The MoMA Will Show Its First Fashion Exhibit in 72 Years

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The New York Times is reporting that The Museum of Modern Art is tossing its hat into the fashion exhibit ring with a display that'll attempt to answer the question "Is Fashion Modern?" This is its first undertaking involving clothing since looking at trends in 1944 — and that one was called "Are Clothes Modern?"

This exhibit, which isn't happening for quite some time (it'll open in December 2017) will explore "very important moments that had to do with fashion," using pieces that give clues about social, economic, or political context during which the item would have been worn.

"Historically, the museum has deliberately chosen not to engage with fashion in its galleries or its repositories, wary of those most antimodern terms with which it is often derided: ephemeral, seasonal, faddish," MoMa's department of architecture and design senior curator Paola Antonelli wrote on the museum's website.

Well, it's about time they engaged. Fashion that may have at one point been deemed "ephemeral" has garnered the Metropolitan Museum of Art a record-breaking amount of visitors (hello, China: Through the Looking Glass) and the Costume Institute regularly combines collections with the Brooklyn Museum Costume Institute, preserving a vast amount of clothing spanning multiple eras. The Brooklyn Museum has also had recent hits with showing Jean Paul Gaultier and all sorts of shoes from high heels to sneakers.

Even smaller institutions like the Merchant's House Museum are trying out fashion exhibits. And you can always count on the Museum at FIT to be showing off something, whether it's denim or fairy tale fashion.

Welcome to the game, MoMA — see you in 2017.