Costume Institute

Part of the Metropolitan Museum dedicated to Costume. The director is Richard Martin, a historian of fashion and the author of The St. James Fashion Encyclopedia/A Survey of Style/1945 to Present. It started as the Museum of Costume Art, created in 1937 by the clothes collector Irene Lewisohn when she combined her personal Collection with that of Aline Bernstein. In 1946, the entire Collection passed to the Metropolitan which, over time, enriched it with many acquisitions. Today, it owns more than 50,000 pieces and accessories from the late 1600s up to the present. After reaching retirement age, Diana Vreeland left journalism and, during the 1970s, dedicated her energy and ideas to the Costume Institute, organizing exhibitions in honor of Balenciaga, French haute couture from 1919 to 1939 (Inventive Clothes), Saint-Laurent, and the French fashion from the revolution to the Empire.