Book Review: Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy

It’s the first Monday in May, which means it is time for the Met Gala! Over the years, I collected books about previous exhibition the Met Gala celebrates the opening of. One of the newest additions to my book collection is Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy. In honor of the Gala, and the fact I have a new-to-me copy of the book, I decided to write a review of the Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy book.

Before I talk about the book itself, I wanted to talk about the exhibition. The exhibition opened and closed in 2008. It does predate the Marvel Cinematic Universe except for Iron Man 1, which opened in theaters in 2008. The exhibition did not mention anything about the MCU or DC Comic’s Extended Cinematic Universe or the Arrowverse due to the fact none of them (Sans Iron Man 1) existed at that time. The exhibition focused on how fashion was inspired by comic books themselves and certain notable TV and movies based off them. This is important to note because of how popular comic book movies and TV shows are. Many people could purchase this book without thinking about it’s age or what kind of superhero media was available at the time of the exhibition.

And now, back to the book!

The front of the book looks like this…

The front and back covers are made out of pressed metal that is colored with what I assume is enamel paint. The metal is backed by thick cardboard. The spine of the book is covered with a woven fabric material.

The pages of the book are thick and are a mat gloss finish. There is also metallic lettering throughout that reflects light more than the rest of the pages do…

The book is divided into chapters…

The chapters are…

• The Graphic Body
• The Patriotic Body
• Virile Body
• The Paradoxical Body
• The Armored Body
• The Aerodynamic Body
• Mutant Body
• The Post-Modern Body

Throughout the book there are essays about superhero inspired costumes. One of these essays is called Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory.

 

In each chapter, there are inspiration boards with panels from comic books that (Literally) illustrate what the chapter’s superhero inspiration is from. Also, photographs from movies and TV shows based off the comic books is also used.

This is what The Graphic Body chapter’s inspiration board looks like…

Also, there are catwalk photographs of what designers interpreted the superhero look to look like.

This one is inspired by Superman…

This one is inspired by Spider-man…

And this one is from the chapter The Patriotic Body…

I like how the book describes superheroes in comics as well as how fashion interprets them. Fashion is considered by many wearable art, so to see how designers interpret the art from comics is something I enjoy and appreciate seeing. The book is definitely focused on fashion designers’ focus on interpreting the comic book heroes instead of the movies and TV shows alone. I don’t mind this at all. In fact, I really like seeing this! It takes the sources on inspiration back to it’s origin, the comic books, instead of including the movies and TV show variations on the costumes.

Even though I really enjoy reading and owning the book, I need to mention a major downside to this book. There is a lot of revealing clothes in this book. And when I say revealing, I mean these clothes leave little to the imagination about how the human body looks without clothes on! This is a part of fashion, and yes, even comic book culture, so it did get included  in the book. Certain chapters have so many revealing clothing in them I decided not to even try photographing them for this post. (I don’t want to post photographs of this nature on this blog, so I was a no brainer for me to not photograph them!) If you are sensitive to such revealing clothing or are planning on giving this book to a child that is interested in fashion and superhero, I don’t recommend this book. At all. Instead, I recommend looking at other books of Met Gala exhibitions. I also recommend looking at one of the art books from the movies. They are way more family friendly and they sometimes even talk about how the costumes are designed, patterned, and sewn!

Overall, this book is a good book for the right people. If you have a tolerance for revealing clothing and are genuinely interested in this book, I highly recommend it. It is not for everyone, which made me worry about talking about it. It is defiantly a book writing and created in an “Everything is art” sort of way. It’s not poorly done, but it certainly not for families and children!

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!