We are making Fashion history here in Denver, many thanks to the Denver Art Museum and the very adventurous and innovative Director, Christoph Heinrich. In 2012, DAM hosted “Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective,” curated by Florence Muller. Denver was the only premier US location. Those who experienced the exhibit are still delirious from the inspiration it brought. Those of us who sew could hardly catch our breath as we walked the dramatic hallway of pinned fabric swatches, displayed floor to ceiling in color groupings with fashion sketches. Of course, around the next bend, seeing dozens of tuxedo variations, mounted on two 2-story walls top to bottom and another great room filled with ball gowns, just about did us in. Until we signed up to go again and again and again!
By chance (?), just a few weeks after the show ended, I found myself working at the DAM Gift Shop and sitting at the staff picnic when our Director, Mr. Chirstoph himself, took the empty seat next to me. He was still glowing from the success of that show. I tried not to blither my joyous praise to him for bringing fashion and art together in Denver.
And now…..he is bringing the fashion historian and curator of that show back to Denver, naming her the next Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art & Curator of Fashion, to oversee the significant collection of textiles at the museum. Florence Muller**, currently residing in Paris, will move to Denver with a particular interest in expanding acquisitions of fashion and costumes of the 20th-21st centuries.
I will keep a close eye on the new inspirations and philosophies that will surely be expressed in the DAM Textile Galleries, going forward. Stay tuned to my reports and discussions….through the eyes of a fellow stitcher and textile artisan.
In the meantime, let’s have a toast of champagne to the adventurous design sensibilities of our growing fashion community in the Rocky Mountain region (and the world!) that surely had something to do with this most fabulous appointment of fashion art expertise!
(Also to come, musings about the 2013 SPUN: Adventures in Textiles exhibit at the DAM, that featured the largest in its history, museum-wide exhibition of textile influence through the eyes of every museum curator. As staff and a volunteer at the DAM during that time, I will share my experiences…)
Hello, thanks for finding my email. I found out about your shop in Cherry Creek many years ago–living in Cheyenne and still do and was sewing–I fell in love with your shop and know I have something hiding in my “stash.” I never did get into Tactile, wanted to but have grown older so not as many trips to Denver. So happy to learn of your website, and blog, etc. You are a strong person. I was absolutely in love with your fabrics that no one else had. (I hear behind me–well why didn’t I buy more. I don’t know. Family, finances, daughter in college, illness, you name it. But now at 77 I am regrouping. YES. All or most body parts are functioning well.) Another thing, could you make this print darker because I am having trouble reading pale print. And your “letterhead” takes up half my screen so I can’t see as much. But there you are. Hope we can keep in touch.
Helen Hart