In Pursuit of Fashion: The Sandy Schreier Collection

Bolton, Andrew, Preface and Interview; Jessica Regan and Mellissa Huber (2019)

This title is in print.

Publication Details

Description

In Pursuit of Fashion presents outstanding works from the greatest private collection of twentieth-century fashion and explores the modern discipline of fashion collecting. This unique group of ensembles and accessories, assembled over several decades by Sandy Schreier, includes many rare and historically significant pieces that define key moments in fashion and features not only iconic works by established designers but also looks by pioneering couturiers rarely represented in museum collections. These remarkable objects, by designers including Gilbert Adrian, Cristobal Balenciaga, Boué Soeurs, Gabrielle Chanel, Christian Dior, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Maria Gallenga, Karl Lagerfeld, Paul Poiret, and Madeleine Vionnet, are illustrated with stunning new photography by fashion photographer Nicholas Alan Cope.

Schreier is a pioneer in the field of collecting fashion. Her interest began at a time when collecting and treating these creations as an art form was rare. She amassed a staggering breadth of work that reflects her wide-ranging taste and connoisseurship. An informative introduction discusses the unique evolution of Schreier’s collecting in parallel with a developing field. The book also includes descriptions of more than eighty works, including rare works on paper, as well as a lively interview with Schreier that traces the progress of her collecting from its roots in Detroit to the present day.

Table of contents

Director’s Foreword
Preface by Andrew Bolton

Introduction by Jessica Regan

In Pursuit of Beauty: Origins of a Collection

The Past Recaptured: Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo and Maria Monaci Gallenga

L’esprit Nouveau: The Interwar Era

The Message Is the Medium: Fashion That Speaks

On Discovering a Butterfly: Accessories from the Collection

The Mode as Shown: Fashion Illustrated

An Interview with Sandy Schreier by Andrew Bolton

Notes
Selected Readings
Checklist
Acknowledgments

About the authors

Andrew Bolton is the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Jessica Regan is Associate Curator at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Mellissa Huber is Assistant Curator at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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Exhibition

In Pursuit of Fashion: The Sandy Schreier Collection

November 27, 2019–May 17, 2020.

The Costume Institute's fall 2019 exhibition will feature promised gifts from Sandy Schreier, a pioneering collector, who over the course of more than half a century assembled one of the finest private fashion collections in the United States. The show will explore how Schreier amassed a trove of twentieth-century French and American couture and ready-to-wear, not as a wardrobe, but in appreciation of this form of creative expression.

The gift is part of The Met's 2020 Collections Initiative celebrating the Museum's 150th anniversary. In Pursuit of Fashion will feature approximately 80 of the 165 promised gifts, including womenswear, accessories, and fashion illustrations dating from a 1908 pochoir album, Les Robes de Paul Poiret, developed in collaboration with Paul Iribe to a 2004 Phillip Treacy butterfly hat.

Plan Ahead

MetPublications