Monday February 9th at 6:30-8:30PM is the Opening Party for Exhibition Fashioning the Modern Woman: The Art of the Couturière at the Museum at F.I.T., Seventh Avenue and 27 Street. Contact: RSVP 212-217-5958.
Exhibition open to the public: February 10 through April 10, 2004.
“Sandwiched between two world wars, between Poiret’s harem and Dior’s New Look, two women dominated the field of haute couture,” wrote photographer Cecil Beaton. According to Beaton, the two queens of Paris fashion were Coco Chanel and her arch rival Elsa Schiaparelli. Chanel is probably the most important fashion designer of the twentieth century, and certainly the most famous woman in a field still dominated by men. Yet she and Schiaparelli were neither the first nor the only great women designers — as this exhibition will show. In reality, a veritable “regiment of women” dominated the world of fashion in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition will feature approximately 100 dresses by courturieres such as Augusta Bernard, Louise Boulanger, the Callot Sisters, Coco Chanel, Alix Gres, Jeanne Lanvin, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Madeleine Vionnet, among others. The exhibition is curated by Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at FIT, with the costume department.
A related two-day symposium will be held February 20 – 21, 2004. For more information, email: museuminfo@fitnyc.edu or go to or www.fitnyc.edu/museum
