On Fashioning the Body: Karoline Vitto and Sinéad O’Dwyer in Conversation

As their work is displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibition, the London-based designers discuss the lexicon around corpulent bodies, appetite-suppressing drugs, and what this moment might signal for fashion’s future

When Andrew Bolton first reached out to Sinéad O’Dwyer and Karoline Vitto about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new Costume Institute exhibition, both designers expected to be meeting with an assistant. But each ended up on long, searching calls with Bolton himself – a detail that underpins the seriousness with which Costume Art, the inaugural show in the Costume Institute’s newly expanded galleries, was conceived. 

Pairing garments with works from across The Met’s collection – etchings, sculpture, painting – the exhibition presents the dressed body as a subject worthy of the same scrutiny as any other art historical question. For O’Dwyer and Vitto, two of the most significant independent designers working with extended sizing in fashion today, being included felt both overdue and, given the current climate, strangely timely. The body, in their work, has never been a challenge to be solved – just a body to be dressed. 

Speaking to both designers the week of the opening, that turned out to be Bolton’s approach too. In an exclusive conversation with AnOther, the two designers discuss what it means to have this work archived, the words we still haven’t got right, and the “slow-motion car crash” of thinning they’ve both been watching for years.

Sinéad O’Dwyer: I wasn’t even sure at first whether it was going to be the big exhibition that coincides with the first Monday in May, or a new permanent gallery – like the V&A has a permanent display. And then it was just Andrew Bolton on Zoom, which was kind of amazing. He was so generous with his thinking and really curious – he wanted a lot of feedback. He talked me through the whole concept and asked about which model I’d want for the mannequin, which garment would make sense. And then from that initial conversation, it became clear that he’d really thought about why you can’t just buy good curve mannequins off the shelf.

Karoline Vitto: They really can’t. I’ve never come across display curve mannequins that are actually good. They either have this huge bum and enormous quads, like fitness mannequins – or they’re this kind of strange square shape with very high boobs that mimic implants.

SO: And a minuscule waist. They never make sense. Which is why, when he’d previously shown non-sample-size pieces, the mannequins were so bizarrely proportioned. So this time, he decided to commission new ones from scratch: body scanning real models. When he reached out to me, he already had Jade [O’Belle] in mind because of my original cast pieces, which came from a life-casting process I did during my MA. It made conceptual sense: the beginning of my work was with Jade. So they now have two versions of her mannequin: one made specifically for the silicone piece, where her body had to be slightly shaved down because the material is rigid.

KV: One of the things that struck me most in that first conversation with Andrew was when we got onto language – what word we use for the bodies we work with. He mentioned he’d been consulting with you, Sinéad, on this. And that debate really stuck with me because we still don’t have a standard. I personally abhor the phrase ‘real bodies‘. Everyone is real. If it exists, it’s real. The word I use is curve, because that’s what the modelling agencies use, and it’s the word most of my community identifies with. From a technical standpoint it also makes sense: you’re cutting differently, you’re building around a different shape.

SO: And some people really hate curve too. I often end up saying ‘non-sample size’ because it’s so practical and so dry that it kind of does the work. Sample size is literally this tiny, narrow sliver of all possible bodies and every other person is non-sample size. It also highlights how specific and how arbitrary that one bracket is.

KV: The word they landed on for the exhibition was ‘corpulent.’ That came after a long process of research and consultation. I think they checked with all of us.

SO: I was at the press preview on Monday and being there at the actual exhibition, I loved it so much. The interdisciplinary way of presenting things, all these different disciplines from craft to garment together with books, etchings, a small Henry Moore sculpture. You really saw things in a new way. And the sections aren’t super divided by walls, it feels fluid. The mannequins are all annotated on the plaques too – mannequin Jade O’Belle, mannequin Charlie Reynolds. There’s a book with interviews with all of the models. The care given to the people who lent their bodies to the project was real, and that mattered to me.

“I’ve been seeing the effects of GLP-1 drugs on castings … Celebrities I’d make customs for, their bodies literally changing. It’s like watching a very slow-motion car crash” – Karoline Vitto

KV: What’s significant for me is that these mannequins will be used going forward – they‘re not just for this exhibition. In future shows, there might be a Chanel suit on a wheelchair-user mannequin, or a Dior customer who’s a size 18 wearing pieces from her personal wardrobe. That’s what’s exciting. It won‘t always be framed as the curve brands on the curve mannequins.  

SO: Exactly. Like with portraiture – woman with pearl hat, whatever size and shape she is, wearing her personal wardrobe. That’s so much more about the humanness of how brands actually operate, and who their actual customers are. Because they‘re not all sample size. 

KV: When I got that first call with Andrew, I felt really hopeful. Beauty standards are cyclical – when something starts to become mainstream, things shift. But I’ve also been watching something else happen in real time. Since around 2022, 2023, I’ve been seeing the effects of GLP-1 drugs on castings. Measurements [are] shrinking ten centimetres. Celebrities I’d make customs for, their bodies literally changing. It’s like watching a very slow-motion car crash.

SO: I’ve been feeling really disheartened doing this work lately, honestly exhausted by it. And then being at the exhibition this week – seeing a pregnant mannequin in a look that would normally only appear on a sample size body on a runway – something shifted. The question came up in a talk: why wouldn’t this exhibition have been possible ten years ago? And the answer, I think, is that ten years ago, they probably wouldn’t have made custom mannequins. There wouldn’t have been designers like us, or Sinéad Burke’s involvement in the disabled body section. It would have fallen completely flat. So why does this exhibition exist right now, even as the landscape feels so depressing? Because there’s actually the work. There are the designers. There‘s something to show. 

KV: I think putting this work in a museum puts a stamp of history on it that nothing else quite does. It’s one thing to have press coverage – that creates an archive of information, but being in an institution says something different. And I’d love, ultimately, for people to treat my brand as a brand. Not a curve brand, not a plus-size brand – a brand. And the models as professionals who are good at their job, who know how to carry and embody a designer’s work. I want the conversation to move on from bodies and become about craft. 

SO: And what gives me hope, coming out of this week, is that someone like Andrew Bolton is approaching it exactly like that – as a conversation, not a full stop. It’s an and, not an or. That feels new. That feels like something. 

Costume Art is on show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until 10 January 2027.