Publications

Madam X’s Scandal Dress, published by Modan, offers a new perspective on the history of art through the lens of fashion. For many years, fashion was dismissed as superficial, frivolous, and feminine. Yet artists have always understood its power as a language through which identity, status, fears, desires, and social criticism can be expressed. In Madam X’s Scandal Dress, Ya’ara Keydar invites us to take a fresh look at beloved works by some of the world’s greatest artists and discover how a fold of fabric, a collar, a fan, or a hat can become a hidden passage into other worlds. What does a flying shoe suggest in a Rococo painting, and how did a lightweight cotton dress come to threaten the social order? Why did a fallen shoulder strap cause a scandal in Parisian high society, and what truly lies behind the Little Dancer’s innocent tulle skirt? How did Frida Kahlo transform clothing and corsets into armor for strength and creativity? Clothing is a second skin. It separates us from the world, yet also brings us into contact with it. Every garment depicted in a painting tells a story about the person who wore it, about social struggles and global change, and about the realms of imagination of the time in which it was created. The artworks featured in this book reveal how perceptions of the body, fashion, and femininity have changed, reminding us that fashion is not a luxury, but a way of living and dreaming.

The exhibition invites visitors on a journey through time, back to an era of global upheaval and to the untold stories of women during World War II. Fashion may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the war, yet it played a vital and surprising role. During those years, fashion underwent a profound transformation, and this exhibition reveals its significance and meaning during a period of existential crisis. Heroines focuses on the role of clothing in the lives of women who found ways to endure the impossible, preserve their humanity, and hold on to hope. The exhibition is accompanied by a beautifully produced 260-page hardcover book that captures the experience of the exhibition and gathers all its treasures in one volume. Within its pages, stories of creativity and the triumph of the human spirit are interwoven with hundreds of historical photographs, images from the exhibition, specially commissioned essays, and unforgettable quotes. The book invites readers to explore how clothing, fashion, and culture became sources of strength and resilience in the most difficult of times.

Tracing the Modern: Selections from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1880–1989, published by Rizzoli Electa, offers a comprehensive view of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s modern art collection. The volume presents works by Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Modigliani, Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pollock, and Chagall. Alongside 140 selected artworks, the book includes essays by international curators and art historians. Among them is an essay by Ya’ara Keydar, focusing on The Princess of Babylon by Kees van Dongen. The essay examines the figure depicted in the painting and proposes a new identification: contrary to the commonly held belief that the portrait shows the soprano Modjesko, it is suggested that the subject may in fact be Edward Claude Thompson – an African American drag performer, the son of formerly enslaved parents, who gained fame across Europe in the early twentieth century. In the painting, the figure wears the most fashionable items of the time, with a turban adorned with egret feathers. Keydar’s essay explores the intersections of fashion, gender, representation, and identity in van Dongen’s work, offering a renewed interpretation of portraiture as a tool for expressing subversive and complex identities in the early modern era.

The exhibition book Alber Elbaz: The Dream Factory is a moving and heartfelt tribute that celebrates the life and work of the beloved designer. It gathers the treasures of the entire exhibition into a singular, beautifully crafted printed edition. Its pages reveal, for the first time, the complete and inspiring story of a boy who dreamed and became a shining star in the firmament of international fashion. Featuring hundreds of photographs and fashion illustrations, from Elbaz’s early sketches as a child to his mature creations, along with images from the exhibition, his life story, personal texts, and unforgettable quotes, the book preserves the magic of the exhibition experience and invites readers to meet Alber and fall in love.

“The Ball,” Design Museum Holon’s summer exhibition for 2021, explores the relations between fashion, dreams, fairy tales, and escapism. The catalog presents the exhibition's story in 250 color pages, which forge a connection between the history of balls in the West, the fashions designed for them, and the creations of leading local fashion designers. The catalog documents more than 120 contemporary and historical "haute- couture" gowns made of luxurious materials and surprising everyday materials. It also features 50 accessories, 22 models of Cinderella slippers printed in 3D, a gown composed of optic fibers, 6,500 macaroons, and 17 hats inspired by desserts - all created especially for the exhibition. The exhibition book enables visitors to preserve their experience of the exhibition while offering a close-up look at the creative dialogues that it celebrates: those between the festive and the every day, as well as between the fantastic and the real. This book also offers a reflection on the role of fashion in everyday life, on the desire for escapism and larger-than-life experiences, and dreams, riches and happiness.

Published to accompany the exhibition's opening at the Design Museum Holon in 2017, the book brings together six original essays written specifically for the occasion. It features a rich collection of photographs of Ronit Elkabetz from her cinematic career as an actress, screenwriter, and director, alongside personal snapshots and professional modeling images from the early 1990s through the later stages of her life and work. The essays, presented in both Hebrew and English, explore cinema, fashion design, gender, feminism, politics, and other facets of Elkabetz’s multifaceted career. Among the contributions are “Dreams from Ronit Elkabetz’s Wardrobe”, an essay by curator Ya’ara Keydar, a personal text by the exhibition’s artistic director, Shlomi Elkabetz, and an artistic biography by Yigal Nizri, as well as essays by Zohar Elmakias, Shula Keshet, and Raya Morag.

Is a shoe a work of art? And if it cannot be walked in, is it still a shoe? Featuring more than sixty extraordinary creations by distinguished alumni and students of Israel’s leading art and design academy, Bezalel, A Walk of Art explores the intersection between art and fashion. Thanks to their iconic forms, rich history, and layered symbolism, shoes serve as perfect objects through which to examine these questions, challenge the boundaries of design, and reimagine footwear as meaningful cultural artifacts. The book features an academic and curatorial essay on the history of extreme shoes, examining the ongoing dialogue between the worlds of art and fashion through the lens of the shoe.

המאמר בוחן את יחסי הגומלין בין אופנה לאוכל. העיסוק בשני העולמות מערב טעם, תשוקה, שפע, דחפים, יצרים וגם ארוטיקה ופטיש, ובשנים האחרונות מאגד גם שאלות בנוגע לפערים שבין איטיות למהירות, איכות לכמות וצורך לצרכנות. נוסף על הממד החזותי, המאמר בוחן גם את המשמעויות הפסיכולוגיות ואת הרעיונות והמסרים שנוצרים מהמפגש הישיר בין אופנה לאוכל. שניהם נסקרים בו דרך רגעי מפתח היסטוריים, החל במאה ה־ 17 וימי ארמון ורסאי, עבור בתקופת כיבוש פריז על ידי המשטר הנאצי וכלה בדיאלוגים בין אופנה לאמנות לאורך המאה העשרים. המאמר סוקר גם את העיסוק באופנה ובאוכל מהיר ואת הקשר בין גיבורות תרבות לדימוי גוף — מג׳וזפין בייקר וכרמן מירנדה, דרך טוויגי וקייט מוס ועד נטע ברזילי. מחקר של הקשר בין אופנה לאוכל מאפשר מרחב חדש לשיח על אודות נושאים מהותיים בחברה ובתרבות: מעמד, מגדר, גזע, פוסט־ קולוניאליזם ופמיניזם. דרך סקירתם של רגעים מכוננים בחיבור התרבות בין אופנה לאוכל, מומחש המכנה המשותף בין שני העולמות, הפועלים ומופעלים כשפות להגדרת זהות.