The First Monday in May
Directed by: Andrew Rossi
Documentary - 99 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 14 Apr 2016
Documentary - 99 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 14 Apr 2016
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas, New Year’s Day, and the first Monday in May. While the first Monday in May is no holiday for us common folk, it is for the fashion elite. That is day the Museum’s Costume Institute holds its lavish, who’s who charity ball. This year, Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, wants to keep it small and comfortable, but most of all exclusive, say 500 people. Director Andrew Rossi takes us through almost a year of planning following Wintour, Institute curator Andrew Bolton, and interviewing contemporary fashion icons concerning whether fashion is art, will this year’s Asian theme clash with the museum’s ‘serious’ art, and questions of paramount importance, who will sit next to whom?
In 2011, Rossi took us on a journey in Page One: Inside the New York Times as the venerable paper attempted to keep pace with new digital formats and declared the necessity of well-connected investigative journalism. Curiously, Rossi now turns his attention to party planning. Anna Wintour already enjoyed a full-fledged documentary with 2009’s The September Issue charting the beginning to end creation of a single issue of Vogue. Wintour remains close to front and center in The First Monday in May but she shares the spotlight with Andrew Bolton and a dozen other opinionated experts all with inputs into how it should all look.
In 2011, Rossi took us on a journey in Page One: Inside the New York Times as the venerable paper attempted to keep pace with new digital formats and declared the necessity of well-connected investigative journalism. Curiously, Rossi now turns his attention to party planning. Anna Wintour already enjoyed a full-fledged documentary with 2009’s The September Issue charting the beginning to end creation of a single issue of Vogue. Wintour remains close to front and center in The First Monday in May but she shares the spotlight with Andrew Bolton and a dozen other opinionated experts all with inputs into how it should all look.
Bolton defends fashion in the art world. In the 19th century, high art was painting, architecture, and sculpture; Bolton says in the 21st century, fashion absolutely has crashed the party and merits inclusion. We’re not sure of the museum’s Director of the Asian Art Department’s opinion, but we can guess he is not of the same mind as he chafes against ball gowns mingling with the Buddhas. Even Karl Lagerfeld, one of the half dozen major designers interviewed, says fashion is an applied art and never dreamed serious art curators would showcase his work on display.
This year’s theme is China: Through the Looking Glass. Multiple rooms in the museum will focus on Asia’s influence on western fashion and how the east inspires the west. There are older collections from John Galliano and Jean Paul Gaultier taken out of storage, some Yves Saint Laurent ushered out of the vault, and immense structures built such as 250,000 roses comprising a porcelain vase. The Asian Art Department Director is concerned the fashion will diminish the museum’s intellectual aura and Chinese critics guess the western fashion world may be mocking the east and labeling everything merely as Oriental.
Politics and international relations aside, the feeling emerges that this gala is not merely for charity or to show off a curator’s artistic vision, it is Anna Wintour’s vehicle to claim to host one of the world’s most exclusive shindigs. She seats herself between George Clooney and Bradley Cooper, pays Riahnna to headline and sing, and makes sure no actual celebrities are at the worst table in the back; it is only Chole Sevigny and Solange Knowles. For a charitable venture, propping up the Costume Institute’s annual operating budget, there is an obscene amount of red carpet, paparazzi, and Justin Bieber. Rossi unmasks the film’s message and the party’s real rasion d’etre toward the end when Rihanna struts down her performance runway belting out, “Bitch Better Have My Money.”
I am not a fashion follower but Rossi effectively held my interest. The music, full of synthesizer and bass, carried me along and the non-stop celebrity cavalcade always makes you wonder who will pop up next. Direct Wong Kar-Wai gets screen time as the party’s artistic director, Baz Luhrmann hangs around, and John Galliano alludes to his societal banishment while everyone else diplomatically skirts the issue. There is one noticeably superb transition edit when Bolton is discussing Asian film’s influence on fashion where a character from a 1930s movie says, “She’ll devour you like a cat swallows a mouse” and the video immediately cuts to Wintour. Brilliant.
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