Vogue announced today the theme of next year's Costume Institute exhibit and the Met Gala that will kick it off. "Camp: Notes on Fashion" will explore the "love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration ... style at the expense of content," and has been conceptualized around Susan Sontag's 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp." Curator Andrew Bolton told the New York Times that the first half of the exhibit will trace the origin of camp back to Versailles through the Victorian era and the Stonewall riots, paying close attention to "the use of camp as a language in the queer community."
The second half of the Costume Institute exhibit will look at the influence of camp on the work of contemporary designers from Balenciaga to Prada. "Sontag in her essay said not everything is camp, but since I have been working on the show, I have started to think it is everywhere, and that all fashion is on some level camp," Bolton told the Times. "It has gained such currency it has become invisible, and part of my goal is to make it visible again."
Joining Anna Wintour as co-chairs for the annual Met Gala will be Alessandro Michele, Harry Styles, Serena Williams and...Lady Gaga, whose entire career has essentially been a meditation on the meeting of camp and high art. The gala will take place on Monday, May 6.
