Exclusive Tour & Tea of "Fashioning San Francisco: A Century Of Style"

05/07/2024 Tuesday, 1:30 pm–4:30 pm PST

The Board of Directors of the Textile Arts Council of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco is pleased to invite you to “Fashioning San Francisco: A Century Of Style”

Curator-in-Charge Laura Camerlengo and Textile Conservation Director Beth Szuhay will take you for a private tour deep inside this highly lauded exhibition. They'll guide you through the collection's history, the years of planning, and the overall sense of excitement and purpose surrounding an effort of this scope.

Following this limited attendance tour, please join Laura and Beth in the museum cafe for "Sweets and Tea" and an opportunity to chat with the entire retinue of departmental associates who contributed to this exhibition.

Attire: Please wear something that makes YOU feel wonderful.

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"Beth and I look forward to having you with us for this special tour, where we will explore the Fashioning San Francisco exhibition and share behind-the-scenes stories of its making. Afterwards, guests will join us and members of the Textiles Curatorial and Conservation teams for tea and treats, during which we will answer questions about our work, the collection, and the Museums. It promises to be an outstanding event! Be sure to contribute to the sartorial splendor by wearing your own favorite outfit. I look forward to seeing you there.

With kind regards,

Laura"

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Purchase Tickets

Laura L. Camerlengo is curator in charge of costume and textile arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and curator of the exhibition Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style. Since 2010, Camerlengo has organized, co-organized, and presented numerous costume and textiles exhibitions for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with a focus on sharing the stories of women and artists of color. Her publications include The Miser’s Purse (2013), Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love (co-authored by Dilys E. Blum, 2021), and Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style (2024), as well as contributions to West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, Dress: The Journal of the Costume Society of America, and Objective: Journal of the History of Design and Curatorial Studies. She holds a master of arts degree in the history of decorative arts and design from Parsons, the New School for Design/Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.

Beth Szuhay is the Head of Textile Conservation of Costume and Textile Arts for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. After receiving her MS from the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation in 2001, Beth began as an Assistant Conservator of Costume and Textile Arts for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Her promotion to Associate Conservator in 2005 coincided with the opening of the new de Young. In 2011, Beth formed Chrysalis Art Conservation to provide conservation services for institutions that do not have a conservation staff, but returned to FAMSF in 2022. She is involved in the Textile Conservation community as a member of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC), having served as Chair for the Textile Specialty Group in 2021, and is especially proud of her seven years serving on the Board of Directors for the North American Textile Conservation Conference (NATCC).

Textile Department Associates

Anne Getts, Conservator, Costume & Textile Arts

Laura Garcia Vedrenne, Associate Textile Conservator

Talia Spielholz, Assistant Curator, Costume and Textile Arts

About the Exhibit

Explore the history of San Francisco through fashion. Featuring one of the most iconic collections of 20th- and 21st-century women’s clothing in the United States, this exhibition includes 100 collection highlights, along with local loans of high fashion and haute couture. The first major presentation of our costume collection in over 35 years, it showcases designs from French couturiers, Japanese avant-garde designers, and other pillars of the fashion industry, including Christian Dior, Alexander McQueen, Christopher John Rogers, Comme des Garçons, and Rodarte. The designs on view, many never shown before, reflect San Francisco’s long-standing tradition of self-expression through fashion.

In San Francisco — a city with a vibrant history of embracing radical clothing styles — fashion mavericks have perennially supported boundary-pushing designers. These advocates include retailers, such as Susan Foslien, Sherri McMullen, or the Ospital family of Modern Appealing Clothing (MAC); individuals like Georgette “Dodie” Rosekrans, who famously financed John Galliano’s early collections; and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which preserve designers’ legacies in their permanent collection. Today, the Museums’ collection boasts avant-garde creations by the Japanese fashion designers Rei Kawakubo, Kei Ninomiya, Junya Watanabe, and Yohji Yamamoto as well as European innovators like Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Alexander McQueen.

As this is a donation to support the Textile Department of FAMSF, please know that these tickets are non-refundable.

All proceeds from this event support the Costume and Textile Arts Textile Conservation Departments of FAMSF. Your patronage helps support future fashion exhibitions at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Image Credit

Installation view of Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style, de Young, San Francisco, 2024. Photograph by Gary Sexton, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.