, Leigh Bowery, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Pam Hogg, Stephen Jones, Alexander McQueen, Thierry Mugler, Rick Owens, Vivienne Westwood, and Zaldy contribute to the approximately 80 looks from the underground fashion impresario’s personal collection of clothing and accessories that will be included in Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch.
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