The Museum at FIT to host ‘Food & Fashion’ exhibition

The Museum at FIT (MFIT) has unveiled that it will be hosting a ‘Food & Fashion’ exhibition exploring the impact of food and food culture on fashion design.

Co-curated by Melissa Marra-Alvarez, MFIT’s curator of education and research, and Elizabeth Way, the museum’s associate curator of costume, over 80 garments and accessories will be displayed in the exhibition, with looks from the likes of Chanel, Moschino and Stella McCartney.

Much of the exhibition’s commentary centres around food themes and motifs used to explore topics of luxury, gender, consumerism, sustainability, social activism and body politics.

An introductory gallery travels from breakfast to dinner time in the form of intimate tableaus, through which it will also dive into social media as a space where food and fashion come together.

The main gallery is designed to mirror a ‘food hall’, with stalls exploring 10 themes, including haute couture/haute cuisine, dressing to dine and a feast for the eyes.

Other themes, such as ‘Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice?’ looks into the relationship between food and gender identities, with a pearl and dessert-print dress by Junya Watanabe used as an example of such a topic.

The exhibition is set to take place between September 13 to November 26, 2023, with a book and a symposium, scheduled for November 3, to be launched alongside it.