Freeze Frame

In America, this year’s annual fashion exhibition at the Met, found its way from the museum’s Costume Center into the American Wing. It was there that seven filmmakers, ranging from Martin Scorsese to Regina King to Chloe Zhao, staged “cinematic vignettes,” which thematized key fashion pieces (George Washington’s coat, an abolition quilt) in their respective period rooms. And while period rooms can feel dated or pastiche, the results illuminated some counterfactual potential beneath their static surfaces. Each scene honed a historic moment into a freeze-frame, evoking not just space, but networks of affiliated narratives, actions, and ephemera. The gesture also recalled the crass artifice of a film set: the obvious constructedness of the diorama became fashion’s backdrop, illuminating how historiography, display, and even falseness underlie museum displays at large.