Animal desire; A highly anticipated show presents fauna-inspired finery as fierce as it is flamboyant.

Byline: Hamish Bowles

Man's desire to assume the attributes or flaunt the trophies of the animal world dates back through the millennia. Cave paintings show exultant hunters in animal-pelt skirts, and there is hieroglyphic evidence to suggest that the ancient Egyptians stenciled their linen robes with kohl leopard spots. In the Middle Ages, sumptuary laws defined the wearing of fur as a signifier of rank and gender, thus transforming it from a protective material into a status symbol, and by Elizabethan times even fake fur (a thick-pile velvet plush) was costly and luxurious. The eighteenth century saw clothes embroidered or woven in imitation of leopard, a trend beloved in the twentieth century by designers from Dior to Alaia. "WILD: Fashion Untamed," the upcoming exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, uses historical and contemporary pieces to illustrate mankind's enduring fascination with animalia.

Curator Andrew Bolton (working with associates Shannon Bell Price and Elyssa Schram Da Cruz) explores "how designers have employed both the raw materials of animals, and animal symbolism and mythology to construct an idea of femininity." With examples ranging from an eighteenth-century dandy's "zebra" frock coat to early-twenty-first-century pieces by designers such as McQueen, Gaultier, and Roberto Cavalli (one of the principal sponsors of the show), Bolton and his team reveal how fur and feather-and their ingenious imitations-have been used over the centuries "as a sign of exhibitionism . . . or predatory sexuality." Raw pelts and skins suggesting cave-girl chic, for example, were used in the sixties and seventies by Stephen Burrows and Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, and more recently by such innovators as Ann Demeulemeester and Ric Owens. The show incorporates innovative designer furs-from a Paquin liquid thirties ermine coat ...