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American Woman:
Fashioning a National Identity

Start Date 05 May 2010
End Date 15 August 2010
Venue Metropolitan Museum of Art
Location New York, USA
Curator Andrew Bolton
Exhibition display of four dressed mannequins against a painted backdrop

American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity is the first Costume Institute exhibition drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Met. It explores developing perceptions of the modern American woman from 1890 to 1940 and how they have affected the way American women are seen today. Focusing on archetypes of American femininity through dress, the exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sexual emancipation. “Gibson Girls,” “Bohemians,” and “Screen Sirens,” among others, helped lay the foundation for today’s American woman.