Conversation Pieces at the Denver Art Museum, Fashion as Design Dialogue

Opening February 15, 2026, the Denver Art Museum presents Conversation Pieces: Stories from the Fashion Archives, an exhibition that places fashion within a framework of visual intelligence, spatial arrangement, and historical inquiry. On view through late 2026 in the Textile Arts and Fashion galleries on level six of the Martin Building, the exhibition features over sixty garments drawn from the museum’s permanent collection. Many are being exhibited for the first time.

Structured as a series of visual dialogues rather than a linear chronology, Conversation Pieces proposes that clothing, when curated with intention, becomes an archive of cultural exchange. Through precise juxtapositions and quiet contrasts, the exhibition traces how form, material, and gesture communicate across time, geography, and ideology. It is an exploration of fashion not as trend but as discourse.

A Museum Looks Inward

Unlike traveling shows or thematic blockbusters, Conversation Pieces turns inward. It is the result of a deep excavation of the museum’s holdings and a rearticulation of its priorities in fashion curation. Since acquiring its first women’s garments in 1942, the Denver Art Museum has maintained an evolving dialogue with fashion. After a period of dormancy in the late twentieth century, the institution reignited its focus with the 2012 Yves Saint Laurent retrospective. This exhibition builds on that renewed vision, extending the museum’s commitment to fashion as a lens for understanding design, identity, and social change.

According to Jill D’Alessandro, Director and Curator of the Avenir Institute of Textile Arts and Fashion, the process involved identifying points of resonance within the collection. These interrelationships—between designers, materials, eras, and philosophies—formed the curatorial foundation for the show. “It is in these smaller conversations,” she explains, “that fashion design reveals itself as an artistic discipline, with great designers acknowledging their shared language and history.”

Objects in Dialogue

The objects selected for the exhibition are notable not only for their individual craftsmanship but also for their pairings. A silk faille and chiffon ballgown from the House of Worth, dating to approximately 1896 and funded by the Textile and Fashion Circle, is positioned alongside a voluminous cotton percale gown by Rick Owens from Spring Summer 2020. The former embodies the architectural silhouette of late nineteenth-century haute couture; the latter, a stripped-back futurism punctuated by exposed metal elements. Each holds tension between structure and fluidity, between surface and silhouette.

Another spatial dialogue is found between two pleated Grecian-inspired designs by Madame Grès and sculptural works by Turkish-born designers Ece and Ayşe Ege of Dice Kayek, including the Magnolia dress from 2009 in silk gauze. The conversation is one of sculptural draping and compositional restraint, moving across time but connected by shared principles of form.

Claire McCardell’s 1953 printed cotton swimsuit, part of the Neusteter Textile Collection, anchors a section on American sportswear and regional fashion history. It is shown in concert with work by Gilbert Adrian, the famed Hollywood designer whose designs were carried by Neusteter’s Department Store and featured in 1950s runway exhibitions in Central City, Colorado.

Ann Lowe’s 1965 debutante gown, crafted in silk shantung and detailed with appliquéd silk flowers and rhinestones, offers a study in labor and elegance. A gift of Philae Dominick, the gown stands as a rare example of a Black American designer’s work in the elite fashion circuit of mid-century America. Its inclusion is both aesthetic and archival, offering layered insights into craftsmanship, race, and visibility in American fashion.

New Acquisitions and Expanded Legacies

The exhibition introduces several key acquisitions, expanding the museum’s representation of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century design. A lace ensemble by Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé, worn by Kate Moss on the Fall Winter 1993–1994 runway, is presented alongside a John Galliano dress from his Spring Summer 1993 Olivia and Filibuster collection and a look from Alexander McQueen’s final collection, Plato’s Atlantis.

In 2025, the museum received a significant bequest from Ricardo Zaragoza, a New York financier whose gift of over 200 menswear garments foregrounds avant-garde Japanese design. Works from this donation include a Fall Winter 2019 ensemble by Yohji Yamamoto, composed of a wool jacket and shirt embroidered with rayon thread and paired with printed wool trousers. Also on view is a digitally printed cotton gabardine coat dress from Comme des Garçons’ Spring Summer 2018 collection, incorporating silk ribbon detailing and a calculated sense of visual fragmentation. These pieces represent a new collecting area for the Avenir Institute, positioning menswear as a conceptual and material force within the museum’s broader curatorial strategy.

Form as Cultural Language

A section devoted to the evolution of the “little black dress” traces how this archetype has been interpreted across eras. Beginning with Gabrielle Chanel’s seminal 1926 design, the exhibition moves through works by Yves Saint Laurent, Ceil Chapman, James Galanos, and Yohji Yamamoto, each presenting variations in texture, proportion, and purpose.

Additional highlights include Vivienne Tam’s Mao collection suit, a garment that navigates the interplay between political iconography and contemporary tailoring, and Patrick Kelly’s Pool Ball Dress from Fall Winter 1988, a playful yet pointed exploration of race, Americana, and body-conscious design.

Design Literacy for All Ages

The Nancy Lake Benson Thread Studio, located adjacent to the exhibition, offers hands-on activations designed for intergenerational audiences. Visitors can engage in draping exercises, create their own fashion plate illustrations, and construct accessories inspired by the collection. An installation by Denver-based floral architects KaraKara Blooms reimagines headwear as ephemeral sculpture.

Toward a Broader Conversation

Conversation Pieces does more than catalogue garments. It positions the Denver Art Museum as a site where material culture and design history are held in serious dialogue. The exhibition reflects a globally minded curatorial voice—confident, intelligent, and attuned to the nuances of visual language.

Later in 2026, the museum will present DIVA, in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Denver will serve as the exclusive United States venue for the exhibition, reinforcing the city’s emergence as a destination for fashion and design at the museum level.

In Conversation Pieces, fashion becomes a means of looking—at form, at time, at ourselves. The exhibition is not loud. It does not demand attention. It holds it through clarity, composition, and the quiet authority of design.