About the Museum
The Museum is best known for its innovative and award winning special exhibitions, including London Fashion, which received the first Richard Martin Award for Excellence in the Exhibition of Costume from the Costume Society of America; The Corset: Fashioning the Body, which explored the most controversial garment in the history of fashion; and Madame Grès: The Sphinx of Fashion, a monographic retrospective that examined the working methodologies and unique aesthetic contributions of a great couturier. Most recently, the Museum mounted its most ambitious and compelling exhibition in twenty years, Gothic: Dark Glamour.
On the main floor of the Museum, The Fashion and Textile History Gallery provides on-going historical context. It is the only permanent fashion history exhibition in the United States and features a rotating selection of approximately 200 historically and artistically significant objects from the Museum’s permanent collection. Every six months, the exhibition in the gallery is completely changed, although it always covers 250 years of fashion history.
Gallery FIT, also located on the main floor, is dedicated to student and faculty exhibitions, such as the Art and Design Graduating Student Exhibition every May, which also fills the lower level gallery and lobbies across campus. Students from FIT's School of Graduate Studies also collaborate with the Museum's staff to mount a professional museum exhibition once a year.
We invite you to gain an intriguing perspective on the culture of fashion through the Museum's engaging programs and publications. Our educational programming includes free lectures, panel discussions, fashion conversations, and guided tours. The Museum’s most ambitious program, the annual Fashion Symposium, features noted scholars, authors, and curators from around the world.
In addition to its three exhibition galleries, the Museum is composed of a conservation laboratory, photographic studio, workshop, more than 10,000 square feet of on-site storage space, three classrooms, and offices for 30 full-time employees. Members of the staff of The Museum at FIT have specialized skills in the conservation, documentation, exhibition, and interpretation of fashion.
