Exhibitions
Past Exhibitions
Coming Home: Geoffrey Beene
May 5, 2024 – January 24, 2025
Geoffrey Beene
Geoffrey Beene (1924-2004) was among the twentieth century's most successful American fashion designers. In Coming Home: Geoffrey Beene, the Textile & Costume Museum (TCM) celebrates the many accomplishments of this master of classic style and impeccable craftsmanship who, for decades, reigned supreme as the gold standard of American fashion design. Mr. Beene, originally from Haynesville, Louisiana, was a southern gentleman to his core, committed to celebrating beauty in all its forms. His excellence in design garnered him eight Coty Awards and two Council of American Fashion Designers awards. Mr. Beene’s work is in the collections of leading institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum at FIT, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Sylvia R. Karasu, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine of New York City, donated over two hundred pieces of Geoffrey Beene fashion from her collection and related ephemera, documenting Mr. Beene's career and Dr. Karasu's passion for Geoffrey Beene designs to TCM. The exhibition includes garments from Dr. Karasu’s gift and sketches. Beene fashioned each collection with impeccable craftsmanship and design, adapting his training in French couture for the American market. Join us to celebrate Mr. Beene in 2024, what would have been the year of his 100th birthday.
Coming Home: Geoffrey Beene opened May 5, 2024 at TCM at 330 Tower Dr. in the Human Ecology Building on LSU’s campus. An additional outpost of approximately 22 garments opened at the LSU Museum of Art on April 26, 2024, and runs through August 30, 2024. Both exhibitions are curated by graduate students from the Department of Textiles, Apparel Design, & Merchandising with guidance from TCM Curator and Associate Professor Dr. Michael Mamp.
Presented by
John G. Turner & Jerry G. Fischer
Also supported in part by the Provost's Fund for Innovation in Research - Scholarly
& Creative Activity for the Arts, Humanities, Social & Behavioral Sciences
and by our sponsors
Pat Alford
Lubna Culbert
Mindy & Greg LaCour
Time Warp Boutique
Student Curators:Md Nazmul Haque, Chloe Johnson, Lauren E. Lansdell, LaDyra Lyte, Mfon-ABasi Obong, Aja Palermo, Elizabeth Schick, Morgan Strzynski, MG Taylor, Penelope Williams & visiting scholar Camila C De Albuquerque Oliveira with the assistance of undergraduate student workers: Martha Rigney & Olivia Ryland.
Hours
Weekdays: 11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Weekends: The first Sunday* of each month from 2:00-4:00 pm (*excludes holiday weekends)
Phone: 225-578-1087
E-mail: textile@lsu.edu
Current Exhibition
Women Fashioning Women
October 1, 2023 - March 28, 2024
Women Fashioning Women examines the hidden history of women fashion designers. This exhibition will feature the work of twenty or more women fashion designers of the twentieth century. Ironically, in an industry fueled and supported by women, the accomplishments of woman fashion designers have been limited to the repetitive stories of trailblazers such as Chanel and Schiaparelli. We reaffirm the essential contributions of couturiers such as Chanel, Lanvin, and Schiaparelli but expand the conversation to examine the work of woman designers such as Vera Maxwell, Anne Fogarty, Ceil Chapman, Elizabeth Hawes, and many more. With a wide range of artifacts pulled from the holdings of the LSU Textile & Costume Museum and others borrowed from partner institutions, we respond to the assessment of feminist and theorist Bell Hooks, who said, "To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body" (Hooks, 2015, p. xvii). Women Fashioning Women repositions the accomplishments of influential but oft-forgotten woman fashion designers solidifying their place in the main body of fashion history.
