Fashion Inspiration & Research

The exhibition displayed the bold vision of one of today’s most original fashion designers with 45 exquisite outfits from 15 collections. Van Herpen works at the nexus of fashion, design, technology, and science. With a dynamic and path-breaking body of work, she is widely heralded as a pioneering new voice in fashion. She is known for her willingness to experiment—exploring new fabrics created manipulating iron filings in resin, incorporating unexpected materials ranging from umbrella tines

The exhibition, organized by Patricia Mears, examined high fashion inspired by clothing made for survival in the most inhospitable environments on earth and beyond. Today’s luxurious parkas trace their roots to the “heroic era” of polar navigation (1890 to 1922), while down-filled “puffer” coats and backpacks were originally perfected for extreme mountain climbing in the mid-twentieth century. Experimental, high tech materials made for exploration to otherworldly realms — such as neoprene (deep sea) and Mylar

The exhibition — curated by Emma McClendon — explored the complex history of the “perfect” body in fashion. This exhibition examined the broader relationship between the fashion industry and body politics from the nineteenth century to the present. 50 objects from the collection of The Museum at FIT were on view, alongside clippings, photographs, and videos from the popular press. The exhibition elucidated the impact the fashion industry has had on how people have viewed and treated

The exhibition was located at both The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters locations and featured a dialogue between fashion and medieval art from The Met collection to examine fashion’s ongoing engagement with the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism. Serving as the cornerstone of the exhibition, papal robes and accessories from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, many of which have never been seen outside The Vatican, were on view in the Anna Wintour Costume

Through more than 250 objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present, the exhibition explored the origins of camp’s exuberant aesthetic. Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’” provided the framework for the exhibition, which examined how the elements of irony, humor, parody, pastiche, artifice, theatricality, and exaggeration are expressed in fashion.

The exhibition surveyed more than 70 years of the House of Dior’s legacy, featuring a dynamic selection of almost 200 haute couture dresses, as well as accessories, photographs, original sketches, runway videos, and other archival material. This exhibition profiled both Dior himself and subsequent artistic directors, including Yves Saint Laurent (1958–1960), Marc Bohan (1961–1989), Gianfranco Ferré (1989–1996), John Galliano (1997–2011), Raf Simons (2012–2015), and Maria Grazia Chiuri (2016–present), all of whom have carried Dior’s vision