Conférence avec Valerie Steele au Musée national du costume de Lisbonne/Museu Nacional do Traje, le 26 Nov 2015, 17h pic.twitter.com/FjFWMHFeZm

— Histoire de la mode (@histoiresdemode) November 6, 2015

On October 15, 2015 at the Hillwood Estate, Museum, & Gardens in Washington, DC, I will discuss women and 20th-century fashion, focusing on the great fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel in the context of her profession, and compared to other female fashion designers of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Madeleine Vionnet. This was the golden age of the couturière, when female designers dominated Paris fashion. Yet when Chanel came back into business in the 1950s, the world of fashion had changed, and she faced mostly male rivals, such as Christian Dior, Cristobal Balenciaga, and Jacques Fath. What is the situation of female fashion designers today? Have they regained parity with men?

Learn more about this event here.

On October 2, from 6–7 pm, I will be signing copies of my newest book, Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch at the Designers & Books Fair 2015 being held at the Fashion Institute of Technology. When you purchase the book, you will be entered into a drawing to win a tour of the exhibition given by me! Up to 25 of the winner’s friends can come on the tour, which must be arranged through the director’s office at The Museum at FIT. Fashion Underground is on view at MFIT from September 18 – December 5, 2015.

For full details, visit Designers & Books 2015. For more information about the fair, visit the Designers & Books website.

Glamour, sparkle, dropped waistlines, cloche hats, flappers, and boaters…alcohol was prohibited, yet in 1920s America, the evolution of fashion advanced in daring strides. From the everyday to the flamboyant, fashion during the “Roaring 20s” broke the rules. On September 30, the National Archives Foundation in Washington DC presents a discussion moderated by Tim Gunn, star of Project Runway, along with panelists Valerie Steele and John Dunn, fashion director for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. A fashion show exploring this exciting period in American fashion history will follow the discussion. This event is currently sold out, but a waiting list is available to sign up for. Learn more here.

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire” by American artist Russell Patterson (1893-1977), 1920s. Flickr, via the Library of Congress.

I am the keynote speaker at this year’s  Joanne B. Eicher Symposium on Fashion, Sex & Power — Friday, September 11, 2015 at the University of Minnesota (College of Design). The symposium will address questions such as: What are the relationships between power, sex, and fashion across centuries and cultures? How does power in the 21st century relate to sex and fashion? How are men’s roles changing and what affect does it have on their power and masculinity? What impact does role-playing have on young girls and boys? How have these changing roles been portrayed in the media? Presenters from South Africa, Nigeria, Italy, UK, Turkey, India, Korea, China, the US, and Canada will explore these topics and more through forty papers plus two free public lectures.

Learn more about this event here.

Fashion in history is a topic which has come of age in recent years, as scholars have turned to addressing what is chic and what is style over the ages and across different cultures. The history of fashion, and the role of fashion in history, is not just confined to the study of dress and costume, but encompasses design and innovation, taste and zeitgeist, treats as its subjects both people and objects, and crosses over into related disciplines such as the history of art and architecture, consumption, retailing and technology.

Dr. Valerie Steele will be a plenary speaker at this 2 day conference.
Learn more here.

Meet me in San Antonio on May 28th. I’m receiving the the Millia Davenport Publication Award for A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk from the Costume Society of America at their annual symposium.

Published in conjunction with the Museum at FIT exhibition of the same name, the book includes seven essays by some of the world’s most acclaimed scholars of gay history and fashion, presenting a provocative look at the history of fashion through a queer lens. It examines high fashion as a site of gay cultural production and explores the aesthetic sensibilities and unconventional dress of LGBTQ people to demonstrate the centrality of gay culture in the creation of modern fashion.