MFIT underwent a rigorous year of self-study, followed by a two-day site visit by a team of external museum professionals. The site visitors found “the museum to meet the characteristics of an accreditable museum, and in some ways to have exceeded them.” In particular, they praised MFIT’s small staff as “well trained, professional, and dedicated”; they identified the collections to be “well organized and carefully preserved”; and they concluded that MFIT is “truly a teaching museum in all senses of the word.

Its professional staff is deeply committed to the highest standards of original scholarship at the same time that they work very hard to make all the collections accessible to a broadly diverse audience.” The commission particularly applauded the museum’s Presidential Scholars’ Museum Facilitators Program and the “recent reorganization that resulted in the Department of Education and Public Programs that welcomes and responds well to the community.”

MFIT’s priority is to use collections and exhibitions to advance knowledge of fashion. More than 7,000 students from FIT and other schools and colleges took part in classes held in the museum in 2011. In addition, the museum hosts many free public programs and exhibition tours. MFIT participates in the Chelsea Cultural Partnership; a Design Membership, available to industry professionals, affords access to the collections; the museum has more than 600 objects online for study and dissemination; and a forthcoming book, to be published by TASCHEN, will feature photographs of more than 500 fashions from the museum’s collection, as well as photographs from many past exhibitions.

On View at The Museum at FIT:

Fashion, A-Z: Highlights from the Collection of The Museum at FIT, Part Two, the second of two exhibitions that highlight modern and contemporary pieces from the museum’s permanent collection, is on view through November 10, 2012. Featured are more than 60 garments and accessories by designers from Adrian to Zoran, including work by Charles James, Ralph Lauren, and Diane von Furstenberg. Full portraits of all exhibition objects from the two exhibitions will be included in a companion publication by TASCHEN, forthcoming in late fall.

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), a college of the State University of New York, has been a leader in career education in art, design, business, and technology for nearly 70 years.

Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)