folder 74 - Splash: The History of Swimwear

The Museum at FIT, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is one of a select group of specialized fashion museums, including the Musée de la Mode, the Mode Museum, and the Museo de la Moda. For the 100,000 people who visit The Museum at FIT each year, we work to create exhibitions, programs, and publications that are both entertaining and educational. The mission of the Museum is to advance knowledge of fashion through exhibitions, programs and publications. Founded in 1969, the Museum was installed in the current building in 1974, and exhibitions began to be presented in 1975 (http://www.fitnyc.edu/museum/about/index.php). The Museum at FIT is one of only a handful of museums in the world devoted to the art of fashion. The Museum was founded in 1967 to support the educational programs of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), a college that is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. Known then as the Design Laboratory, The Museum at FIT began presenting exhibitions in the 1970s, utilizing a collection on long-term loan from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Over time, The Museum at FIT has acquired its own collection, which now consists of more than 50,000 garments and accessories from the eighteenth century to the present, as well as thousands of textiles and other fashion-related material (http://www.fitnyc.edu/museum/about/history.php).