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Design in Motion: A New York City Ballet Fall Fashion Gala Retrospective

Start Date 05 February 2020
End Date 21 March 2020
Venue The Museum at FIT
Location New York, USA
Curator Roger Leong and Yvonne Gates
Exhibition display of dressed mannequins

The Museum at FIT (MFIT) presents highlights from the exhibition Design in Motion: A New York City Ballet Fall Fashion Gala Retrospective, which provides an up-close look at the incredible artistry of the New York City Ballet (NYCB) Costume Shop, and showcases costumes from NYCB’s Fall Fashion Galas, which were designed by some of the fashion world’s most visionary designers.

Originally presented in the Fall of 2019, in partnership with INTERSECT BY LEXUS-NYC at their location in the Meatpacking District, and curated by NYCB Director of Costumes Marc Happel, this is the first-ever collaboration between NYCB and MFIT, New York City’s only museum solely devoted to fashion.  Design in Motion uniquely complements the museums current exhibition, Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse. This is the first large-scale exhibition to illustrate the profound and enduring influences of classical ballet and its most celebrated practitioners — ballerinas — on modern high fashion, which is on view through April 18.

This exhibition of highlights from Design in Motion will feature nearly 30 original costumes, designed by 25 of the world’s leading fashion designers and spans eight years of NYCB’s Fall Fashion Gala from 2012-2019.  Designer sketches and performance videos, commissioned by INTERSECT BY LEXUS – NYC, will also be on view.

Held each September, the NYCB annual Fall Fashion Gala was conceived by NYCB’s Board Vice Chair Sarah Jessica Parker in 2012 with a gala celebration of the legendary designer Valentino. Since then, top fashion designers and acclaimed choreographers from across the globe have collaborated with Happel on the costume designs for 29 ballets.

Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse includes a series of public programs including a daylong symposium, to be held on March 6, which will explore the ways in which twentieth-century ballerinas and their glamorous, romantic costumes profoundly inspired modern fashion, and features dance historians and experts such as Happel, Laura Jacobs, Joel Lobenthal, Jane Pritchard, and Lynn Garafola.

Images courtesy of The Museum at FIT