Current Exhibition

Color Me Fashion
March 23 - August 15, 2025 

Presented by

John G. Turner & Jerry G. Fischer

With generous support from

Dillard’s

Lubna Culbert

And by our sponsors

Pat Alford

Mindy & Greg LaCour

COLOR ME FASHION includes more than forty-five looks with related accessories spanning approximately 100 years of fashion history from c. 1890 to 1990. The power of color is undeniable when attempting to arrange disparate objects cohesively. In this curatorial process, color merged oppositional styles, silhouettes, and fabrications of each garment. While color trends may come and go, the foundational components of color theory provide an everlasting framework in which one can organize different objects to create visually alluring tableaus. 

Each end of the gallery highlights complementary colors—those opposite each other on the color wheel, including blue and orange—and purple and yellow. Other gallery sections include analogous relationships, which are those colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Green/blue/yellow and red/purple/blue artifacts combine different designers and periods for these groupings. Finally, items presented in the cases and on the return wall explore monochromatic presentations of color, including pink—inspired by the “Think Pink” sequence performed by Kay Thompson in the 1957 film Funny Face and various shades of blue and green inspired by sea glass, sometimes referred to as mermaid’s tears. 

Across cultures, time, and space, color communicates different things to different people. One example is the Hindu festival of Holi, which welcomes spring, the start of the new year, and the universal triumph of good over evil. Revelers spend the day in celebration, made vibrant by colored powder that covers everything in sight. Color, dance, food, music, family, fashion, and friendship combine to celebrate life and renewal. This exhibition is directly inspired by Holi and attempts to, in some way, indicate the joyful nature of fashion and color. Color and fashion often combine to commemorate the most important events of human existence, from birth to death and everything in between. And unlike many humans, colors that are opposites or neighbors, when considered carefully and with intention, perpetually work together to achieve a joyful state.