Fashion Institute of Technology - The Museum at FIT

The Museum at FIT includes important collections of clothing, textiles, and accessories. The Museum was founded in 1967. Known then as the Design Laboratory, The Museum at FIT began presenting exhibitions in the 1970s, utilizing a collection on long-term loan from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Over time, The Museum at FIT acquired its own collection, as well as thousands of textiles and other fashion-related material. In 1993, the Board of Trustees of FIT, noting the significance of the Design Laboratory’s collections and exhibitions, changed the institution's name to The Museum at FIT.

The Museum’s permanent collection now includes more than 50,000 garments and accessories from the 18th century to the present. Important designers such as Adrian, Balenciaga, Chanel, and Dior are represented. The collecting policy of the Museum focuses on aesthetically and historically significant clothing, accessories, textiles and visual materials, with emphasis on contemporary avant-garde fashion.

There are three galleries in the Museum. The lower level gallery is devoted to special exhibitions. The Fashion and Textile History Gallery on the main floor features a rotating selection of approximately 200 historically and artistically significant objects from the Museum’s permanent collection. Gallery FIT, also located on the main floor, is dedicated to student and faculty exhibitions.

Past exhibitions include: London Fashion, which received the first Richard Martin Award for Excellence in Costume Exhibitions from The Costume Society of America, The Corset: Fashioning the Body, and Gothic: Dark Glamour. Other special exhibitions have included Isabel Toledo: Fashion From the Inside Out, in which the inauguration day ensemble Isabel Toledo designed for Michelle Obama in 2008 was on display, and a look at sustainable fashion with Eco-Fashion: Going Green, an exhibition from 2010 examining the past two centuries of fashion’s good—and bad—environmental and ethical practices.

More than 100,000 people visit The Museum at FIT each year, attending exhibitions, lectures, and other events. Admission is free to the public.

Fashion historian Valerie Steele was named Director of the Museum in 2003.