The Sun King, gender benders and feathers
By all accounts, the aesthete provided an ideal case study for Sontag, who tried to theorize the link between camp and homosexuality.
"Not all homosexuals have camp taste," she wrote. "But homosexuals, by and large, constitute the vanguard - and the most articulate audience - of camp. Every sensibility is self-serving to the group that promotes it. ... Homosexuals have pinned their integration into society on promoting the aesthetic sense."
Fashions inspired by him include an Alessandro Michele ensemble for Gucci, in which the designer grafted the jacket of a tailcoat with the skirt of a frock coat for gender-bending effects.
However, one would be wrong to assume that the entire exhibition has more or less been usurped by gay men. After going through winding spaces, the show finally flooded into a 200-sqm exhibition hall in which clothing is displayed in double-decker cases that enhanced the soaring, theatrical feel for exhibits appearing on the top, above eye level.
The display cases are arranged along the wall in a near-circular form, perhaps to echo the curator who, at a media preview, quoted the cultural historian Andy Medhurst: "Trying to define camp is like attempting to sit in the corner of a circular room."
But people have tried repeatedly nonetheless. The center of the exhibition hall is taken over by high-fashion accessories which, through "converting the serious into the frivolous", to use Sontag's words, have aligned themselves with the humor of camp.
