Technicolor Dreamcoats.

Rock fashion show amplifies the link between music and style

It's not every day that a fashion exhibition resembles a walk-in version of People magazine's annual best-worst-dressed issue, but that's exactly the impression given by Rock Style, an exhibit now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (and coming to Cleveland in May).

Rock Style is not a typical museum show. The exhibit examines one of the most commercially lucrative relationships of our day--the relationship between fashion and rock 'n' roll. In fact, the exhibit covers such an array of fashion statements and attitudes that a more complete title might be Rock Style: Who Had It, Who Lost It, Who Never Stood a Chance.

The rock revolution gave the world a new kind of popular music and helped ignite the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Rock music also gave voice to successive waves of disaffection--from the antiwar movement, to punk, to various forms of rising consciousness: black, gay, feminist, postfeminist.

ROCK'S RADICAL POWER

Ever since Elvis Presley turned up his collar and James Brown donned his sequined tux, rock has exerted an influence on dress that was as radical as the music, spreading outward to fans who expressed solidarity in their clothes.

Most of us have a bit of rock 'n' roll in our hearts, and probably more rock style in our closets than we realize. Most artists have a fairly acute sense of personal style that echoes their work. But with rock musicians there are no degrees of separation. Appearance and dress are almost part of the work itself, or at least a parallel form of self-expression that amplifies the musical message and gives tangible form to the musical persona.

A rock star's look has always been the advance wave of his or her sound, the early-warning system of what is about to reach your ears. Madonna's sly boy-toy style signaled her postfeminist enjoyment of being a gift. Devo's yellow anti-contamination suits warned of the group's authoritarian, alien weirdness. And sometimes the visual impression overwhelmed all others; many people were more familiar with the cat makeup and space-age, samurai-studded leatherwork of Kiss than with its heavy-metal sound.

The display is divided into five chapters: "Poets and Dreamers" (the tie-dyed velvet cape of '60s folk rocker John Sebastian, Jimi Hendrix's black silk-satin bellbottoms, and Bruce Springsteen's flannel shirt); "Idols" (Elvis and the Beatles); "Brilliant Disguise" (David Bowie, Elton John, David Byrne, and Mick Jagger); "High Style," a glittering medley of evening wear and big-name designers that ranges from the Supremes to Madonna; and "Rebels."

WHERE'S KURT?

Everyone will have different ideas about who should have been here and wasn't. (Cyndi Lauper, Boy George, Kurt Cobain, and Led Zeppelin are missing.) And some choices seem unquestionably strange, like the inclusion of two outfits from Janet Jackson and only one from Michael Jackson; three items from Sebastian and nothing from Bob Dylan.

But nearly everything in this exhibition has some kind of value, if not aesthetic, then historic or nostalgic. The colored satin band uniforms that the Beatles wore on the Sgt. Pepper album are a prime example. Those uniforms signaled the advent of costume and thus fantasy as a rock 'n' roll option.

Finally, these costumes are interesting because of the aura of the celebrities who wore them. As the Talking Heads put it, "It's the same as it ever was." Only music can make a rock star, and only objects can make an exhibition.