
In Pursuit Of Fashion
The Met Museum's Costume Institute's autumn 2019 exhibition, In Pursuit of Fashion: The Sandy Schreier Collection, will feature promised gifts from Sandy Schreier, a pioneering collector who over the course of more than half a century assembled one of the finest private fashion collections in the United States. On view from November 2019, through May 2020, the show will explore how Schreier amassed a trove of 20th-century French and American couture and ready-to-wear, not as a wardrobe, but as an appreciation of a form of creative expression.
The exhibition features approximately 80 of the 165 promised gifts, selected from Schreier's extensive collection by Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute; and Jessica Regan, Associate Curator. On view in The Costume Institute's Anna Wintour Costume Center galleries, the show will feature womenswear, accessories, and fashion illustrations dating from a 1908 Pochoir album, Les Robes de Paul Poiret, developed in collaboration with Paul Iribe, to a 2004 Phillip Treacy butterfly hat.
Ms. Schreier's interest in fashion began in childhood, when she accompanied her father to work at Russeks, the Detroit branch of the New York speciality store, where she met some of the city's most fashionable women. Seeing Ms. Schreier's enthusiasm for dress, these women began gifting her pieces of their couture, which she preserved rather than wore.
Ms. Schreier collected iconic works by designers long recognised for their leading roles in shaping the direction of fashion, as well as innovative couturiers often underrepresented in museum collections, such Boué Soeurs, Madeleine & Madeleine, and Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix.
27 November 2019 - 17 May 2020, The Met Fifth Avenue, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028 USA
Read more about 20th century couture in Amanda Carr's article Making The Connection in the Migration issue. Subscribe to Selvedge here.