Can there still be ‘camp’ in a world where anything goes – from transgender to merged sexual identities – at least in Western society and especially in America?https://www.instagram.com/p/BxJQtceBuH7/?utm_source=ig_embedWhat is camp anyway, apart from the name of the current exhibition at the Costume Institute of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art? Curator Andrew Bolton, who was inspired by Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay, ‘Camp: Notes on Fashion’, claims, “We are experiencing a resurgence of camp – not just in fashion, but in general. Camp tends to come to the fore during moments of social and political instability, when our society is deeply polarised. The 1960s were one such moment, as were the 1980s – and so too are the times in which we are living.”
![From left, a line-up of Valentino worn by models Adut Akech and Naomi Campbell; the Creative Director of Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli; actresses Joan Collins (dressed as her 'Alexis Carrington' alter ego from the Eighties hit TV show, Dallas ) and Julianne Moore; record producer Mark Ronson and Swedish singer Lykke Li; Chinese singer Lay Zhang; and the Chief of the Valentino Fashion Group, Stefano Sassi A Frou-Frou Fluff Of Feathers At New York’s Met Ball-1](https://vogue.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/adut-akech_-naomi-campbell_-pierpaolo-piccioli-of-valentino-_-joan-collins-as-alexis-carrington-__-julianne-moore_-mark-ronson_lykke-li_-lay-zhang-and-stefano-sassi-_getty.jpg)
In the broader display space of the exhibition, the clickety-clack of a typewriter tapping out Sontag’s words introduces a splendid display of feathery dresses. Raised to an upper level near the ceiling, they seem like a cluster of exotic birds.
![Susan Sontag photographed in 1975 by Peter Hujar (Courtesy of Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; purchase by the Alfred Stieglitz Society) A Frou-Frou Fluff Of Feathers At New York’s Met Ball-2](https://vogue.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/susan-sontag-peter-hujar-1975.jpg)
The American writer and political activist might never have imagined that her work would frame the most enormous examples of fluff that I have ever seen mounting the staircase of the Met. For the fund-raising evening Gala, the stairs were pretty in pink and guests entered the museum to a high-rise display of floral flamingos filling the grand entrance hall.https://www.instagram.com/p/BxJI4-jB-HQ/?utm_source=ig_embed“I think camp is a very individual sense of self expression,” said Anna Wintour, who greeted guests at the top of the stairs, along with Lady Gaga, who, by the time I walked up, had already changed her outfit three times.
![Wearing the final of three outfit changes for the 2019 Met Gala's 'pink carpet', Lady Gaga parades in Brandon Maxwell, trailing a wagon of Stetsons behind her A Frou-Frou Fluff Of Feathers At New York’s Met Ball-3](https://vogue.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/lady-gaga-arrives-in-by-brandon-maxwell-for-the-2019-met-gala-with-a-wagon-of-stetsons-_the-final-of-four-outfit-changes-on-the-red-carpet-gettyimages-1141787495.jpg)