Matisse's scissors: canvas, fashion, and textiles

Experience the exhilarating journey of Jean Paul Gaultier, the French designer who revolutionized the fashion world on his audacious rise to the top. Known as the bad boy of French fashion, Gaultier, undeterred by a lack of formal training, fearlessly challenged the conventional and redefined beauty. Through his fusion of street fashion with haute couture, he gave birth to some of the most controversial and bold collections, capturing our hearts with iconic designs like the sailor suit, cone bra, and corsets for men. Gaultier dressed legends like Madonna, Boy George, Kim Kardashian, Carla Bruni, Lady Gaga, and Naomi Campbell, and his costumes became cult classics in films such as "The Fifth Element." Yaara Keydar's lecture celebrates the transformative power of fashion, driven by imagination and a daring dose of French audacity. We’ll explore the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition dedicated to him, retracing his pioneering path that redefined beauty ideals at the close of the 20th century.

What made Princess Diana a fashion icon that continues to stir the hearts of fans 25 years after her death? This talk will follow the beloved fashion princess through her wardrobe. Life under the lens of probing cameras taught Princess Diana to use fashion to express herself, her values and feelings. In fashion, as in her life, she was not afraid to take risks and break conventions, to create sensations and to collaborate with various designers, from haute couture to street fashion. In this inaugural lecture, we shall dive into her moving story through her fashion legacy and discover how fashion served her as a rich and wide-ranging medium of self-expression, for conveying criticism of the Royal Family and even for influencing the global social arena.

How can one find beauty in the darkness of war? Can it even hold meaning when humanity is shrouded in shadow? In the lecture “Secrets of Heroines”, exhibition curator Ya’ara Keydar invites the audience on a behind-the-scenes journey into the making of “Heroines: Fashion and Hope in World War II.” In this talk, Ya’ara shares the curatorial process and the personal experience of engaging with such a complex subject in the aftermath of October 7. Curation is a process that involves collaboration with professionals, moments of success and failure, mistakes, and a great deal of magic. Ya’ara will tell how a single tiny thimble led to an entire exhibition. She will reveal the mysteries uncovered during the research, share moving stories from the production process, and speak about sources of inspiration something we all need now more than ever. ​ This is a heartfelt lecture about a journey between sorrow and beauty, between loss and hope and above all, a deep belief in women and humanity.