The impact of Andrew Bolton on fashion is undisputed. As the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bolton has put together some of the museum’s most-visited exhibitions. He has played a key role in bringing fashion to a wide global audience while blending the realms of art, fashion, and culture. Before the Bolton receives the Founder’s Award in honor of Eleanor Lambert at the 2022 CFDA Fashion Awards in Partnership with Amazon Fashion, we take a look back at some of the curator’s top exhibitions.

In America: An Anthology of Fashion (2022)

The latest exhibition put American fashion front and center with an exhibition that explored men’s and women’s dress from the 19th to the mid-late 20th century. Nine film directors were invited to create “freeze frame” vignettes within each room to highlight new perspectives on American fashion – including designer Tom Ford and director Sofia Coppola. “ It is through these largely hidden stories that a nuanced picture of American fashion comes into focus—one in which the sum of its parts are as significant as the whole,” said Bolton.

In America: A Lexicon of Fashion (2021)

The first of a two-part exhibition on American fashion, the exhibition welcomed more than 70 new works and 35 new designers, including 30 emerging designers. It was a beautiful representation of the vitality and diversity of American fashion. Off-White and Ralph Lauren were housed alongside Vaquera and Wiederhoeft, with 100 ensembles by a diverse range of designers from 1939 through today.

“The show’s yearlong timeframe has allowed us to experiment with a new methodology that reflects the concept of fashion as a living, breathing art form, one that speaks powerfully to the zeitgeist. It has enabled us to engage directly with current conversations—both artistic and cultural—that are directing and defining the future of fashion, reflecting The Costume Institute’s ongoing ambition to present ‘fashion history in the making.’” said Bolton.

Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology (2016)

The 2016 exhibition explored how designers were reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear.

“Traditionally, the distinction between the haute couture and prêt-à-porter was based on the handmade and the machine-made, but recently this distinction has become increasingly blurred as both disciplines have embraced the practices and techniques of the other,” said Bolton.  “Manus x Machina challenges the conventions of the hand/machine dichotomy and proposes a new paradigm germane to our age of technology.”

Over 170 haute-couture and avant-garde looks were pulled for the exhibition, resulting in one of the most visually dynamic displays in the MET’s history.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (2011)

The groundbreaking exhibition, which provided a retrospective look att he lat designer’s career, received international acclaim and broke record numbers of attendance for the museum. It proved not only the beauty of McQueen, but Bolton’s ability to use fashion as a catalyst for conversation – and prove its validity as an art form. As Bolton stated, “McQueen saw fashion as a catalyst for generating a heightened sensitivity to feelings.  Through his runway presentations, he validated powerful emotions as compelling and undeniable sources of aesthetic experience.  Like a painter or writer of the Romantic Movement, McQueen associated unfettered emotionalism with the appreciation of beauty.