How do themes for your shows come about?

I feel strongly that there always needs to be personal interest, because you’re always going to do something better when you’re personally interested in the subject. About five years ago I was working on a Gautier show and Cardin’s name came up. I knew the Cardin name from his licenses like soap and perfumes but not from couture. I went down to Atlanta to see a small show on his work last November and I sent a bravura description and our director wrote back in all caps, YES. I was 6-7 months into planning the Studio 54 show and I joke that I took a little detour to Paris.

How does it all come together?

I made an appointment with Pierre and the moment I walked in he showed me the new drawings he had just done that morning – and remember he’s 97 years old. We spoke for a long time and then I spent a week going through his archives. It’s a privilege to go through the archives and see exactly what the designer himself had kept, and he kept a lot of his best things. I proposed to open the exhibition on the 50th anniversary of the moonwalk, which was a very special date to him. Cardin was in Houston right after and he got to try on the space suit. During the ‘60s he designed the Cosmo Core line, which really affected him. Because he hadn’t had a store in NY for 20 years, I think there’s a whole generation who doesn’t know his work. And those that did hadn’t seen him in a long time, so this show was a way to announce himself to the younger generation.

As a curator you have to be able to step back and fill in the gaps, because then you can tell a much bigger story. For Cardin, I borrowed Jackie’s late 50s dress that she wore for her first international visit and for a TV show where she gave a tour of Georgetown. She had bought the suit in Boston in 1957, it was from a licensed collection. Back then Cardin said “we were happy to sell a suit” and no one was focused on their archives.  Andy Warhol in 1980 went to the Met to see a Cardin show and said it went on and on forever and how much he admired it. I felt it was important to include Cardin’s orange red wool car wash dress which is an iconic dress that he had in his archive in black, but I wanted the color.

The mannequins are such a prominent part of this show. How do you make your choices?

I think the amazing thing about working with Ralph Pucci is that we were able to explore new territory for mannequins. All the mannequins for Cardin were new and were created for the show—the proportions, the finish—we worked with the Olympia model primarily and I think it’s really been noticed. They were tall mannequins about 6’2”. Because Cardin often worked on models, who were very tall, none of the garments required tailoring, they were the perfect length. The mannequins were just perfect for his couture clothes. Until you put the garment on the mannequin, you wonder how it will hang and if it will need a tuck or pinching but overall the clothes just fit the mannequins.

Unlike Cardin where the clothes are primarily couture and were fitted on fitting models, Studio 54 has a variety of forms and people of all different shapes, think gowns by Halston for Elizabeth Taylor who was 5’2”. So we will draw from 6 different PUCCI mannequin lines. I think that will add a lot of animation to the show. Studio 54 was a very specific period, April 1977 – February 1980, only 33 months and it’s just such a beacon in our culture. NYC at its most glamorous, even when the city was a bit depressed. The city was promoting I LOVE NY and people thought it was really the place to be. Studio 54 was about “watching” – people were dancing on the stage and the balcony was there. And it was about being a star but also voyeurism, so there will be a variety of poses, too. What was unique is that Studio 54 was a theater that was turned into a nightclub and the stage became the dance floor and everyone became a star.