Evening Dress, summer 1923

Jeanne Lanvin (French 1867-1946)

Silk; The Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thanks to the new First Family, Americans are once again asking themselves, “What is American style?” Barak Obama asks why we are the only G20 nation that does not have a Minister of Culture, and Michelle shows the world almost daily that American design talent is both couture and off-the-rack.

It is fitting, then, that America’s two great costume collections, the Brooklyn Museum and the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, should join forces. In a recently opened exhibition, American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection, the Brooklyn Museum is showcasing eighty-five dressed mannequins and featuring a selection of hats, shoes, sketches, and other fashion-related materials that will reintroduce their collection, long in storage, to the public.

The exhibition is organized in groups representing the most important strengths of the collection. Works by the first generation of American women designers such as Bonnie Cashin, Elizabeth Hawes, and Claire McCardell are featured, as well as material created by Charles James, Norman Norell, Gilbert Adrian, and other important American designers. Also included are works by French designers who had an important influence on American women and fashion, such as Charles Frederick Worth, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeanne Lanvin, Jeanne Paquin, Madeleine Vionnet, and Christian Dior.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will celebrate the arrival of the Brooklyn Museum costume collection at the Met with a related exhibition, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity, on view May 5–August 15, 2010.

For more information visit: www.brooklynmuseum.org