Board members 2025/2028
ICOM COSTUME COMMITTEE – CHAIR
Joanna Regina Kowalska – historian and art historian, curator of the Textile Collection at the National Museum in Krakow (since 1999). She completed the Technical Courses at CIETA in Lyon (2013–2014). Her exhibitions include Always at Hand. Bags from the Middle Ages to the Present (2009) and Fashionable in Communist Poland (with Małgorzata Możdżyńska-Nawotka, 2016), and she was also a member of the curatorial team of the exhibition series 4 x Modernity (2020–2024). Joanna has authored numerous publications on the history of fashion, she is particularly attentive to the role of fashion in shaping modern society. National Committee: Poland. Joined the Costume Committee in 2013.
ICOM COSTUME COMMITTEE – VICE CHAIR
Elisabeth Murray is Senior Curator at Fashion Museum Bath and Lead Curator for the Museum’s major redevelopment. Prior to joining FMB, she was a curator in the fashion and textiles section at the V&A focusing on 20th-century and contemporary fashion. While at the V&A she was project curator for the major exhibitions NAOMI: In Fashion, 2024, Africa Fashion 2022, and contributed to their accompanying publications. Before joining, the V&A Elisabeth worked in the Royal Ceremonial Dress Colection at Kensington Palace. National Committee: UK. Joined the Costume Committee in 2024 through Institutional membership.
ICOM COSTUME COMMITTEE – SECRETARY
Lee Talbot, Senior Curator, The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum, Washington DC. He joined The Textile Museum as a curator in 2007, specializing in East Asian textile history. Most recently, Talbot curated the exhibitions Irresistible: The Global Patterns of Ikat (2024) and Korean Fashion: From Royal Court to Runway (2022). He was also curator or co-curator of exhibitions including Vanishing Traditions: Textiles and Treasures from Southwest China; Bingata! Only in Okinawa; and Stories of Migration: Contemporary Artists Interpret Diaspora. His recent publications the chapters “Ikat in Japan” in Global Ikat: Roots and Routes of a Textile Technique (2023) and “Scholarly Discourses on Fashion Change in Late Joseon” in Dress History of Korea: Critical Perspectives on Primary Sources (2023).National Committee: USA. Joined the Costume Committee in 2019.
ICOM COSTUME COMMITTEE – TREASURER
Vicky Salías, is the Coordinator of the Historic Collection of Argentinian Dress at the Museo Histórico Nacional, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She won the national public contest for the Direction of the Museum of Costume´s History of Argentina (2016-2024, when the museum, among other cultural institutions, was downgraded). She is a fashion designer from the UBA and has finished a Specialization in Cultural Management from UNSAM. She is finishing a Master in Curating Visual Arts at UNTREF. Since 1999 she is a professor of textile and clothing design at the University of Buenos Aires and given workshops, talks, conferences and seminars. Vicky has curated various fashion exhibitions including MAD Award 2015, 2016 and 2017 at the National Museum of Decorative Art, Fashion Universes at the Fortabat Collection, States of Consciousness at the Sívori Museum. National Committee: Argentina. Joined the Costume Committee in 2017.
ICOM COSTUME COMMITTEE MEMBERS AT LARGE
Dr. Marta Franceschini is a design historian, researcher, and curator. She holds an MA in History of Design from the RCA / V&A and a PhD in design sciences from IUAV Venice. She has contributed to fashion exhibitions, including Il Maschile: Androgynous Mind, Eclectic Body at the Gucci Garden, Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear at the V&A, Genderquake: Liberation, Appropriation, Rejection at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, and is currently co-curating the exhibition Vestiaire Dissident at the Palais Galliera in Paris (2026). Marta is the Head of Communication at the European Fashion Heritage Association (EFHA). She also consults for brand archives and museums and regularly writes and lectures on fashion history and material culture in the UK, France, Italy and the US. National Committee: UK. Joined the Costume Committee in 2022.
Dorothea Nicolai is a Freelance costume designer, lecturer at AMD Academy of Fashion Design Munich/Berlin. I consider myself as an interdisciplinary costume thinker and researcher. It all began with an apprenticeship as a tailor in Munich, then costume studies at the University of Applied Arts in Hamburg. After many years as a director for costumes, wigs and make-up at the Salzburg Festival, Bayreuth Festival and the Zurich Opera House, with productions in Milan, Paris, London, St. Petersburg, Tokyo…now working freelance for different projects. Lecturer for costume history and textile technology at the AMD Academy Fashion Design in Munich/Berlin. Fluent in German/French/English/Italian. I try to unite textile handicraft knowledge with theory and research. Next projects ahead in Shanghai! “Everything is Costume“ www.nicolai.at. National Committee: Switzerland. Joined the Costume Committee in 2005.
Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City, where she has organized more than 25 exhibitions since 1997, including The Corset: Fashioning the Body; Gothic: Dark Glamour; A Queer History of Fashion; and Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis. She is the author or editor of 30 books, some of which have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. She is founder and editor in chief of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, the first scholarly journal in Fashion Studies. National Committee: USA. Joined the Costume Committee over 10 years ago.
Jackie Yoong is Senior Curator (Design) and leads the Design team at the Asian Civilisations Museum and Peranakan Museum in Singapore. She curated the exhibitions Guo Pei: Chinese Art and Couture and Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World, and the museums’ fashion galleries. Her research now explores contemporary Asia in global fashion. Internationally, she serves on ICOM Costume, Fashion and Textiles Board (2023-2025) and the Advisory Panel of CHAT (Centre of Heritage, Arts and Textile), Hong Kong. She holds an MA in History of Art from SOAS, University of London. National Committee: Singapore. Joined the Costume Committee in 2022
Chair of ICOM Costume Nominating Committee
Ninke Bloemberg works as a fashion curator at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (The Netherlands) since 2009. Previously she was involved at the Rijksmuseum and Gemeentemuseum, among other fashion institutions. She curated several exhibitions, for example HAIR! Human Hair in Fashion and Art (2016), Blue jeans (2012), The New Craftsmanship (with Iris van Herpen, 2011) and publishes on a frequent base. Involved in online projects such as Europeanafashion.eu and modemuze.nl. Has an interest in historic costumes, as well as contemporary fashion, both are represented largely in the museum collection. ICOM member since 2006, ICOM Costume Committee Treasurer between 2016 and 2022.