Live From Staten Island: Its First Fashion Exhibition
Mention of Staten Island is more inclined to conjure up stories about Denino’s Pizzeria, Pete Davidson and the Staten Island Ferry than fashion. But sure enough, the first fashion exhibition will soon be held on Staten Island.
“Staten Island Mode: Identity, Memory, Fashion” will bow Saturday at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in Building C within the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden. As the name suggests, the show is meant to make visitors think about what they wear and why they wear it in relation to their personal and local identities. Instead of staging historic pieces on mannequins, the galleries are filled with about 65 pieces of clothing that have been gathered on loan over the past year from local residents, designers, boutiques and retailers.
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Alexis Romano, who co-curated the show with Jenna Rossi-Camus, said, “The exhibition is showcasing the lived identities from different people from different backgrounds through their clothes.”
The duo met in 2011 as PhD students in the U.K. After they realized they were both from Staten Island, they wanted to create a Staten Island-rooted exploration of fashion in a cultural institution versus one that was based in Manhattan or Brooklyn. “We didn’t know at the time that it would take this personal everyday approach, which corresponds to our interests in the field of fashion studies,” Romano said. “We didn’t want it to be about a particular period of dress on Staten Island or the story of one iconic designer. We really wanted it to be a story about people.”
In culling the show’s pieces from locals, they circulated a survey to define how the garments were connected to Staten Island or why they were of personal importance. One loaner, for example, offered a drag outfit that had been worn to a drag march in New York City in 2016. En route, the person was harassed on the ferry and fought back so the garment symbolizes self-empowerment and individuality, Romano said.
School uniforms, Girl Scout uniforms, prom dresses, wedding accessories, everyday clothes and T-shirts emblazoned with Staten Island institutions like the Staten Island Ferry and the Todt Hill neighborhood are among the items that will be on view through Dec. 31. There is also attire from Wu Wear, a sportswear label that was started by the hip-hop band Wu-Tang Clan, a Staten Island-grown forerunner in hip-hop. The Wu Wear pieces are housed in a gallery that explores the relationship between fashion and noise. Photography will also be featured in the show.
Another gallery that is being called “showroom” will highlight Staten Island retailers and designers like streetwear and skate wear from Richmond Hood Co., more formal styles from Emily’s — a store that has been around since 1982 — and Urban Modesty, a new Staten Island Mall shop that offers modest fashion and Muslim fashion.
“Fashion is so accessible, pervasive and is something that you can naturally engage with. We’re displaying ordinary stories and making them extraordinary. We would like people to think about the significance of fashion in their own lives. It doesn’t have to be how they relate to their own identities as Staten Islanders. It can be completely tailored to their many identities,” Romano said.
The curators are hopeful that a Colin Jost garment might come through. His fellow former “Saturday Night Live” castmate and co-investor in an old ferry, Davidson, is featured in the show abstractly. A former costume designer, Rossi-Camus created an imagined film based on the idea that she is costume-designing her life, based on her belongings. “In a way, she was thinking about how in a way Pete Davidson has dramatized his life on Staten Island in films,” Romano said.
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