Greatest Hits Gowns
EMP exhibit displays more than 50 of the Supreme’s glam gowns and accessories
Posted by: Laura Cassidy on Jun 14, 2010 at 07:00AM
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Slideshow: The Supremes’ girl group gowns at EMP
View Slideshow » Illustration:The Supremes’ Mary Wilson leads a media tour of the exhibit
View Slideshow » Illustration:Wilson explained how their customers and designers would sew sequins – and in some cases, much heavier glass beads – along the pattern of the dress’s fabric
View Slideshow » Illustration:The Supremes had a hit with the song “Touch” in the early ‘70s (the lyrics go "Oh just keep doing what you’re doing/Fancy words will only ruin it/Touch, that very special touch"), but this isn’t a custom-made gown. Wilson found it by coincidence on Hollywood Boulevard.
“You can still be a lady and be sexy and not show everything — although we did show a lot,” said Mary Wilson as she led us through a media tour of the 50+ gowns and accessories in EMP’s just-opened Reflections: The Mary Wilson Supreme Legacy Collection.
The strappy, sequined, vibrant, body-hugging, and ultra-glam gowns in the exhibit are like a greatest hits of the looks that played backup to songs like “Baby Love” and “Stop in the Name of Love.”
Although it was Wilson who originally put the show together – the Supremes’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was the impetus, and most recently the gowns were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – Reflections is EMP doing what it does best: illustrating that music is more than chords and beats and notes.
As you wander among a couple decade’s worth of outfits (including a maternity variation that Wilson wore in the 70s), they become so much more than stage costumes. The Supremes were girls from Detroit’s Frederick Douglass housing projects, but in those gowns, they went on to be, as the saying goes, as big as the Beatles. You might find that girl group harmonies and rhythm and blues instrumentation start to fade in light of the cultural and historical impact of three lower middle class black women in gorgeous Bob Mackie dresses amid the cultural and gender shifts of the 60s and 70s.
“We didn’t realize it, we were just singing,” Wilson told us last week when I previewed the collection. Okay, singing, and creating a female-empowered look that would continue through the Dynasty years and also changing music history as well as the world. Just singing, just being beautiful.
Reflections will be on view at the museum through September 6.
Tags: Thru Sept 6
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