If you're looking for a master class in FABULOUSNESS, get your ass to MAD which IMHO should have retained its original name, the Museum of Contemporary Crafts.
A super-colorful exhibit celebrates the work of costumer Machine Dazzle (born Matthew Flower) who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page!
Why aren't queens and kids rushing to Columbus Circle for this can't-miss spectacle? I had the two dark galleries nearly to myself on a jaw-dropping Friday afternoon.
Dazzle designed many of the costumes on the fourth floor for "Special Occasions."
This head dress could have lured me back to drag on Thanksgiving!
Leslie Chihuly (Dale's wife) wore this "Organism" costume to the 2020 Art for All Ball sponsored by Seattle's Path with Art.
Mx Justin Vivian Bond "dazzled" in these gowns while performing Lustre: A Midwinter Transfest in 2007.
Many of the costumes are so intricate, it's hard to believe they're wearable. Videos prove they are.
Houstonian's got a glimpse of Dazzle's extreme creativity when his "Heliotropisms" were included in Natasha Bowdoin's Sideways to the Sun at Rice University.
Has there ever been a more fruitful (pun intended!) collaboration in performance art than Taylor Mac and Machine Dazzle for A 24-Decade History of Popular Music? MAD gives Dazzle's costumes an entire floor. I could kick myself for not getting a ticket when I could have but the prospect of sitting in St. Ann's Warehouse for an entire day and night intimidated me. Now it would be the third stop in my pop culture time machine (Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl on Broadway is first, the Beatles at Shea Stadium is second).
Changing costumes for each of the 24 decades must have been almost exhausting as performing 246 popular songs composed from 1776 to 2016!
Dazzle's influences range from the sacred to the profane. Yep, that's a Star of David.
Children, avert your eyes from this homespun "fabric."
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