It's a groovy blast from the past at the Museum of Arts and Design: A new exhibit, Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture, just opened, showcasing DIY fashion from the 1960s and 1970s. Curator Michael Cepress said, "Sometimes we just look at what people make and stop there. But to realized there's a bright soul behind each and every one of these pieces...it makes it real in a time when we need it more than ever. Life is a precious, beautiful thing and we can combat the hard times with fun. We need a lot of color."
Press notes explain, "Often referred to as the hippie movement, the Counterculture swept away the conformism of the previous decade and professed an alternative lifestyle whose effects still resonate today. Moved by the rejection of a materialist and consumerist interpretation of the American Dream, Counterculture youths embraced ideals of self-sufficiency and self-expression."
"The show is absolutely about art, it’s absolutely about design, but it’s about how those things tell the bigger story of an entire cultural movement," Cepress explained, according to WWD. "This period is so cool, because I think it closes the gap between ordinary people and fashion and style, which sometimes seems like this far-off distant thing. Even if they were [fashion designers], they were ordinary people who were living their lives, and this was about creating an entire lifestyle that happened to be about clothes in a big way, but that was about the full experience of your politics, your spirituality, your sexuality, everything about you, kind of coming together around dress."
Counter Culture at the Museum of Arts and Design (2 Columbus Circle) runs through August 20, 2017.
