General Admission

Free. Any donation is greatly appreciated.

About Valerie Steele

steele
Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she has personally organized more than 25 exhibitions since 1997.

Steele combines serious scholarship (and a Yale Ph.D.) with a rare ability to communicate with general audiences. She is author or co-author of more than two dozen books, including Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, Women of Fashion, Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power, and Fashion Designers A-Z: The Collection of The Museum at FIT. Her books have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

As author, curator, editor, and public intellectual, Valerie Steele has been instrumental in creating the modern field of fashion studies and in raising awareness of the cultural significance of fashion. She has appeared on many television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show and Undressed: The Story of Fashion.  Described in The Washington Post as one of fashion's brainiest women and by Suzy Menkes as The Freud of Fashion, she is listed as one of The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry in the Business of Fashion 500 (2014-present).

Upcoming Events

Saturday, April 18, 2026

We invite parents and children to gather in the children's room of our library for a magical story time in French!

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Social & Community

English Book Club - Émile Zola

In-person, Indoor Event in English

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Join us at the French Library for a conversation on The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola. We invite you to read the book in its entirety and meet us on April 21st, from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

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Friday, April 24, 2026

Seeking opportunities to speak French? Join us for our popular members-only conversation gathering.

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