When Downtown Ruled

Downtown fashion may have moved uptown, but in the 1970s and ’80s, it was its own special, gritty thing. And the history of that scene is part of “Anarchy to Affluence: Design in New York, 1974-1984,” an exhibit at Parsons the New School for Design.This look at New York City’s interior, furniture, fashion, and graphic design starts in 1974, the year the Ramones began their residency at CBGB’s. The year is usually considered the line of demarcation between protopunk and punk, and in many ways, the exhib it reflects the visual aesthetic that accompanied the music. Ads for Richard Hell, Blondie, and the Buzzcocks look like ransom notes, with letters and pictures cut out and reattached to the page and then Xeroxed. In what has become known as Hi-Tech, interior design takes its cue from the modernists, using industrial and everyday objects to decorate the home. This idea, the exhibit points out, has lead directly to the like of Crate and Barrel and Bed Bath & Beyond.Fashion is represented by pieces from Stephen Sprouse, Betsey Johnson, and Norma Kamali – names that have since gone from downtown cult to the world consciousness. These clothes, whether or not they were draped over luminaries such as Debbie Harry or Patti Smith, did their part to articulate (and play with) the anxiety and tension of the period. Mr. Sprouse, a part of the Factory, covers a jacket with Warholian lithographs depicting bullets.A pair of tights, also by Sprouse, are covered with graffiti, an idea he would revisit in 2001 when he collaborated with Marc Jacobs on the Louis Vuitton sac du main. Ms. Kamali’s designs went to the heart of fashion by asking questions about what can be worn, what is clothing, and what fabrics are appropriate. Her iconic sleeping bag coat was conceived when the designer found herself kicked out of her then husband’s apartment and spent the night on park bench. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, music and fashion shifted into the New Wave. Clothes from Parachute (Harry Parnass and Nicole Pelly’s label), moved toward designs that look like a uniform for some future city. Duran Duran did a lot to popularize the company.There’s an outsider feel to the Parsons exhibit that suits its subject matter perfectly. New York in the ’70s, though it has come to represent a time of urban decay and chaos, was also a time when artists of all types lived and flourished amid decay and chaos. The Parsons exhibit asserts that this was the city of Stephen Sprouse and Betsey Johnson as much as Travis Bickle and Paul Kersey.Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Parsons the New School for Design, the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, 66 Fifth Ave. at 13th Street.

When Downtown Ruled

When Downtown Ruled

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