Alexandra Palmer

(she/her) Sessional Lecturer: FAH488H1S; Associate Professor, Status Only; Senior Curator, Nora Vaughan Curatorship, Royal Ontario Museum
alexandra.palmer@utoronto.ca

Campus

  • Downtown Toronto (St. George)

Fields of Study

  • Modern/Contemporary

Areas of Interest

  • Textile and fashion socio economic history
  • Climate change textiles and fashion
  • Material culture studies
  • Design history

Biography

Alexandra Palmer is a design historian specializing in textiles & fashion history, with an emphasis on materiality and sustainability through curation, writing, public lecturing and teaching. She has taught in Fine Art History, U of T, since 2003. She was Senior Curator Global Fashion & Textiles, Royal Ontario Museum (1996-2024) responsible for the collection of 44,000 European and North American textiles, fashions and accessories at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). She curated over 23 exhibitions and worked across disciplines co-curating and contributing fashion and textiles to numerous exhibitions. She is an internationally awarded curator, author and editor. In 2023 France named her Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques in recognition of her contribution to French culture, textiles and fashion.

Selected Publications

  • Christian Dior visionnaire: 1947-1957. 2024, V&A Publishing French edition. ISBN-13 979-1040116363 2
  • « La Mode Americane, c’est la mode Chanel,» in Gabrielle Chanel. Manifeste de Mode. Paris Musées, Palais Galliera: Paris, 2020 : 221-225
  • Christian Dior, History & Modernity 1947-1957, 2018. Hirmer. ISBN 978-0-88854-521-3
  • A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion. In the Modern Age, (Volume 6) 2017. 2021 paperback. Edited by Alexandra Palmer. Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc: London, 2017. 9781350204591
  • Couture & Commerce: The transatlantic fashion trade in the 1950s. 2001 University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 978-0774808262

Presentations

Honours, Awards and Grants

  • 2023 France, Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques
  • 2022 International Coucil of Museums, ICOM Costume 60th Anniversary Award for book "Christian Dior, History & Modernity 1947-1957," and exhibition Christian Dior 2019 and travel
  • 2017 Canada 150, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, (SSHRC) Connections Grant for conference, 'Cloth Cultures: Future Legacies of Dorothy K. Burnham'
  • 2015 Richard Martin Exhibition Award, Costume Society of America, "Fashion Follows Form: Designs for Sitting" Royal Ontario Museum
  • 2013-18 Insight Research Grant. Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, (SSHRC) , 'Recuperating Fashion, 1700-2000.'

Professional Affiliations

  • Board Member. 2002- present. Exhibition Reviews Editor, 2002 -2022, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture. Board Member.
  • Chair. Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship. Royal Ontario Museum. 2000-2022.
  • Costume Colloquium, Florence, Italy. Member Scientific Committee & Board. 2012-2020.
  • Board Member.  2001-12. Nominations Committee. 2018 -1995.  International Council of Museums, Costume Committee.

Education

PhD, University of Brighton, Design History
MA, New York University, History of Costume and Textiles (in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art)
BAHons, University of Toronto, Art History

Administrative Service

Chair Veronika Gervers Fellowship, Royal Ontario Museum 2000-2022