Sarah Altman
received her BA in Liberal Arts from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Before attending FIT, she worked for the designer Maria Cornejo. She has held internships at The Museum at FIT, the New York State Bureau of Historical Sites Peebles Island Resource Center, and assisted the conservation team for the exhibition Balenciaga: Spanish Master. She is currently a research assistant at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jessica Barber
received her BFA in Costume Design/Technology from Florida State University’s School of Theatre, with a minor in Museum Studies. As an undergraduate, she interned in the Department of Dress and Decorative Arts at The Museum of London while studying abroad. During her time at FIT, she has held internships at The Calvin Klein Archive, Polo Ralph Lauren, and the Costume Collection at the Museum at FIT. Her qualifying paper will explore Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí’s contributions to the fields of fashion and design.

Clara Berg
received her BA from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, with a major in History and a minor in Art History. She has worked at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle and interned in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  She currently works at the FIT Library in the Special Collections and FIT Archives Department. Her qualifying paper will be about Seattle retailer John Doyle Bishop.

Rebecca Beyth
received her BA in Art Conservation and Anthropology from the University of Delaware. She has interned at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, the textile laboratory of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Kathy Francis Conservation, the Textile Conservation Workshop, and the conservation laboratory of The Museum at FIT. Currently, she is interning in the textile conservation laboratory of Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Rebecca's qualifying paper will detail the conservation of a 19th century silk handkerchief.

Audrey Chaney
received her BA in Theater from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Before attending FIT, she worked as an assistant stylist for magazine editorial and fashion print advertising. She has held internships at the men's woven textiles archive of Polo Ralph Lauren and in the digital assets department of Condé Nast. She currently works in the Costume Collection at The Museum at FIT, and also as a digital archivist for Vogue magazine. Audrey's qualifying paper will contain a description of a digital cataloging system she plans to create for the Martha Graham Archive's costume collection.

Ariele Elia
received her BA in Art History from Saint Mary's College of California. She has interned at The Museum at FIT in both the Education and Public Programs department and the Costume Collection, and has held internships with various commercial archives, including NBC Universal, Calvin Klein, and Gap. She currently works at The Museum at FIT in the Costume Collection. Her qualifying paper will explore the influence Dorothy Shaver had on the advertisements of Lord & Taylor while she was president of the store (1945-1953).

Laura McLaws Helms
holds a BFA from New York University in Photography and Imaging, with a minor in Russian Studies. For the last two years, she has been working as a research assistant for Kohle Yohannan, an independent curator. She is currently working as the assistant curator on an exhibition on beauty for the Annenberg Space for Photography. Her qualifying paper will examine the life and work of the British couturier Thea Porter.

Emma Kadar-Penner
received her BA in Cultural Studies and Religious Studies from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. While at FIT she interned at the Augusta Auction Company, contributed research to the exhibition Balenciaga: Spanish Master, and interned at the Costume Collection at The Museum at FIT. Emma is concentrating on curatorial studies and plans to contribute to the field of fashion history.

Miriam Murphy
received her BA in French Studies from Wellesley College. She has worked as a fashion editor and as a maker of fine art quilts. While a student at FIT, she has held internships at the Textile Conservation Laboratory at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, in the Textile Conservation Department at the St. Louis Art Museum, with the conservation team for the exhibition Balenciaga: Spanish Master, and the Costume Collection at the Museum at FIT.

Cassidy Percoco
received her BA in Anthropology from Binghamton University. While studying at FIT, she interned at the Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park, where she helped to install an exhibition on colonial textiles and documented a donation of historical clothing. After graduation, she intends to continue working in historic houses and small regional museums.

Tatiana Sol Verdon
received her BA in Art History and a minor in Russian Studies from Wellesley College. She has worked in the Textile Conservation department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has held internships at the American Museum of Natural History and at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Currently, she is working on an independent study at the American Museum of Natural History with a focus on materials and techniques of ethnographic objects from the Amazon.

Vivienne Westwood, 1980–89 has been organized by the graduate students in the Fashion Institute of Technology’s MA program in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice.

Sarah Altman
Jessica Barber
Clara Berg
Rebecca Beyth
Audrey Chaney
Ariele Elia
Laura McLaws Helms
Emma Kadar-Penner
Miriam Murphy
Cassidy Percoco
Tatiana Sol Verdon

Education Coordinator
Researcher
Media Relations
Researcher/Design Assistant
Curator
Project Manager
Researcher/Exhibition Historian
Curator
Exhibition Designer
Education Coordinator
Registrar

We would like to thank the many people whon helped make this exhibition possible:

Dr. Joyce F. Brown, President, Fashion Institute of Technology From the School of Graduate Studies: Acting Dean Frank T. Koe, Professor Rebecca Shea, Professor Denyse Montegut, Professor Lourdes Font, and Umilta Allsop

From the School of Graduate Studies: Acting Dean Frank T. Koe, Professor Rebecca Shea, Professor Denyse Montegut, Professor Lourdes Font, and Umilta Allsop

From the Saturday and Sunday Live Program: Michele Nagel

From the Gladys Marcus Library’s Special Collections at FIT: Karen Trivette Cannell and Juliet Jacobson

Special thanks to: Jen Pressley, Creative Director, Mirror NYC

Special thanks also to: Laura Levine, Mercedes Velgot of Video Fashion, SONY Music Entertainment, and Martin Cohn

All photographs © The Museum at FIT, New York, unless otherwise indicated

Home page shoe image:
Vivienne Westwood
Rocking Horse boot, black leather and wood
Harris Tweed collection, fall 1986, England
gift of Francisco Melendez A.K.A. François.

Website design by Simona Jankauskaite