MISSOURILAND

Styling

Saint Louis Art Museum’s Age of Armor shows off everything from Medieval chain mail to Black Panther’s vibranium suit

Words by JESSICA ROGEN

Photos by BRADEN MCMAKIN

Shiny surfaces flooded with engravings. Fluted metal armor. Broad, billowing breastplates. Those elements were in style in the late 1400s and early 1500s.

“You want to look good, everywhere you go,” says David Conradsen, Saint Louis Art Museum curator of decorative arts and design. Highly decorated armor wasn’t only for impressing at court but for real use, both tournaments and on the battlefield.

Visitors to SLAM’s new exhibit, Age of Armor, can check out how armor changed from the Middle Ages to present day. The show, which is open through May 14, pairs armor and weaponry from the Higgins Armory Collection at the Worcester Art Museum with works from SLAM’s collection.

Each room of the exhibit advances armor’s story, and the show includes contemporary armor, both the real stuff — such as a tactical vest for women — and the fantastic — such as Star Wars’ stormtroopers and Black Panther. But regardless of era, armor is a crowd pleaser that can’t be denied.

“There’s clearly something that is continuously appealing to our sense of imagination,” Research Assistant Katherine Feldkamp says. “There’s a powerful cultural zeitgeist that continues to inspire us.”

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