Valerie Fahnestock Steele (born 1955) is an American fashion historian, curator, and director of the Museum at the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. ...

. Steele has written more than eight books on the history of fashion, and can be regarded as one of the pioneers in the study of fashion. She was appointed director of the museum in 2003.

Biography

As director and chief curator of the museum, Steele has curated more than 25 exhibitions over the past twenty years, including ''Gothic: Dark Glamour''; ''Love & War: The Weaponized Woman''; ''The Corset: Fashioning the Body''; and ''Femme Fatale: Fashion in Fin-de-Siècle Paris''. In addition Steele is the editor-in-chief of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture (Berg Publishers), an academic journal which she founded in 1997. She is also the author of numerous books, including ''Gothic: Dark Glamour''; ''The Corset: A Cultural History''; ''Paris Fashion; Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now'' and ''Women of Fashion: 20th-Century Designers''. She gives lectures frequently and has appeared on many television programs, including ''

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''. After she appeared on the

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special, ''The Way We Wear'', she was described in ''

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'' as one of “fashion’s brainiest women.” Often quoted in media, she was herself the subject of profiles in ''

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'' and in ''

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'' as well as being listed in the ''

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'' “Fashion’s 50 Most Powerful.”

Selected works

* ''Gothic: Dark Glamour'',

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, 2008, / 9780300136944 / 0-300-13694-3. * ''Encyclopedia of clothing and fashion'' (editor in chief), Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005, . * ''Fashion, Italian style'', Yale University Press, 2003, . * ''The Fan: Fashion and Femininity Unfolded'', Rizzoli International Publications, 2002, . * ''The Red Dress'', Rizzoli International Publications, 2001, . * ''The Corset: a cultural history'', Yale University Press, 2001, . * ''Shoes: a lexicon of style'', Rizzoli International Publications, 1999, . * ''China chic : East meets West'' (with John S. Major), Yale University Press, 1999, . * ''Bags: a lexicon of style'' (with Laird Borrelli), Scriptum Publishers, 1999, . * ''Fifty years of fashion: new look to now'', Yale University Press, 1997, . * ''Fetish: fashion, sex, and power'', Oxford University Press, 1996, . * ''Women of fashion: twentieth-century designers'', Rizzoli International Publications, 1991, . * ''Men and women: dressing the part'' (editor, with Claudia Brush Kidwell), Smithsonian, 1989, . * ''Paris fashion: a cultural history'', Oxford University Press, 1998, . * ''Fashion and eroticism: ideals of feminine beauty from the Victorian era to the Jazz Age'', Oxford University Press, 1985, .

References

External links

* Valerie Steele Fashio
Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steele, Valerie 1955 births Living people American non-fiction writers Fashion Institute of Technology people Fashion historians