Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue and the artistic director of Condé Nast will have a new line in her résumé – the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that its Costume Institute will be designated as the Anna Wintour Costume Center.
Founded in 1937 as The Museum of Costume Art, it was incorporated and renamed as The Costume Institute and became a part of the Metropolitan Museum in 1946. It now contains a collection of fashionable dress and regional costumes from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, dating from the 17th century to the present.
Anna Wintour has been a Met trustee since 1999, and since 1995 she has presided over 15 benefits there, turning into a must-attend fund-raising event that attracts fashion designers, actors and celebrities from around the world. Over the past 20 years she was able to raise over $125 million to the Costume Institute, most famously through her annual the Met Gala, a top notch fundraising event.
The Anna Wintour Costume Center will include The Costume Institute’s 4,200-square-foot main showcase – the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery – which features a flexible design that lends itself to frequent transformation, a zonal sound system, innovative projection technology, and wireless connectivity. The Center also includes the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery, which will orient visitors to The Costume Institute’s exhibitions and holdings; a state-of-the-art costume conservation laboratory; an expanded study/storage facility that will house the combined holdings of the Met and the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection; and The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, one of the world’s foremost fashion libraries.
Recently, the Met’s Costume Institute has got worldwide attention and media coverage being a home to such exhibits as “Punk: Chaos to Couture” (2013) and 2011’s blockbuster Alexander McQueen retrospective.
Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art
