Alexandra Palmer

Dr. Alexandra Palmer. Photo: George Whiteside

Alexandra Palmer

Nora E. Vaughan Senior Curator, Global Fashion & Textiles (Europe & North America)

Exhibitions & Galleries: Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume

Bio

B.A., Art History, University of Toronto, 1979
M.A., History of Costume and Textiles (in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York University, 1981
Ph.D., Design History, University of Brighton, England, 1995

Alexandra Palmer is the Nora E. Vaughan Fashion Costume Senior Curator and Chair of the Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship in Textiles & Costume at the ROM. She is cross appointed in Art History at the University of Toronto and teaches about the cultural history of textiles and fashion and the impact of textiles and fashion on climate change.

A Canadian born in Athens, Greece and raised in London, England, Alexandra Palmer received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History from the University of Toronto, her M.A. in the History of Costume & Textiles from New York University in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum and her PhD in Design History from the University of Brighton. She worked for private collections and galleries in New York City before taking up the position as Assistant Curator, establishing the museum at Kent State University.

Alexandra Palmer curated the new ROM textile and costume gallery design in the Samuel European Galleries, and the inaugural  Measure for Measure  (1989).  She returned to ROM in 1997, leaving her position as Assistant Professor for Craft and Design History at Nova Scotia College of Art. At ROM she has curated many exhibitions:  Au Courant: Contemporary Canadian Fashion (1997) and  Papiers à la Mode for The Institute of Contemporary Culture (2001), as well as  Unveiling the Textiles & Costume Collection (spring 2002),  Elite Elegance: Couture in the Feminine Fifties  (2002). She has curated the new permanent gallery design and exhibits in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume that opened in 2007 with a series of overviews from the over 55,0000 piece ROM permanent collection, followed by  Riotous Colour: Printed Textiles (2010),  BIG (2012) Fashion Follows Form: Designs for Sitting (2014) Winner Richard Martin Exhibition Award,  VIVA MEXICO: Clothing & Culture (2015),  Christian Dior (2017) that traveled in Canada and China;  Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion & Philip Beesley: Transforming Space (2018).  She was an advising curator for  Florals: Desire & Design and The Cloth that Changed the World: India’s Painted and Printed Cottons (2020),  Unmasking the Pandemic: From Personal Protection to Personal Expression (2021), and  Canadian Modern (2022). She is the curator of  Noelle Hamlyn: Lifers (2023)   an artist's sustainable installation about the impact of textiles and fashion on water and the climate in the Samuel European Temporary Gallery.

Dr. Palmer has edited and contributed to numerous books, museum catalogues and journals. She is the author of three award winning books, Couture & Commerce: The Transatlantic Fashion Trade in the 1950s (2001) Clio, Ontario History, Dior: A New Look, A New Enterprise 1947-1957 (2009) Millia Davenport Publication 2010 Award, and Christian Dior: History and Modernity, 1947-1957 (2018).


Exhibitions

Noelle Hamlyn: Lifers
June 3, 2023 to February 19, 2024

Canadian Modern 
December 3, 2022 to July 30, 2023

Clothing the Pandemic. A Virtual Exhibition of COVID-19 Face Masks from Around the World 
June - July 2013

Unmasking the Pandemic: From Personal Protection to Personal Expression 
September 18, 2021 to September 5, 2022

Florals: Desire & Design 
February 15, 2020 to January 3, 2022

The Cloth that Changed the World 
September 12, 2020 to January 2, 2022

Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion & Philip Beesley: Transforming Space 
June 2, 2018 to October 8, 2018

Christian Dior 
November 25, 2017 to April 8, 2018


Other Links


Research Projects

Social and Cultural History of Couture in Toronto, 1900-1937