For a rocker in these style-conscious times, who you are wearing is as hefty an issue as what you are singing. The symbiotic relationship between music and fashion was given an appropriately swank treatment at Monday's (Dec. 6) press reception for "Rock Style," a swish new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. The Tommy Hilfiger-sponsored exhibit, which is a joint venture with The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, officially opens Dec. 9 and runs through March.

"Rock Style" is divided into five categories: Icons, Poets & Dreamers, Brilliant Disguise, Rebels, and High Style. Even though the show delves farther back into rock and roll history with its multitude of Elvis costumes, the Icons display rightly uses the Beatles as a commencing point. From the single-breasted wool suits worn on Introducing…the Beatles to the rented, off-the-rack, marching band costumes worn on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, what the Beatles wore outlined the migration from the buttoned-up conservative styles of the early '60s to the freewheelin' bohemian look popular by the decade's end. The exhibit forgoes the often unflattering term 'hippie' for the more romantic and all encompassing Poets and Dreamers. In this section, Stevie Nicks' black chiffon gypsy garb and Bruce Springsteen's working class flannel shirt hang alongside Moroccan caftans that belonged to Donovan and a gorgeous, vintage, embroidered ivory silk scarf worn by Janis Joplin -- proving this category is a bit too random.

Since blue jeans and leather jackets have become so pedestrian, the Rebel part of the exhibit tends to focus more on MTV-borne images of artists that continually push the fashion envelope. Included are Axl Rose's Stephen Sprouse-designed kilt, a kittenish satin slip and tiara worn by Courtney Love, and Madonna's "Like A Virgin" bridal get-up, which seemed to be the big crowd-pleaser.

And what would the High Style display be without Madonna's infamous Gaultier "Blonde Ambition" bustier? Naturally, High Style has the highest concentration of girlie couture pieces in the exhibit. Pretty pink beaded gowns worn by the Supremes on The Ed Sullivan Show, a full-length feather boa worn by Diana Ross, as well as Tina Turner's Versace-designed beaded mini-dresses lend this display the feeling of rummaging through a diva's armoire.

"Rock Style" functions best when it subtly surprises. For instance, the "big suit," worn by David Byrne in Stop Making Sense, always appeared larger-than-life and white on film. In person, the suit is actually gray and looks disproportionately small. AC/DC's Angus Young's burgundy, velvet school uniform looks oddly innocent and pristine without the guitar-smashing implications of a hard rock show. And Bjork's avant-garde kimono from the cover of Homogenic is a nice, thoroughly modern inclusion.

As an exhibit, "Rock Style" brims with all of the flamboyance and tack one would expect from rock and roll's colorful, elaborately woven history. At times it feels a bit too scripted, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. After all, most of these clothes are as much a part of our collective cultural closets as they are the musicians who wore them.