How to become a fashion curator Interview with Valerie Steele

In the documentary Catwalk (1994), which follows the model Christy Turlington throughout a Fashion Month, when André Leon Talley is asked whether fashion is art, the journalist responds bluntly: «Absolutely not. Fashion is hard work, it's not glamorous.» The debate over whether clothing can be considered worthy of being displayed in a museum for admiration has polarised art historians for decades. However, today, the public at large recognises the true artistic value in the most majestic creations preserved in costume and fashion museums or even in the archives of collectors, to the extent that spaces like the V&A in London, which holds the world's largest fashion collection, and the MET in New York are packed with a real sense of «hunger for fashion.» This is how Valerie Steele, a pioneer in the study of costume history, curator, and director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, describes it, who throughout her career has observed and influenced the changes in the role of the fashion curator. While entering the field may already seem like a complicated challenge, becoming a fashion curator is even more daunting for those without the right connections or support, compounded by both the exclusivity of the art world and that which the fashion industry tries to maintain. To the question "How does one become a fashion curator?" Valerie Steele responds, in summary, that it is hard work.

The last topic we address together with Valerie Steele is the value of fashion history in relation to cancel culture, just days after the release of the documentary about John Galliano, High & Low. In this case too, studying the past proves useful. «In a world where things tend to be very polarised, I think it's necessary to understand the kind of pressures people were under. The industry was ferocious; I remember hearing the videotape of Galliano—it was absolutely horrible and despicable, but it was also clear, in many ways, that he was very, very sick,» says Steele. In Steele's completely comprehensive and attentive view, art can be separated from the artist, because just as we still listen to Wagner or appreciate Picasso, we can still recognise the enchantment and richness of the creations Galliano made in those years of terrible downfall. It was indeed a collection by the former creative director of Dior that André Leon Talley referred to in the documentary dedicated to Turlington, the SS94 by Galliano that told Tolstoy's Anna Karenina with extreme poetry and drama. "One word: the master technician of the twenty-first century," then-Vogue artistic director had announced, foretelling the recognition the creative would receive thirty years later. Because fashion is art, especially when it is colored by strong emotions like the need for redemption.