The Italian job

In six months, fashion types will be trying to figure out which "Great Gatsby"-era ensemble Lady Gaga will be wearing to the annual Met Gala, because the spring 2012 exhibition organized by the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is "Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion." The gala takes place on May 7, the exhibition runs from May 10 through Aug. 19. If you're scratching your head and saying "Jiminy Cricket, who is Elsa Sciaparelli?" please find a hat pin and poke yourself in the hand. She was the Italian rival to Coco Chanel in the first part of the last century. She was the toast of the fashion world in the 1930s and 1940s. Eventually her work fell out of demand after WWII. And if you don't know who Miuccia Prada is, well, I won't tell you what to do with that hat pin. The two Italians are being honored in the exhibit becaues of their work with surrealism.