Exhibitions
Designing Women: Fashion Creators and Their Interiors
Learn MoreDesigning Women: Fashion Creators and Their Interiors is the first exhibition to explore the connection between these disciplines. Approximately 70 garments from The Museum at FIT’s permanent collection are on view alongside photographic images of the most compelling interiors created for leading female fashion designers from the 1890s to the 1970s. Featured creators include Jeanne Paquin, Lucile, Jeanne Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet, Pauline Potter (later Baroness Pauline de Rothschild), and many others.
Presented chronologically, the selection of objects and images include a diverse range of spaces, from luxe couture salons and modest ateliers to private homes. Together the fashions and photographs address how and why interior decoration became such an integral part of fashion’s leading designing women.
Curator: Patricia Mears
Image: Paquin, evening cape, pink silk chiffon and metal sequins, 1897, France, museum purchase, P83.19.7
Out of Body or Out of Place?

Image: American Stalker, Kailee Finn
Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop
Learn moreThis exhibition is curated by Elena Romero, Assistant Professor of Advertising and Marketing Communications at FIT and author of Free Stylin’: How Hip Hop Changed the Fashion Industry together with Elizabeth Way, Assistant Curator at The Museum at FIT.
Image: Nike, "Air Jordan" sneakers, 1985, USA, gift of Nike, 85.196.1
Elizabeth Hawes: Along Her Own Lines is the first contemporary exhibition devoted to the gifted American clothing designer,
author, and labor activist Elizabeth Hawes (1903–1971). Organized by FIT graduate
students, the show opens at a time when Hawes is especially relevant, because her
activism and innovative philosophies correspond to the concerns of today. Hawes criticized
the exploitative, classist nature of the fashion industry and sought to revolutionize
it in her own creations, and through her writing and unionization efforts. She attempted
to dismantle the confines of gender-binary clothing and encouraged women to embrace
their unique bodies with an open-minded positivity that was ahead of its time. Hawes
also used her writing to challenge the fashion industry from the inside, calling for
people to think consciously about what they wear. Elizabeth Hawes: Along Her Own Lines celebrates these many facets of her maverick individuality and rebel spirit via four themed sections. Each section has a title taken from chapter headings in her
books. The exhibition aims to explore Hawes’ full range of radical politics, design
philosophy, and visionary expression through her clothing and designs, as well as her published and unpublished manuscripts, and
media coverage.
Image: Elizabeth Hawes, evening dress, silk brocade, c. 1936, USA, gift of Mrs. Dudley
Schoales, 69.156.6
Food & Fashion

Food & Fashion is a major exhibition exploring the relationship between these related topics. Featuring over 90 works, it includes garments, accessories, and textiles by designers such as Chanel, Delvaux, Comme des Garçons, Carla Fernandez, Stella Jean, Judith Leiber, Issey Miyake, William Morris, Moschino, Rick Owens, Charles Frederick Worth, and Jason Wu. Food and Fashion illuminates the dynamic relationship between these two mediums as expressed in fashion design.
Food & Fashion is accompanied by a book of the same title (Bloomsbury, 2023).
Image: Jeremy Scott for Moschino, chocolate bar gown, wool/silk and polyamide-nylon blend, fall 2014, Italy, museum purchase, 2019.55.1
Looking for a longer read? Find something on our list of publications!
MFIT on the Road

There’s no shame in living in the past