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Conversations’ at Met</h1> <div class="articleSpanImage"><span itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope itemid="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN-articleLarge.jpg" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject"> <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN-articleLarge.jpg" width="600" height="380" alt="" border="0" itemprop="url" itemid="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN-articleLarge.jpg"> <meta itemprop="identifier" content="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN/11SCHIAPARELLI_SPAN-articleLarge.jpg"/> <meta itemprop="height" content="600"/> <meta itemprop="width" content="380"/> <div itemprop="copyrightHolder" class="credit">Ruth Fremson/The New York Times</div> <p itemprop="description" class="caption"><strong>Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations </strong> A video of Miuccia Prada plays behind outfits she and Elsa Schiaparelli designed at this Costume Institute exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. </p> </span> </div>  <nyt_byline> <span itemprop="creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><h6 itemprop="name" class="byline">By <a rel="author" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/holland_cotter/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Holland Cotter" class="meta-per">HOLLAND COTTER</a></h6></span> </nyt_byline> <h6 class="dateline">Published: May 10, 2012 </h6> <div class="shareTools shareToolsThemeClassic articleShareToolsTop" data-shares="facebook,twitter,google,email,showall|Share,print,singlepage,reprints,ad" data-title="Speaking of Fashion" data-url="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353oe_/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/arts/design/schiaparelli-and-prada-impossible-conversations-at-met.html" data-description="“Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art imagines what two designers of different generations might talk about, were they to talk about clothes."></div> <meta name="emailThisHash" content="ENDf9LxL46bJPRH7IL/NGw"> <div class="articleBody"> <div itemprop="sourceOrganization" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization" itemid="http://www.nytimes.com"> <meta itemprop="name" content="The New York Times Company"/> <meta itemprop="url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytco.com/"/> </div> <nyt_text> <nyt_correction_top> </nyt_correction_top> <p itemprop="articleBody"> The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_museum_of_art/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the Metropolitan Museum of Art." class="meta-org">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a> won’t have to stay open till midnight to accommodate crowds for “<a title="The show’s Web page" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.metmuseum.org/impossibleconversations">Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations</a>,” this year’s Costume Institute extravaganza, mainly because the show isn’t all that extravagant, certainly not on the order of the Alexander McQueen exhibition last year. </p> </div> <div class="articleInline runaroundLeft">  <div class="doubleRule"> <div class="story">  <div style="padding-bottom:5px;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs_v3/artsbeat/artsbeat-promo-190.gif" width="190" height="24" border="0" alt="ArtsBeat"/></a></div> <p class="summary"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/">Breaking news</a> about the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia and more.</p> <ul class="refer"> <li> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/">Go to Arts Beat »</a></li></ul> </div> <div class="doubleRuleDivider"></div> <div class="story"> <div style="padding-bottom:5px;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/events/index.html"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/arts/events/events190.png" width="190" height="41" border="0" alt="Arts & Entertainment Guide"/></a></div> <p class="summary"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/events/index.html">A sortable calendar</a> of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics. </p> <ul class="refer"><li> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/events/index.html">Go to Event Listings »</a> </li></ul> </div></div> <div class="inlineImage module"> <div class="image"> <div class="icon enlargeThis"><a href="javascript:pop_me_up2('https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI3.html','11SCHIAPARELLI3_html','width=720,height=563,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')">Enlarge This Image</a></div> <a href="javascript:pop_me_up2('https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI3.html','11SCHIAPARELLI3_html','width=720,height=563,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')"> <span itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope itemid="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI3/11SCHIAPARELLI3-articleInline.jpg" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject"> <img itemprop="url" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI3/11SCHIAPARELLI3-articleInline.jpg" width="190" height="127" alt=""> <meta itemprop="identifier" content="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/05/11/arts/11SCHIAPARELLI3/11SCHIAPARELLI3-articleInline.jpg"/> <meta itemprop="height" content="190"/> <meta itemprop="width" content="127"/> <meta itemprop="copyrightHolder" content="Ruth Fremson/The New York Times"/> </span> </a> </div> <h6 class="credit">Ruth Fremson/The New York Times</h6> <p class="caption">A “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations” segment called “Waist Up/Waist Down” pairs skirts by Miuccia Prada with jackets by Elsa Schiaparelli. </p> </div> </div> <div class="articleBody"> <p itemprop="articleBody"> It’s on the small side. It has a tight thesis, comparing and contrasting work by two designers of different generations. And it carries that idea through with the careful, even wonkish earnestness of an end-of-year term paper. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> Still, that it takes its task seriously is refreshing; you don’t always find this in fashion exhibition. And, with the designers under appraisal being Elsa Schiaparelli and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/miuccia_prada/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Miuccia Prada." class="meta-per">Miuccia Prada</a>, the chosen subject is far from a dry one. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> In the fashion field, as opposed to the field of fine art, women have always been, are even expected to be, alpha figures; protean creators, consequential personalities, imperious commanders of craftsmanly troops. These two designers certainly fill the bill. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> Both were born in Italy, Schiaparelli (pronounced SKYAP-a-relli) in Rome in 1890, Ms. Prada in Milan in 1949. Both were from old, conservative families, and both went rogue early on. As a young woman Schiaparelli shocked her parents by writing sexy poems and taking a nanny job in London. Ms. Prada, a child of the 1960s, mounted the leftist political barriers with her peers. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> Both came to fashion almost by accident, and late. Living in Paris and finding no clothes that suited her theatrical tastes, Schiaparelli started making her own and expanded production from there. Ms. Prada, after inheriting a family luggage business, began to design bags, then shoes, then everything else. That everything wasn’t heavy on hats, which were Schiaparelli’s great, mad strength. But between them the two women provide plenty of raw connective material on which a two-way conversation might be based. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> The curators, Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton of the Costume Institute, took the idea of a creating a fictional interchange — Schiaparelli died in 1973 — from 1930s issues of Vanity Fair, which ran a series of “<a title="The illustration from one "Impossible Interview" " href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://vanityfair.tumblr.com/post/11358187245/met-ball-impossible-interviews-hat-tip">Impossible Interviews</a>” between celebrities of the day. In one Schiaparelli blithely argued fashion with a truculent Stalin and, it is worth saying, won the debate. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> At the Met we get spoken conversations. They are the work of the filmmaker Baz Luhrmann. To make them he taped interviews with Ms. Prada and, separately, with an actress —Judy Davis — playing Schiaparelli. He then joined the films so that we see the two women talking to each other across a long table, first at the beginning of the show, and several times throughout. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> In most shows such elements would fall under the bells-and-whistles category. But they attract a lot of attention here — they’re projected large; the voices follow us everywhere — and they’re not the only added-value features. Keep a close eye on the subtly animated photographs — of the Duchess of Windsor, and of Schiaparelli herself — in the final gallery. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> How do the clothes come across in this multimedia environment? Tamely, on the whole. In line with the show’s overall sense of scholarly order, the material has been divided into thematic sections, defined largely by what the two designers have to say, on film or in printed labels in the gallery, about their own work. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> Schiaparelli mentions that in her day, society women were often encountered seated at tables in cafes or restaurants, and that as a designer she was most interested in what was most visible in such situations: the body from the waist up. Ms. Prada, who had experienced hippie back-to-the-earthness along with the sexual revolution, was more focused on the lower limbs. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> By way of illustration the show gives us a selection — dense and vivacious — of Schiaparelli jackets and hats and Prada skirts and shoes. But despite the “waist up, waist down” theme none of these forms come elevated or lowly, which is nice. Schiaparelli gives us a hat in the form of a shoe; Ms. Prada makes sneakers that look like Cadillacs. </p><p itemprop="articleBody"> Next come some visual mini-essays on what might be called the dramaturgy of style; how clothes can project different, quickly readable scripts. Dresses by both designers brought together under the label “hard chic” are dark and sleek and adult, appropriate for a fancy meal, a funeral or the Pentagon war-room maybe; they’re definitely adult. Those in the section called “naïf chic” are just the opposite: whimsical baby-doll things made from fabrics printed with circus animals and tropical fruits. Some of these outfits could, to my eye, just as easily qualify for the next category, “ugly chic.” </p><div id="pageLinks"><ul id="pageNumbers"><li> 1 </li><li> <a onclick="s_code_linktrack('Article-MultiPagePageNum2');" title="Page 2" href="/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/arts/design/schiaparelli-and-prada-impossible-conversations-at-met.html?pagewanted=2">2</a> </li></ul><a class="next" onclick="s_code_linktrack('Article-MultiPage-Next');" title="Next Page" href="/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/arts/design/schiaparelli-and-prada-impossible-conversations-at-met.html?pagewanted=2">Next Page »</a></div><nyt_author_id> <div class="authorIdentification"> <p>“Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations” continues through Aug. 19 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; (212) 535-7710, metmuseum.org.</p> </div> </nyt_author_id><nyt_correction_bottom> <div class="articleCorrection"> </div> </nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom> </nyt_update_bottom> </nyt_text> </div> </div>  <div class="columnGroup "> <div class="articleFooter"> <div class="articleMeta"> <div class="opposingFloatControl wrap"> <div class="element1"> <h6 class="metaFootnote">A version of this review appeared in print on May 11, 2012, on page <span itemprop="printSection">C</span><span itemprop="printPage">23</span> of the <span itemprop="printEdition">New York edition</span> with the headline: Speaking of Fashion.</h6> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>  <div class="columnGroup "> <div class="shareTools shareToolsThemeClassic shareToolsThemeClassicHorizontal articleShareToolsBottom" data-shares="facebook,twitter,google,email,showall|Share" data-title="Speaking of Fashion" data-url="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353oe_/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/arts/design/schiaparelli-and-prada-impossible-conversations-at-met.html" data-description="“Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art imagines what two designers of different generations might talk about, were they to talk about clothes."></div> <meta name="emailThisHash" content="ENDf9LxL46bJPRH7IL/NGw"> </div>  <div class="columnGroup "> <div class="singleAd" id="Bottom1"> <table width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=global.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/arts&pos=Bottom1&sn2=b0929faa/ab379ca1&sn1=bf8e7366/71c21872&camp=nyt2012-circ-footer_clickhere-36H9U&ad=051110-footer_clickhere-36H9U&goto=https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enytimesathome%2Ecom%2Fhd%2F101%3FSPTR%5FID%3DhdNYT%26MediaCode%3DW16AK%26CMP%3D36H9U"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/ads/circulation/icon-newspaper.jpg" height="27" width="40" alt="Get Home Delivery" align="middle" border="0"/><font size="-1" class="nav" color="#000066" align="left"> Get 50% Off The New York Times & Free All Digital Access.</font></a> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </div>  <div class="columnGroup "> </div>  <div class="columnGroup "> <div class="singleRuleDivider"></div> <div class="articleBottomExtra"> <div class="column lastColumn"> <div class="emailAlertModule module"> <h5 class="sectionHeaderSm">Get Free E-mail Alerts on These Topics</h5> <form action="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/https://myaccount.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html" method="GET" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"> <input type="hidden" name="retA" value="http://www.nytimes.com//2012/05/11/arts/design/schiaparelli-and-prada-impossible-conversations-at-met.html"> <input type="hidden" name="retT" value="Speaking of Fashion"> <input type="hidden" name="module" value="call"> <input type="hidden" name="alert_context" value="1"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td class="column"> <input type="hidden" name="topic1" value="Fashion+and+Apparel"> <input type="hidden" name="topic_field1" value="des"> <a class="inTextReferEmail" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115353/https://myaccount.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?module=call&alert_context=1&topic1=Fashion+and+Apparel&topic_field1=des&topic1_check=y&retA=&retT=&cskey=" onclick="javascript:s_code_linktrack('Article-RelatedTopics'); 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