At the Met, Punk Without the Down and Dirty Julie Glassberg for International Herald Tribune Punk styles of the 1970s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Punk: Chaos to Couture" exhibit. Sex, drugs, rock "n" roll. Where would the anarchic world of punk be without them? In much the same state as the sanitized and bloodless version of punk's origins and influence delivered by the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the name of fashion. The blasting music catches the pounding energy that ought to be at the heart of "Punk: Chaos to Couture," which opens to the public Thursday and runs through Aug. 14. But the only moment the show gets faintly down and dirty is in the re-creation of grimy and gritty toilets of the 1970s East Village club CBGB. Even that comes minus any tawdry signs of vomiting or drug-taking (or any reference to Marcel Duchamp). The entire exhibition ignores any negative aspects of punk like swastikas or drugs - unless you count the Ramones singing "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." Even the hair - that leitmotif of the period as a rejection of hanging hippie tresses - comes through as identical frizzy wigs, like uninspired Afros. How could Andrew Bolton, the brilliant and cerebral museum curator, whose blockbuster shows have included the Alexander McQueen retrospective and last year's fusion of Elsa Schiaparelli with Miuccia Prada, have made punk seem so dull? Mr. Bolton said that he did not want to "parody" the spikes and mohawks, and gave those directions to the exhibition's hairstylist Guido Palau. Yet the fantastical hairdos and extraordinary makeup, requiring hours of artistic imagination, were emblematic of defiant, anarchic, rebellious individuals kicking against the boredom of being no-hopers. The hair was as significant as the do-it-yourself clothing. And why wouldn't Mr. Bolton, given his intelligent and intellectual foreword to the accompanying book, have linked that nihilistic spirit of London's political and social crisis in the 1970s to other 20th-century movements like Dada? "Everyone has an opinion about punk," said Mr. Bolton as he prepared for the opening gala on Monday night. It was difficult to keep my thoughts and my focus when it means so much to so many different people who respond to it emotionally. He also emphasized that the focus of the exhibition is the enduring influence of the low-down punk on high fashion. The show opens with Richard Hell, the American luminary of punk, backed up by others including Blondie (New Wave) and Patti Smith. The latter might be seen rather as the end of the hippie era when compared with the British punks whom Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) of the Sex Pistols described as "utterly fearless." Then there is Vivienne Westwood, who, driven by Malcolm McLaren, her partner, offered a sense of rowdy revolution. Her vibrant plaid bondage pants, furry sweaters and anarchic T-shirts make a striking display, interspersed with pieces in a similar spirit, like torn dresses and hose from Rodarte. The rebel-yell T-shirts include the infamous punk Queen Elizabeth. And an outrageous Westwood commentary from the designer can be heard on a 1970s film, played on a period television set, placed in a re-created version of the couple's store on King's Road in London. Its name was changed from "Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die," to "Sex" and then to "Seditionaries" as their ideas evolved, says Ms. Westwood, claiming that she did not see herself as a fashion designer "but as someone who wished to confront the rotten status quo through the way I dressed." That is more or less it for examples of original 1970s punk. The next four rooms, their grandiose high ceilings suggesting salons of haute couture, are filled with four decades of punk inspirations, right up to Burberry's current silver studs. The ranks of high-fashion outfits, shown with no context, start with punk's first appropriation as wedding and evening dresses by Zandra Rhodes in 1975. That faces off the flesh-exposing black dress, held together with gilded safety pins down the side, that shot Elizabeth Hurley into paparazzi heaven in 1994 at the London premiere of "Four Weddings and a Funeral." An earlier version of this article misspelled Malcolm McLaren's last name. It also misstated the title of the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral." An earlier version of this article misspelled Guido Palau's surname. It is Palau, not Paulo.