S8 Ep15 SARAH SCATURRO: fashion conservator, formerly head of the fashion conservation laboratory at the MET’s Costume Institute - on archival fashion, preservation, and the Met Gala.

Pre-Loved Podcast is a weekly vintage fashion interview show, with guests you’ll want to go thrifting with! For more Pre-Loved Podcast, subscribe to our Patreon!On today’s show, we’re chatting with fashion conservator, Sarah Scaturro, the Chief Conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and previously, the head of the fashion conservation laboratory in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Today is the first Monday in May, which means – if you’re listening to this live – tonight is the Met Gala, and we’re talking all things archival fashion at the Met Gala with Sarah. 

We discuss the famous Kim Kardashian incident – wearing Marilyn Monroe’s dress to the Met Gala – what to make of the Sleeping Beauties exhibition theme this year, and fashion preservation. This is such a fascinating episode with a real subject matter expert, and I think you’re going to really enjoy it, so let’s dive right into it! 

DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE:

• [2:29] Sarah grew up with a love of clothes, costumes, and playing dress-up.
• [7:47] Sarah’s career path into textile preservation.
• [12:10] How fashion items are acquired by museums, and what makes an archive collection unique.
• [17:27] What it means when an object becomes “singularized.”
• [24:15] On Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ dress to the 2022 Met Gala.
• [32:49] Why “absolute prohibitions” around interacting without artifacts is not the answer, either.
• [37:36] The Met Gala’s exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” and dress code theme “The Garden of Time," and what to expect to see this year.

EPISODE MENTIONS: 

• Sarah Sc:aturro
• Sarah’s research 
• Cleveland Museum of Art
• FIT Studies: History, Theory & Museums
• Renée Zellweger wears a vintage yellow Jean Desses dress at the 2001 Oscars.
• @chloesevigny
• Rihanna’s Met Gala Guo Pei gown

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