Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice
The rich history of fashion and textiles has inspired an exciting new field of study and diverse interpretations. But what makes FIT’s Master of Arts program unique is the best-in-class object-based training that turns theory and history into practice.
You’ll have access to The Museum at FIT, world-renowned for its comprehensive holdings, and the Gladys Marcus Library, with its extensive Special Collections supporting original research in fashion studies. Not to mention that you’ll be in the heart of New York City, home to a vast array of museums, galleries, and cultural institutions.
Now Available
Watch the recording from the event Fashion Over 50: Women’s Self-Images, Shopping Frustrations, and Solutions, offering insights for creating and marketing to this underserved cohort, featuring experts in fashion forecasting, image consulting, design, media, and retail. The event took place on April 11, 2025.
Program
Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice MA
Combine the study of fashion and textile history with hands-on training in the conservation, storage, and display of costumes and textiles. You’ll engage in rigorous historical research based on primary sources and you’ll learn how to identify fibers and weaves, the best practices for handling and storing costumes and textiles, and how to mount textiles and dress mannequins. You’ll also study collections management and exhibition planning and design, and you’ll apply these skills in a required internship. By the end, you’ll work with fellow students to plan and implement an exhibition in The Museum at FIT.
Our Work
Discover how our students, alumni, and faculty blend theory, practice, and creativity to bring fashion history to the world.
Sponsored by FIT's School of Graduate Studies and the Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice MA program, Fashion Over 50: Women’s Self-Images, Shopping Frustrations, and Solutions explored how to better design for and market to this underserved demographic, with insights from experts in fashion forecasting, image consulting, design, media, and retail.
Looking for a unique gift? Visit Friends NYC, a Bushwick shop co-founded by Emma Kadar-Penner, Fashion and Textile Studies MA ’14. She and her team source their eclectic finds through moodboards, research, and buying trips—from major trade shows to hidden gems in places like Mexico City and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Darnell-Jamal Lisby, Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice MA ’18, curated an exhibition of digital fashion called The Sandbox. Lisby also has two additional degrees from FIT: Art History and Museum Professions ’16, and Fashion Merchandising Management ’14.
Fashion and Textile Studies chair and dress historian Hilary Davidson delivered a historical lecture on a topic on which she literally wrote the book: fashion in the age of Jane Austen.
Hamish Bowles, international editor-at-large for Vogue, asked FIT to conserve his 90-year-old Chanel dress. Bethany Viviano ’18 verified the origin of the dress and made it exhibition-ready.
Joy Davis used the degree she earned in Fashion and Textile Studies in 2015 to open Waller Gallery, a space that represents the work of artists of color.
In their second year, students collaborate with The Museum at FIT to create an exhibition.
The Women of Harper's Bazaar examined the three women who transformed the magazine from 1936 to 1958.
At Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Michelle Finamore ’97 curated groundbreaking exhibitions such as Gender Bending Fashion.
April Calahan ’09 and Cassidy Zachary ’12 launched Dressed, a fashion history podcast that Vogue called “Arguably the gold standard of fashion podcasting.”
Impact
Conserve. Curate. Create … Studying the history of fashion and textiles opens a world of opportunity to keep artifacts and art accessible for future generations.
Beyond the Degree
Graduates find positions as curators, collections managers, historic house directors, fashion and textile historians, costume and textile conservators, and consultants to the film industry, among many others.
Reconstructing George Washington's Inaugural Suit
Philip DePaola, Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice, '26, combined his interest in Colonial Williamsburg with his passion for tailoring by recreating one of George Washington’s silk suits from 1789.
Learn From the Best
In addition to serving as a professor in FIT's Art History and Fashion Textile Studies programs, Dr. Font has also taught at New York University and Parsons School of Design. She has lectured on dress in art at the Bard Graduate Center, the Huntington Library, the Frick Collection, and the New Orleans Museum of Art, and contributed articles and essays to West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, and Fashion Theory. Among her recent publications is a chapter on the designer Vicky Tiel in The Hidden History of American Fashion and essays on 15-century fashion for FIT’s Fashion History Timeline.
Over 20 years at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June Burns Bové helped create many of the most memorable fashion exhibitions ever staged in New York, such as The Eighteenth-Century Woman, Vanity Fair, and The Belle Epoque. Burns Bové is textile conservator for Yeshiva University Museum and has been an adjunct member of the faculty since 1991, where her specialty is costume exhibition.
As an archivist, Byrd has worked on a wide range of projects for both private clients and large corporations including Condé Nast and Ralph Lauren, where she helped develop the menswear archive. She teaches graduate students and professionals at several institutions and is co-founder of the Fashion Studies Alliance.
Contact Us
Fashion and Textile Studies
Hilary Davidson
