adminHistorical Jewish costumes contain many of the dresses in CJM’s “invisible meaning”
The current exhibition of contemporary Jewish museums, Veiled Meanings, is a striking argument that historical Jewish costumes are the world’s dress.
This roving exhibition is from the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The curator Heidi Rabben has a new vitality. He organizes textile design and clothing according to the geographical area and loosely tracks the route of the Silk Road. The photo of the person wearing the similar clothes, as well as the stop motion animation of the stylist’s slim model in the more complicated warp and veil, added a fresh vitality to the exhibition.
People expect this dress to be beautiful, but a wide variety of clothing – a lot of 19th century Tunis trousers, Indian wedding sari, ikat dyed Uzbek coat – surprised me. These visual and tactile manifestations of Jewish diaspora tell the story of how people travel through time and space, the regional style adopted and maintained, and the clothes that are passed down as a life record.
Please note: If you leave the museum and have a strong interest in your own loose pants, I should not be blamed.
On January 6, 2019, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco exhibited “Shadowing Meaning: Fashion Jewish Costumes, Collections from the Israel Museum of Jerusalem.” Click here for details.
