Past Exhibitions 2025-2026

Beyond Utility
Museum Lobby
February 25 – March 22, 2026

Beyond Utility, curated by graduate students in the Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice MA program in collaboration with The Museum at FIT, examined the perpetual transformation of utilitarian design within and beyond the fashion system. Throughout history, fashion and anti-fashion groups have adopted and abstracted clothing born out of necessity, continuously negotiating between form and function. Showcasing never-before-displayed objects from the MFIT Study Collection and the FTS Graduate Study Collection, the exhibition paired utility dress archetypes with their later reinterpretations, featuring designs from Issey Miyake, BOY London, Bonnie Cashin, Junya Watanabe, Burberry, Moschino, and more. The case studies spanned three sections, unbound by chronology: "Workwear: Beyond Labor," "Military: Beyond Combat," and "Craft: Beyond Domesticity," exploring the interplay between materials, aesthetics, and cultural connotations. By investigating objects that have unique biographies and lived-experiences, Beyond Utility revealed how utility dress can shape ideas of style, from factories and battlefields to runways and city streets.

Image: Yvonne Schichtel, Trench Dress, spring 2021. Photo courtesy of designer.

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Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis
Special Exhibitions Gallery
September 10, 2025 – January 4, 2026

Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis was the first exhibition to explore the complex relationship between fashion and psychoanalysis. Curated by Dr. Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at FIT, the exhibition featured approximately 100 looks by designers such as Alexander McQueen, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gianni and Donatella Versace, John Galliano for Christian Dior Haute Couture, Rick Owens, Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood, and many more. Described by Suzy Menkes as "the Freud of Fashion," Steele has spent more than five years working on this exhibition and the accompanying book, which draws on the evolution of psychoanalytic ideas about sexuality and the unconscious, with sections devoted to themes such as the mirror stage, the skin ego, desire, and sexual difference.

Image: Photograph by Elizaveta Porodina of artist Alisa Gorshenina. Courtesy of photographer.

Learn more about the exhibition

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All Things Considered
Goodman Lobby
November 22, 2025 – January 4, 2026

The Photography and Related Media BFA junior exhibition, All Things Considered, showcased photo-based installations from 63 students that range from the documentation of intimate life to directed staged narrative tableaus, to visual representations of conceptual ideas. This scope of work reflected contemporary trends in fine art photography, showcasing individual creative vision, while illuminating the time and place we all inhabit.

All Things Considered was a student-led exhibition, produced and created in the Photographic Concepts and Exhibition course, where throughout the semester students produce photographs to push their technical and creative abilities, while also working collaboratively in committees to bring this show to life.

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The Age of CI: The Rise of Creative Intelligence in an AI-Driven World
Goodman Lobby
October 18 – November 9, 2025

Human creativity is on the cusp of a revolution. In this new era, design transcends aesthetics and style, becoming a strategic practice grounded in empathy and insightful problem framing. The creatives of the future will be those who can envision groundbreaking solutions while harnessing AI to remove production barriers and achieve transformative results.

This exhibition explored a future where AI is not a replacement for human creativity but its ultimate amplifier. By surpassing the limits of individual skills and production speed, AI enables us to concentrate on what truly sets us apart: Creative Intelligence (CI).

Welcome to the Age of CI.

@newcreatives.info

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