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The intoxicating eighteenth-century world of rollicking adventurers and dissolute aristocrats, of watchful chaperones and predatory beaux, of innocence preserved—or defiled—that is so devilishly evoked in the works of Laclos and Thackeray is set to enliven the princely splendors of the Wrightsman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum this spring. Curated by Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton of the Costume Institute, the enticingly named "Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century" (April 29-August 8) offers an irresistible opportunity to see the period's extravagantly beautiful clothes inhabit these magnificent settings for the first time in centuries. Looking to the conventions of eighteenth-century art, the Vogue team of photographer Annie Leibovitz, creative director Grace Coddington, and a flock of today's most exciting designers has fast-forwarded the past with imaginative brilliance. In a take on Fragonard's still-startling Le Verrou ("The Bolt"), Gérard Depardieu is cast as the rapscallion, attempting to have his wicked way with Gisele, who faints in a froth of bridal ruffles by Lacroix. Later joined by Louis Garrel, from Bertolucci's The Dreamers, the couple are in a more languorous mood for a photograph that pays homage to Louis-Roland Trinquesse's The Music Party, a vignette the exhibition also alludes to. Meanwhile, Karen Elson and Daria join the legions who have fallen for the winning charm of Hugh Dancy, the dashing British heartthrob set to play Galahad to Keira Knightley's Guinevere in a new movie based on the legend of King Arthur. And in another shot, the celebrated contemporary French artist Fabrice Hybert defies eighteenth-century realism with a decidedly conceptual take on the Gaultier-garbed lovelies before him. The exhibition's final dramatic tableau represents "the culmination of all this activity," as Koda playfully puts it. Grouped here to evoke the composition of Louis-Léopold Boilly's The Game of Billiards, Vogue's powdered lovelies, like rose-cheeked Greuze milkmaids, dress to defy the tumbrels in Galliano's fantastical gowns—which prove that the spirit of Rose Bertin has survived Monsieur Guillotine. "French Twists" by Hamish Bowles has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the May 2004 issue of Vogue. Click here for the full article. Get more articles like this delivered to your door each month! Click here to subscribe today.
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