Ballerina: Fashion's Modern Muse Symposium

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When: Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 10:00am - 5:00pm

Where: Museum at FIT
Seventh Ave. at 27th St.

212-217-4558
Price: Free

Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse will be The Museum at FIT’s 23rd academic symposium. The one-day event will explore the ways in which twentieth-century ballerinas and their glamorous, romantic costumes profoundly inspired modern fashion.

Speakers will include Lynn Garafola, professor emeritus of Columbia University; Laura Jacobs, dance and fashion critic; Jane Pritchard, curator of dance at the Victoria and Albert Museum; and Patricia Mears, deputy director of MFIT and curator of Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse.

Friday, March 6, 2020

10 am-1 pm

Dr. Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at FIT, Welcoming remarks

Patricia Mears, “Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse”

Laura Jacobs, “Crown Jewels: Reflections on the Ballerina”

Caitlyn Lehmann, “Turbans, Tulle and Taglioni’s Influence on Fashion, 1830–45”

Jane Pritchard, “Sylphs, Snowflakes and Soldiers: Fashionable Costumes for the Ballet Dancer in the Late Nineteenth Century”

Lynn Garafola, “Anna Pavlova: A Ballerina of Taste”

1-2:30 pm

Lunch break

2:30 pm-5 pm

Rosemary Harden, “Enter the Ballerina: Margot Fonteyn and Fashion, 1930s–1960s”

Russ Tallchief, “The Five Moons: Oklahoma’s Native American Ballerinas”

Joel Lobenthal, “Dryads of West 55th Street”

Theresa Ruth Howard, “Dark Muse: Balanchine and Blackness”

Marc Happel, “Bridging the Gap: Navigating the Worlds of Fashion and Ballet Costume Design”



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