The Museum at FIT to explore how dolls shaped fashion in new exhibition

A new exhibition by The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT) wants to show that dolls aren’t just toys. They are also fashion muses.

Titled Doll Dressing, the exhibition curated by Dr. Colleen Hill, senior curator of costume at MFIT, will feature more than 170 objects, from fashion dolls to full-size garments, accessories, videos and artworks. According to the museum, the idea is to highlight the influence of dolls in fashion across the years.

Balenciaga, Comme des Garçons, Maison Martin Margiela, Marc Jacobs, Patrick Kelly, Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Moschino, Anna Sui, and Undercover are some of the designers and labels included in the exhibition.

Six thematic sections structure the exhibition.

Fashion Doll Foundations covers the doll's early function as a trade tool, including an 18th-century loan from Colonial Williamsburg once used to circulate designs among dressmakers. Modes in Miniature pairs runway looks with scaled-down versions by Bode, Anna Sui and Jason Wu. Playing with Dolls examines proportion and nostalgia through Margiela's fall 1994 enlargements and Jeremy Scott's paper-doll Moschino skirts, both critiquing how fashion is made and consumed. The Dollhouse links garments to domestic space; All Dolled Up traces living-doll archetypes from the flapper to Twiggy; Broken Dolls closes with grunge and horror-inflected imagery that unsettles conventional beauty.

Doll Dressing will open on September 16 and run through January 3.