Fashion Inspiration & Research

The Costume Institute’s spring 2017 exhibition examined the work of fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, known for her avant-garde designs and ability to challenge conventional notions of beauty, good taste, and fashionability. The thematic show featured approximately 140 examples of Kawakubo’s womenswear for Comme des Garçons dating from the early 1980s to her more recent collections, many with heads and wigs created and styled by Julien d’Ys. The galleries illustrated the designer’s revolutionary experiments in “in-betweenness”—the

The Costume Institute’s spring 2016 exhibition explored how fashion designers were reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear. With more than 170 ensembles dating from the early 20th century to the present, the exhibition addressed the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the

Jean Paul Gaultier whose early work in the 1970s earned him the nickname “enfant terrible” of fashion is unquestionably one of the most important fashion designers in recent decades. This was the first exhibition devoted to Gaultier, who draws inspiration from dance, pop-rock, cinema, television, photography, and world cultures. The exhibition highlighted Gaultier’s eclectic and vibrant sources of inspiration through a selection of more than 130 haute couture dresses and ready-to-wear pieces made between 1976

The exhibition examined the career of legendary twentieth-century Anglo-American couturier Charles James (1906–1978). It explored James’s design process, specifically his use of sculptural, scientific, and mathematical approaches to construct revolutionary ball gowns and innovative tailoring that continue to influence designers today. The retrospective featured approximately sixty-five of the most notable designs James produced over the course of his career, from the 1920s until his death in 1978. The exhibition spotlighted and analyzed the resplendent glamour

The exhibition explored the creative links between her 30 years of sartorial self-expression and its influence on the global fashion scene. The term “Fashion Underground” describes a diverse group of individuals united around a love of fashion, defined as an embodied practice of self-expression and transformation. The exhibition featured almost 100 ensembles by both cult figures and high fashion designers, who form a creative subculture that distinguishes itself from the commercial, mainstream fashion system. Yet

Black Fashion Designers examined the impact made by designers of African descent on the world of fashion. Drawing exclusively from The Museum at FIT’s permanent collection, the exhibition featured approximately 75 fashion objects that illustrated the individual styles of more than 60 designers, placing them within a wider fashion context. Objects dated from the 1950s to the present, included mid-century evening gowns by Anne Lowe and the jovial, yet controversial, work of Patrick Kelly from