Batman And Robin Return To Gotham

Just in case you didn’t get enough bronze-molded breastplates and magic laser belts growing up or, in my case, had an older brother more interested in playing dress up, there’s hope. The Met has announced the slated arrival of their new exhibit Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, which it describes in completely understated terms as an exploration of the “symbolic and metaphorical associations between fashion and the superhero…[that] will reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body.” Funny, I thought only Fluidity had that kind of effect on the human thighs body. In any case, our favorite crazy-haired New Yorker contributor has given us a brief tour of his childhood superhero fetish that includes this choice passage:

“And yet you had only to tie a towel around your shoulders to feel the strange vibratory pulse of flight stirring in the red sun of your heart… the more effort and money you lavish on fine textiles, metal grommets, and leather trim the deeper your costume will be sucked into the silliness singularity that swallowed, for example, Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin and their four nipples.”

Sounds like he and my brother would get along smashingly. For the less leather-inclined, the Met exhibit will be produced with the help of Armani so the capes should be slightly more runway and less underdog.

An Essay in Unitard Theory [The New Yorker]