Director of Curatorial Affairs and the Nancy B. Putnam Curator of Fashion and Textiles of the Peabody Essex Museum, Eskenazi School alumna Petra Slinkard (B.S./B.A. ’03, M.S. ’08) will share her journey from her student days at Indiana University through her 15-year career as fashion curator and museum administrator.
The talk will explore exhibitions she has curated, industry challenges, and her current position at the Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. At PEM, the nation’s oldest continually operating museum, Slinkard oversees 17 curators, leads the museum’s exhibition planning and publishing, and oversees the museum’s global fashion and textile collection, as well as its gallery dedicated to fashion and design.
Prior to joining the Essex Museum in 2018,Slinkard served as the Curator of Costume at the Chicago History Museum and Curatorial Associate at Newfields (Indianapolis Museum of Art). She curated or co-curated the exhibitionsPatrick Kelly: Runway of Love, and Made It: The Women who Revolutionized Fashion and Making Mainbocher: The First American Couturier, as well as thematic exhibitions on topics of gender equality, history and culture and urban planning as it pertains to fashion. Most recently, Slinkard served as a guest editor for the Costume Society of America’s special issue of DRESS, titled, Reframing Fashion in the Museum and as juror for the National Endowment for the Arts.
A proud IU graduate, Slinkard earned a B.S. in Apparel Merchandising (’03) and a B.A. in Art History (’03) with a concentration in Modern and Contemporary Art, and an M.S. in Apparel Merchandising (’08). In 2017 she was recognized as one of IU’s “20 under 40” most distinguished alumni in the College of Arts + Sciences. She is a founding member of the Eskenazi School’s advisory board.
