Met Announces Extended Hours for Chinese Fashion Show

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A dress by Alexander McQueen at the "China: Through the Looking Glass" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

The long goodbye for “China: Through the Looking Glass” just got a little longer: The Metropolitan Museum of Art is extending hours for the exhibition’s final weekend.

On Sept. 4 and 5, viewers in search of a late-night dose of culture can linger until midnight — an extra three hours — in the show’s 16 galleries, spread over three floors. Illustrating the impact of Chinese culture on Western fashion, “China: Through the Looking Glass” contains hundreds of objects, a variety of clips from Chinese movies, fragrance bottles and clothing, from a Qing dynasty festival robe to Givenchy. (If that fashion doesn’t do it for you, the museum’s balcony bar will be open, too.)

The show at the museum’s Costume Institute, which has so far drawn more than 730,000 visitors, has already been extended by three weeks. It officially closes on Labor Day. This will be the second time recently, according to a Met spokesman, that the museum has stayed open until midnight: the first is believed to be “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” in 2011, which drew a total of 661,509 visitors.