see http://www.imamuseum.org/exhibitions/breakingthemode/node/109node/109 for additional information and programs.
 

IMA Location: 4000 Michigan Road , Indianapolis , IN 46208-3326

May 21 through November 8, 2008 

September 5 through February 21, 2009

Arbiters of Style: Women at the Forefront of Fashion

Arbiters of Style: Women at the Forefront of Fashion celebrates an array of female creators, promoters and clientele who have shaped the course of fashion. This fashion exhibition features work by female designers as well as clothing and accessories worn by female department store executives, influential clients, magazine editors, muses and models. Women have played a significant role in the history of fashion and they continue to be a driving force as tastemakers and industry leaders.

Featuring over seventy looks from the Museum's permanent collection, Arbiters of Style includes designs by Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, Sonia Delaunay, Jeanne Lanvin, and Claire McCardell and features clothing worn by influential women such as Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, photographer Louise Dahl Wolf, and actresses Lauren Bacall and Rosalind Russell. The historical importance of these women and many others will be revealed in the display of garments from the eighteenth century to the present.

Arbiters of Style: Women at the Forefront of Fashion is organized by Molly Sorkin and Colleen Hill, along with Fred Dennis, Clare Sauro, Harumi Hotta and Lynn Weidner.

Gothic: Dark Glamour

"Gothic" is an epithet that evokes images of death, destruction, and decay. Not simply a word that describes something, such as a Gothic cathedral, it is almost always a term of abuse that implies the dark, barbarous, and gloomy. Such negative connotations have made the gothic an ideal symbol of rebellion for a wide range of cultural outsiders. From its origins in 18th century gothic literature of terror to its contemporary manifestations in vampire literature and cinema, the gothic has embraced the powers of horror and the erotic macabre. Throughout its history, fashion has been central to our vision of the gothic. The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) will present Gothic: Dark Glamour, the first exhibition devoted to the gothic in fashion, from September 5, 2008 through February 21, 2009.
 

Museum at FIT Seventh Avenue at 27th Street,New York, NY 10001

212~217~4547  **  212~217~5973 fax

www.fitnyc.edu/museum

Reveal Or Conceal?

A provocative exhibition that explores historical perceptions of modesty and eroticism in women's clothing. Through a selection of remarkable garments, accessories, and photographs from the McCord's collection, discover how changes in fashion trends and cultural standards over the last two centuries have influenced women's decisions to reveal or conceal their bodies.

Musee McCord Museum, Montreal

www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/expositions/expositionsXSL.php?lang=1&expoId=47&page=accueil

Love Yves Saint Laurent

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

http://www.mmfa.qc.ca/en/index.html

Chic Chicago: Couture Treasures from the Chicago History Museum

This exihibit will provide the rare opportunity to see more than 50 of the greatest couture treasures from the Museum's collection. The exhibition will feature Gilded Age gowns by Worth and Pingat as well as modern masterpieces by Chanel and Versace. The exhibition is a testimony to Chicago women of style who supported innovative fashion designers in the hope of claiming Chicago as chic. Fashion, they believed, was the most dramatic way to re-imagine Chicago as a sophisticated and cultured city. By purchasing and wearing couture fashion, these women aspired to overcome the city's image as a gritty, industrial, working-class metropolis and its negative reputations as hog butcher to the world, gangland, and the second city. The exhibition will display some of the most significant pieces that helped shape fashion history.