<i>Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities</i> , Exhibition at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, February 19–April 20, 2025

The Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition was curated by Dr. Colleen Hill, who is senior curator of costume at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT). Hill holds an MA in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice from FIT and a PhD from the University of the Arts London. Since joining MFIT in 2006, she has curated eighteen exhibitions, including Statement Sleeves (2024), Shoes: Anatomy, Identity, Magic (2022), Reinvention and Restlessness: Fashion in the Nineties (2021), Paris Refashioned, 1957–1968 (2017), and Fairy Tale Fashion (2016).The Fashioning Wonder exhibition has various themes including “Aviary,” “Anatomical Theatre,” “Artisanship,” “Kunstkammer” (chamber of art), “Vanitas,” “Reflections and Refractions,” “Illusions,” “What Is It?,” “Specimens,” and “The Senses.” As the exhibition catalog states, “The space is divided into sections through custom-made sets that features nearly 200 garments and accessories, almost exclusively selected from MFIT’s permanent collection.” Strikingly unique are the creative ways in which the objects were displayed within the museum space and how they engaged visitors in a multi-tactile functional way. The dramatic exhibition space enticed museum visitors with interactive drawers, shelves, and cabinet doors, allowing for deeper interaction by physically pulling, pushing, and opening the custom-built displays.The exhibition featured several key moments of wonder. However, the showstopper was a larger-than-life-sized birdcage filled with feathered garments and a writing desk by the late Bill Cunningham—the acclaimed New York street-fashion photographer (Figure 1). The wow-factor birdcage provided large-scale impact within a relatively small exhibition space that allowed visitors an active emotional connection to the exhibition.The role of a museum curator is that of a cultural communicator who leads discourse forward in society—often challenging or reframing a history that is fraught with complexity while at the same time addressing dialogue in contextual relevance. Hill has a critical way of understanding her role as she hits the mark with Fashioning Wonder. This exhibition poignantly exposes the poetics of beautiful objects juxtaposed with a distinct tone that highlights the lingering impact of colonialism by tying in the historical significance of collecting objects of desire. As noted in the exhibition materials, scholars trace European practices of “collecting” back to the medieval Catholic church, which acquired and displayed relics and other sacred objects for hundreds of years. As such, the exhibition underlines the provenance of cabinets of curiosities as a privilege shared by predominantly white European men—a history that Edward Said, in his seminal 1978 book Orientalism, positions as a power structure used by the global West for imperialistic projections of superiority, racism, and distorted cultural views on the global East.Fashioning Wonder is an imaginative exhibition that provides an in-depth exploration of the fascinating connections between cabinets of curiosities, collectors, and objects, including the display of lust-worthy fashion. As a public forum, this exhibition can be understood as a reflective discourse of the zeitgeist with intellectual exploration that eloquently discusses the importance for contemporary museums to be more inclusive and informed about the objects they acquire. As curator, Hill does a masterful job of showcasing the duality of cabinets of curiosities by bringing to life the splendor of collecting beautiful objects while also acknowledging, in a subtle but poignant way, its sordid origin story.