Organizer’s image.
The directors of two of the most important fashion museums in the world, the Museum at F.I.T. in New York, and the MoMu in Antwerp will be visiting Bilbao for the first time, coinciding with the 50s French fashion exhibition at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.
Hosted by Bilbao International Art & Fashion, Valerie Steele, one of the world’s leading experts in fashion history, and current director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (New York), will visit Bilbao for the first time along with other fashion experts to reflect on the future of the fashion industry in the light of the greatest couturiers of the 50s, on the occasion of the spectacular display of French fashion from the 50s at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. The Forum will also count with Kaat Debo, director of the Mode Museum in Antwerp, Jan Miller, fashion management and business development expert and Miren Arzalluz, fashion historian and associate curator of the exhibition, as speakers.
The 2nd Bilbao International Art & Fashion Forum, to be held next May 5, 2015, takes the spectacular exhibition “The Fifties. Fashion in France 1947-1957”, as its starting point. Brought from the Palais Galliera ( Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris) thanks to an exceptional collaboration between the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum and Bilbao International Art & Fashion, this exhibition features for the first time outside France over 100 remarkable pieces, pertaining to masters such as Dior, Balenciaga, Chanel, Fath or Givenchy.
Originally staged from July to November 2014 in Paris, this exhibition features models, accessories as well as other exceptional pieces largely drawn from the French institution’s own collection, which counts with Ms. Miren Arzalluz, renowned local fashion historian, as associate curator. Pieces created by the most famous couturiers will be shown alongside with others now forgotten such as Jean Dessès, Madeleine Vramant or Lola Prusac, offering a complete journey through the evolution of the female figure during the decade 1947-1957, from the birth of the so called ‘New Look’ to the death of Christian Dior and the arrival of Yves Saint Laurent.
The future of the fashion industry
The organizers of the 2nd Bilbao International Art & Fashion Forum consider that we are living times of exciting change in the fashion industry and believe it is important to reflect on it. The forum aims to share the vision of a group of renowned fashion experts about the future of the fashion industry and the new ways of understanding and creating fashion today, taking the 50s and its “New Look” paradigmatic moment as a starting point for the debate.
The 2nd Bilbao International Art & Fashion Forum will count with Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York as keynote speaker. Founded in 1969, The Museum at the F.I.T. (Fashion Institute of Technology) is one of the few museums in the world specializing in fashion. The permanent collection includes about 50,000 garments and accessories from the eighteenth century to the present, from designers like Balenciaga, Chanel or Dior.
The director of the MoMu in Antwerp, Kaat Debo will be another of the conference’s speakers. The Antwerp ModeMuseum, next to the Flanders Fashion Institute, owns a collection of over 25,000 items, with both a historical and modern perspective. The oldest pieces dating from the sixteenth century, the museum also houses contemporary designers like Dries Van Noten, Yohji Yamamoto, Bernhard Willhelm or Ann Demeulemeester.
