Valerie Steele: First Ph.D in Fashion

"Once I knew I wanted to do fashion I just did it — even though I wasn't making any money at it and I think that if you do love fashion and you want to go into fashion, you have to be immensely self-directed and just do it. I think that's the main thing."

Valerie Steele (Ph.D., Yale University) is currently the Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT). She has curated more than 20 exhibitions in the past ten years, her most notable being; Gothic: Dark Glamour; Love & War: The Weaponized Woman; The Corset: Fashioning the Body; London Fashion; and Femme Fatale: Fashion in Fin-de-Siècle Paris. She is the Editor-in-chief of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, which she founded in 1997. Her books include anything from shoes to the intersection of Eastern and Western modes of dressing.

She was editor-in-chief of the three-volume Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Her latest book was Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out, which she co-authored with Patricia Mears. This is incredible as she has literally, LITERALLY defined fashion and is widely known for the first Ph.D in fashion.

Steele says she was "completely unemployable" for years after she graduated and this is a major eye opener because the fashion industry is a 9 billion dollar industry. As much this industry is still growing, it’s sad that it has to be a struggle to showcase our talents or anything that we love, have a passion for.

The Washington Post described Dr. Steele as one of “fashion’s brainiest women.” as well as being listed in the New York Daily News “Fashion’s 50 Most Powerful.”

in an interview with Fashionologie, Steele stated that her upcoming exhibition for this year is called Queer Style: From the Closet to the Catwalk, which will focus on gay designers and their influence in the industry."I think that's kind of one of the most important and fascinating shows that I've ever worked on because it makes you look at the whole history of modern fashion from a new angle," Steele said. "Everybody knows that there's lots of gay people in fashion, and there have been lots of gay designers: Dior, Saint Laurent, Versace etc. But nobody's ever really thought consciously to put the gayness back into fashion history and say, 'Why are there so many gay people in fashion?' and 'Is there a gay aesthetic?' and 'What have been the influences of having so many gay people in fashion?'

Dr Steele is such an inspiration because regardless of her struggle of being unemployable for many years she still stuck by what she wanted to do. Fashion is what she loves and never chose another direction for money is this is why she is so recognised for her works today. She has made people realise that fashion is not just about clothes or the runway, there is a cultural history and certain aspects of fashion have become a revolution.

She has certainly lived by her key to being successful in the business of fashion: to keep at it.