Valerie Steele
Director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT
Valerie Steele is an American fashion historian and the director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She founded the academic journal Fashion Theory and has helped establish fashion as a serious subject of scholarly and museum study.
| Role | Director and chief curator, The Museum at FIT |
|---|---|
| Director since | 2003 (chief curator since 1997) |
| Founded | Fashion Theory journal (1997) |
| Exhibitions | More than 25 |
| Nationality | American |
Who is Valerie Steele?
Valerie Steele is one of the best known fashion historians and curators in the world. She has been director of The Museum at FIT since 2003 and its chief curator since 1997. The Washington Post once described her as one of fashion's brainiest women, and she has been profiled by Forbes and The New York Times.
Career
Steele built her reputation as a scholar who treats dress as a lens on culture, gender, power and the body. In 1997 she founded Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture, which she continues to edit and which became a key publication for the academic study of fashion. She also edited the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion.
Her books include:
- Women of Fashion: Twentieth Century Designers (1991)
- Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power (1996)
- Paris Fashion: A Cultural History (1988)
- The Corset: A Cultural History (2001)
- Gothic: Dark Glamour (2008)
At the museum she has curated more than 25 exhibitions, including Gothic: Dark Glamour, The Corset: Fashioning the Body, Love and War: The Weaponized Woman and Femme Fatale: Fashion in Fin de Siècle Paris.
Influence on the fashion business
The Museum at FIT was founded in 1969 and holds some 50,000 garments and accessories from the 18th century to the present, with an emphasis on aesthetically and historically significant clothing and contemporary avant garde fashion. Because it sits within the Fashion Institute of Technology, its collection and exhibitions are used directly by students who go on to work as designers, merchandisers and executives. Steele's exhibitions and publications give the industry a historical vocabulary for understanding silhouettes, subcultures and the cultural meaning of brands.
She is also a frequent lecturer and media commentator, and has appeared on television programmes including The Oprah Winfrey Show and the PBS special The Way We Wear, helping to bring fashion history to a broad audience.
Why it matters
Fashion businesses increasingly draw on archives, heritage and cultural storytelling. Steele's work has helped legitimise fashion as a field of serious research, and her museum is one of the few in the world dedicated entirely to fashion. For designers, brand strategists and educators, her scholarship offers a rigorous account of how clothing reflects and shapes society.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Valerie Steele?
Valerie Steele is an American fashion historian and the director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT in New York. She founded the journal Fashion Theory and has written widely on fashion history and culture.
What is Valerie Steele known for?
She is known for exhibitions such as Gothic: Dark Glamour and The Corset: Fashioning the Body, and for books including The Corset: A Cultural History. Her work helped establish fashion as a recognised academic and museum discipline.