Burchfield Penney Art Center to Celebrate Opening of FIT: Buffalo Fashion, Identity, and Transformation

Buffalo has long been a city that transforms the raw and overlooked into something powerful and undeniably creative. FIT: Buffalo Fashion, Identity, and Transformation tells this story through fashion and artworks across a range of media. Fabric to garment, garment to outfit; this story transcends the materials. It is about shifting perspectives, recognizing and celebrating identities, and a city transforming its own narrative over time.

This new exhibition celebrates the broad, multigenerational network of designers, artists, and cultural innovators who have redefined Buffalo’s creative landscape through fashion design, illustration, photography, painting, sculpture, and much more.

Curated by Tiffany Gaines, FIT traces Buffalo’s story through the clothes, aesthetics, and visual cultures its people have made their own: from early twentieth-century industrial wealth and social pageantry, to the styles of immigrant and working-class communities, to today’s designers remaking fashion as something equitable, sustainable, and distinctly Buffalo. Cross-industry collaboration, upcycled materials, and streetwear are more than passing fads. Woven together with art and luxury, they form the very fabric of our fashion identity.

Celebrate the exhibition opening of FIT: Buffalo Fashion, Identity, and Transformation on M&T Second Friday, July 10, 5:30&8:00 pm! The free community celebration will feature live music by the Rod Bonner Trio and a fashion-inspired paper doll art-making activity. The exhibition catalog, with a foreword by Buffalo State University Lecturer Erin Habes, will be available for purchase in The Museum Store.