A fashion show took place on Saturday inside the chamber where the renowned Parthenon Sculptures are displayed at the British Museum, sparking a storm of reaction.
The fashion show was curated by Turkish descented designer Erdem Moralioglu as part of London Fashion Week, with the latter claiming that he drew inspiration from the iconic appearance of Maria Callas as Medea in 1953 at La Scala in Milan.
The fashion show generated a strong response from the Greek Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni, amid ongoing speculation that Greece and the British Museum have been engaged in low-profile discussions for months to reach a compromise regarding the repatriation of the Parthenon friezes to Athens.
“By organizing a fashion show in the chamber where the Parthenon Sculptures are exhibited, the British Museum once again demonstrates its complete disrespect towards the masterpieces of Phidias,” Mendoni said in reference to the friezes and their acclaimed main sculptor.
Furthermore, the minister highlighted that British Museum officials not only degrade and disrespect the monuments but also the universal values they embody, stating “the exhibition and protection conditions of the sculptures in the Duveen Gallery are consistently worsening. It is high time for these stolen and mistreated sculptural masterpieces to once again gleam under the Attica sunlight.”
The British Museum’s successive administrations have claimed that the well-known London museum has long preserved and protected the sculptures, safeguarding them from an inadequate venue or even air pollution in the Athens area, an assertion that fizzled out when the new state-of-the-art Acropolis Museum was inaugurated in 2009 off the south side of the quintessence of Classical antiquity.
