Women Dressing Women

Exhibition at the MET, New York, 7 December 2023 - 10 March 2024

Exploring the lasting impact of fashions created by and for women, this exhibition catalogue traces the historical and conceptual lineage of more than 70 female designers - from unidentified seamstresses in eighteenth-century France to the contemporary designers driving fashion today.

Essays on notions of anonymity, visibility, agency and absence/omission reveal the impact of women in fashion, highlighting famous designers and forgotten stories. The book includes fashion houses such as Mad Carpentier, Elsa Schiaparelli and Madeleine Vionnet, American designers such as Ann Lowe, Claire McCardell and Isabel Toledo, and contemporary designers including Rei Kawakubo, Anifa Mvuemba, Simone Rocha and Iris van Herpen.

New photographs, created especially for this volume, use light, shadow and reflection to link the garments to the four themes of the essays, which place the works in a wider social context, and a fold-out genealogical chart traces the links between the designers featured.