Women’s History Museum — Grisette à l’enfer

Conceived as a hybrid between an exhibition catalog and a fashion lookbook, Grisette à l’enfer – released on the occasion of the first institutional exhibition in the U.S. of Women’s History Museum – interweaves newly commissioned texts with illustrated, full-bleed image spreads that reference iconic precedents, from Matsuda’s 1990s lookbooks to early Vivienne Westwood.

Continuing their engagement with the figure of the grisette, WHM collaborated with musician and fashion photographer Wera Nowak to develop two new series of images that question what a contemporary grisette might look like in New York City.

Women’s History Museum was founded by Mattie Barringer and Amanda McGowan in 2015 out of the desire to create novel and previously unseen images of beauty. The duo engages with fashion as a medium that has the potential to exist beyond regurgitative spectacle and the ability to change the fabric of reality. Their art practice is dictated by meticulously sourced historical materials and collaborations with other artists who often double as models in their fashion shows.

[publishers’ note]