Exploding a Fashion Cliché 

Tamsen Schwartzman, associate research curator in The Museum at FIT, spoke about a number of artists who engage fashion in their work. She specifically addressed the art of E.V. Day, whose Bombshell appears below. 

"In her Exploding Couture series, E.V. Day rigs fragments of a garment [so it] appear[s] caught in a moment of exploding action. [This] addresses not just the power clothing has as symbol, but the power of how clothing moves, and its power of transformation. Bombshell, from 1999, references Marilyn Monroe's iconic white dress from the publicity stunt for the movie, The Seven Year Itch, recreating the moment when the actress attempted (feebly) to push down her dress as it was blown upwards...in a game of restraint and revelation. Bombshell explodes that seductive tension and the implied stereotype with a force and energy that is as orgasmic as it is destructive…[Day] says, 'It takes atomic forces to break down the tenacity of clichéd images in popular culture.’ “