London - On Monday evening, the Metropolitan Museum's annual Costume Institute exhibition launches with its traditional gala in New York.
The theme? China: Through the Looking Glass, a celebration of half a millennium of Chinese influence on European luxury goods. It's also the culmination of China's decade-long ascent to the very top of the fashion game.
Despite Chinese president Xi Jinping's policies to combat corruption and discourage extravagance - which have resulted in the Chinese market wavering over the past 18 months - it is still the main focus of Western luxury brand expansion.
Not the sole focus, mind. Across the sea, Chanel is staging their latest cruise show in Seoul - because South Korea is a new focus of luxury brand attention, the third largest in Asia after China and Japan and worth about £5.9bn. Chanel has previously staged the pre-autumn collection, which they dub Metier d'Arts, in Shanghai. In December, Dior further cemented their relationship with Japan by staging their pre-fall 2015 show and a retrospective exhibition in the country. Now it seems to be the turn of South Korea.
Put the Metropolitan Museum's exhibition into that context and take into account that, alongside Yahoo and Condé Nast, the exhibition is made possible by several generous Chinese donors - and the dual impetus for its staging is clear. The exhibition is a celebration of creative and cultural exchange: the Costume Institute has partnered with the Department of Asian Art to haul out a mountain of treasures, contrasting original costumes, paintings, porcelains, and art, with fashion's reflections (hence the looking-glass metaphor).
The Metropolitan Museum's theme has impacted on contemporary fashion, too. It does so every year, in a way that no other exhibition can possibly compete with. The Met's gala opening fund-raising ball, helmed each year by American Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, has been dubbed the East Coast's Oscars. It frequently encourages attendees to dress to a theme.
The Independent