Vol.61 FNY (14) Jan Glier Reeder / Curator

FNY (14) : Jan Glier Reeder　/ Curator

Ms. Jan Glier Reeder is Consulting Curator for the Brooklyn
Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

She organized “American High Style : Fashioning a National
Collection” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum

and consulted with her colleague in the Costume Institute,
Andrew Bolton, curator of the “American Woman” show at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
When I listened to her and Andrew lecture about these
two exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum’s Symposium,
it inspired me to take a long, careful investigation of each.

Metropolitan Museum

Brooklyn Museum

Jan prepared for her career as a Curator of Fashion, by receiving,
one of the first Masters of Arts degrees in Fashion and Textile Studies:
Museum Practice granted by the Fashion Institute of Technology
beginning in 1985. She gained experience working on Fashion
of the 20th Century at many museums and auction houses.
Later, she became a consultant in the Costume Institute of
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jan executed the Mellon Costume Documentation Project to investigate
all items in the Brooklyn’s Costume Collection.
Financed by a $4 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
and working with a staff of 10, she spent three years documenting
the great treasures of the collection– many which had not been seen
by the public at all.
The result of the project was a decision by the two museums to enter
into a collection sharing partnership.
The two exhibitions are the first joint project of the new partnership.

Jan chose outstanding quality 4000 costumes from all 25000 costumes.
And she picked out some costumes from 4000 to display for the both
museum shows. They are special and valuable to see for us.

“When these shows finish in August, my next responsibility will
be ‘traveling’ the exhibition to cities in the U.S. and abroad”,
Jan explained. “I feel like I’m sending my children on a trip”.

The profession of Fashion Curator is also popular in Japan. I asked Jan,
“What is the most important thing one needs to be a good Curator?”
Jan said, “The first thing is intellectual curiosity. It also requires
analytical skills and a critical eye. You need the ability to find
new ideas and the technique to represent them.
Good writing is also important. Because a lot of people are involved
in these project, we must have management skills too”, she explained.
Whooh! That is very difficult.

When I saw the very thick catalogue, “HIGH STYLE: Masterworks
from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan
Museum of Art” that she wrote, I understood her hard work.

To hone her skills, Jan regularly attends Broadway plays, opera, ballet,
other performing arts and concerts.
It makes sense that her favorite place in New York, other than museums,
is Carnegie Hall.

When I visited her office, in the back of The Metropolitan Museum
Costume Institute, I was intrigued by 10 photos of Fashion Dolls
posted on the wall.

There are ten Fashion Dolls in complete costumes in the HIGH STYLE
exhibit.
These ten are part of an original group of 49, presented to the American
public after World War II.
Each doll’s costume was manufactured by top French couture designers.
I suggested that she does a Fashion Doll exhibit.
There are no women who do not love dolls.
It would be enough just to see those Fashion Dolls which have the perfect
styles of the 19th and early 20th Centuries.

With her wonderful sensitivity, flair for display and access to thousands
of styles from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I am looking forward to seeing
what kind of exhibitions Jan will produce in the near future.