My Body Belongs In A Museum

Hi! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post and in 2024 I’m hoping for that to change. So, here we go…

My body belongs in a museum, but not on the runways. My body belongs in an exhibit with Anna Wintour’s name on it, but not in Vogue where her name has been on the masthead for decades.

My body belongs in a museum.

A white wall that says “Anna Winter Costume Center - WOMEN DRESSING WOMEN”. In front of the wall, each on their own pedestal, are two female mannequins styled in high-fashion dresses.

The Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is perhaps as well known as the museum itself. After all, every year, on the first Monday in May, it hosts fashion’s biggest night, the Met Gala - a dazzling event where celebrities and people of influence across all industries ascend the iconic Met staircase, dressed glamorously on theme in accordance with the year’s exhibition, to raise money for the Costume Center.

A few weeks ago my aunt texted me saying she had gone to the museum where, at present, there is an exhibition there entitled “Women Dressing Women”, showcasing women designers that have either transcended to icon status, been forgotten throughout history, or are new, emerging voices. With the text she sent a photo of a mannequin dressed in a little, black dress. The mannequin was modeled after a dwarf body. Wanting to see this for myself in context I took myself on a day date to the Met where I was transfixed by the fashions, the history, and the overall scope and details of the exhibition. As I made my way around the room, dwarfed not just by the mannequins, but the fashions and the people taking up and taking in the space, I felt small…and then I saw the dwarf mannequin wearing a little black dress.

Like me and unlike the average-height mannequins standing beside her, she had shorter arms and legs supporting an average-height torso. Like me and unlike the average-height mannequins standing beside her, she was approximately 4’00”. Like me and unlike the average-height mannequins standing beside her, her body is not perfect by society’s standards. She has the folds in the arms and the legs that are common in dwarfs. After all, I’ve had them since I was a baby. This stood out to me the most because, in a room surrounded by idealized versions of the female body that are flawless, here is a dwarf body on display that is real.

Standing there, seeing her, reflecting on the fact that dwarf bodies have been put on display in royal courts, freak shows, circuses, etc. going all the way back to ancient times, is now in a museum celebrating fashion at a time where the dwarf body is still not being designed for, where the dwarf body’s access needs are not necessarily being considered in the adaptive design space, where the dwarf body is not being seen on the runway or in editorial or commercial fashion images, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is all this industry, an industry that I truly, deeply love but refuses to design for me, is ever going to see.