The textile and costume community is saddened by the loss of Dilys E. Blum, who passed away on December 27, 2025.

From 1987 until her retirement in 2025, Ms. Blum served as curator of costume and textiles at the Philadelphia Art Museum (PAM). Under her leadership, PAM’s costume and textile collection became one of the most significant of its kind in the United States. Ms. Blum curated more than forty exhibitions at PAM, including Best Dressed: 250 Years of Style (1997), Shocking!: The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli (2003), Roberto Capucci: Art into Fashion (2011), Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love (2014), Off the Wall (2019), and most recently Boom: Art and Design in the 1940s (2025). Before joining PAM, Ms. Blum was a textile conservator at the Chicago Conservation Center and the Brooklyn Museum, and senior assistant keeper of the costume and textile collection at the Museum of London.

Ms. Blum authored and edited numerous exhibition catalogues and other publications, served on editorial boards for academic journals, and was an active and highly regarded member of ICOM’s Costume Committee. Dilys Blum’s scholarship and curatorial vision will continue to inform and inspire the costume and textile community for many years to come.