September Goings on at The Museum at FIT

THE LATEST NEWS PUBLIC PROGRAMS Fashion Culture: Special Programs CURRENT EXHIBITION Eco-Fashion: Going Green UPCOMING EXHIBITION Japan Fashion Now MUSEUM PUBLICATION Japan Fashion Now MUSEUM INFORMATION

THE LATEST NEWS Karl Lagerfeld, courtesy of Chanel **Couture Council to Honor Karl Lagerfeld** “In recognition of his unparalleled role as a creative force in the world of fashion," explains Dr. Valerie Steele, "we have chosen to bestow on Karl Lagerfeld, The Couture Council Fashion Visionary Award." The Couture Council of The Museum at FIT will present this unique award, created exclusively for Karl Lagerfeld, at a luncheon on September 10, at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Proceeds from this sold out event benefit The Museum at FIT. To read more about this event, visit our website here. **MFIT "in the round" ** Keep an eye out for our latest digital project, in which MFIT has partnered with Leica Camera AG andSynthescape Art Imaging to digitize highlights from our forthcoming exhibition, Japan Fashion Now. Launching in September, the project will feature high-resolution 360° views of selected works from the show. **Smithsonian Magazine's Museum Day** On Saturday, September 25, 2010, The Museum at FIT will participate in the fifth annual Museum Day, presented by Smithsonian magazine. A celebration of culture, learning, and the dissemination of knowledge, Smithsonian’s Museum Day reflects the spirit of the magazine and provides free admission toSmithsonian magazine readers and Smithsonian.com visitors at museums and cultural institutions nationwide. While MFIT is ALWAYS FREE, we are happy to be included in a nationwide event that celebrates museums and encourages museum visitation. **Fashion's Night Out** is Friday, September 10th, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Don't miss exciting, one-of-a-kind events in hundreds of stores open after-hours to the public all around the city. Get the scoop on what's happening where by visiting www.fashionsnightout.com or by following FNO's Twitter feed @fnonyc.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS Fashion Culture: Special Programs Reservations are required. Space is limited.  To RSVP for a program, Register Online Here Or call 212.217.4585 or email museuminfo@fitnyc.edu Fashion Culture programs and events are free unless otherwise indicated, and are organized by The Museum at FIT to provide insightful and intriguing perspectives on the culture of fashion. Talk and Tour Eco-Fashion: Going Green Wednesday, September 22, 10:30 am  Fashion and Textile History Gallery, MFIT Co-curator Jennifer Farley will lead a tour of Eco-Fashion: Going Green, an exhibition that surveys 250 years of fashion’s complex relationship with the environment. The show features brands such as Stella McCartney, Bodkin, EDUN, FIN, Martin Margiela, and NOIR. Workshop A Tour De Force Thursday, September 30, 12:30 pm MFIT Lobby Join contemporary artist Sebastian Romo for a hands-on workshop that investigates how strategies of contemporary art are used in the conceptualization and understanding of fashion. The workshop focuses particularly on destruction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. Participants will experiment with paper, photography, and drawing in order to achieve an enhanced understanding of how experimental processes based on deconstructive theories can be applied to fashion in order to create the basic structure for a new collection. Romo’s work has been displayed at museums such as ICA Boston and Philadelphia, the Hammer Museum in L.A., and the Martin GropiusBau in Berlin. He has made public art projects for the cities of Amsterdam and New York. This lecture is presented in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York. Programs in October, November and December are listed on the MFIT website.

CURRENT EXHIBITION Eco-Fashion: Going Green FIN, marble print dress in organic bamboo satin, Fall 2010, Norway. Gift of Per Sivertsen of FIN. - Photograph by Eileen Costa ©MFIT. May 25 - November 26, 2010 The Museum at FIT presents Eco-Fashion: Going Green, an exhibition exploring the evolution of the fashion industry’s multifaceted and complex relationship with the environment. By examining the past two centuries of fashion’s good—and bad—environmental and ethical practices, Eco-Fashion: Going Green provides historical context for today’s eco-fashion movement. Presented chronologically and featuring more than 100 garments, accessories, and textiles, the exhibition uses contemporary methods for “going green” as a framework to study the past. The objects displayed touch upon at least one of six major themes: the re-purposing and recycling of materials, fiber origins, textile dyeing and production, quality of craftsmanship, labor practices, and the treatment of animals. Curated by Jennifer Farley and Colleen Hill, the exhibition features some of the finest examples of 21st-century sustainable fashions by current, cutting-edge labels, including Alabama Chanin, Edun, FIN, and NOIR. Read more here.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION Japan Fashion Now h.NAOTO Autumn/Winter 2008. Photograph courtesy of h.NAOTO September 17, 2010 - January 8, 2011 Japan Fashion Now will explore how Japanese fashion has evolved in recent years. Japanese fashion today embraces not only the cerebral, avant-garde looks associated with the first wave of Japanese design in the 1980s, but also a range of subcultural and youth-oriented styles, such as the Elegant Gothic Lolita style and the Cosplay phenomenon. In addition, Japanese fashion often has a strong component of realism and an obsessive interest in perfecting classic styles. Contemporary Japanese fashion is significant globally precisely because it mixes elements of the avant-garde (pushing the aesthetic envelope at the level of “high” art) and elements of realism (such as high-tech fabrics or an obsession with the perfect pair of jeans) with popular or subcultural elements, especially those associated with electronic manifestations, such as animated cartoons and videogames. Generous support for Japan Fashion Now has been provided by Yagi Tsugho Limited. Additional support has been provided by the Couture Council of MFIT, Sokenbicha, and the Consulate General of Japan in New York. Read more here.

MUSEUM PUBLICATION Japan Fashion Now Book Cover Scholars have long acknowledged the significance of the Japanese “fashion revolution” of the 1980s, when avant-garde designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons introduced a radically new conception of fashion. But what has happened in the years since then? Lavishly illustrated, Japan Fashion Now will be the first book to explore how Japanese fashion has evolved in recent years. During this time, Japanese pop culture has swept the world, as young people everywhere read manga, watch anime, and play video games. Japan has had a profound impact on global culture, often via new media. With essays by Valerie Steele (“Is Japan Still the Future?”), Patricia Mears (“Fashion Revolution”), Hiroshi Narumi (“Japanese Street Style”), and Yuniya Kawamura (“Japanese Fashion Subcultures”), Japan Fashion Now explores how the world of fashion has been transformed by contemporary Japanese visual culture. Valerie Steele is chief curator and director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Patricia Mears is deputy director of The Museum at FIT. Yuniya Kawamura is associate professor of sociology at FIT. Hiroshi Narumi is associate professor at the Kyoto University of Art and Design..  Yale University Press

MUSEUM INFORMATION The Museum at FIT is dedicated to advancing knowledge of fashion through exhibitions, programs and publications. The Museum is open to the public free of charge,Tuesday - Friday, Noon - 8pm, and Saturday 10 am - 5pm. Located on the Southwest corner of Seventh Avenue at 27th Street in New York City, the museum can be reached by subway: 1, C, E, F, M, N, or R, and by bus: M20 and M23. Penn Station is close by at 31st Street for the Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit, and Amtrak. For more information, be sure to visit our website at www.fitnyc.edu/museum or phone our information line at 212-217-4558