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Fashion programming has become so in-demand at a local art museum that the institution will soon host a week of festivities dedicated to it.
“I wanted this week not to just be about fashion itself,” said Sonin Lee, creative director of Memphis Art & Fashion Week, which will be held May 2-10 in collaboration with the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. “But fashion … as art, culture, music. Just inclusivity of the creatives.”
In May 2024, the Brooks Museum partnered with the University of Memphis to host its first Runway at the Museum. That event included more than 30 designers and creators of wearable art.
“We sold out,” Lee said. “And then we made room for more tickets and it sold out again in seven minutes. ... Everybody just loved it.”
Lee leads the fashion program at U of M, which offers degrees in fashion merchandising and fashion design.
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Runway at the Museum returns on Friday, May 9, with more than 50 designers, as part of the Brooks’ first Memphis Art & Fashion Week.
During the fashion show, U of M students will come down the runway first. After that, there will be wearable art, and then a traditional runway show that will end with featured designers, including some from Los Angeles and Denver. Little Rock, Arkansas-native, designer Korto Momolu will headline the show.
The week features a Met Gala watch party hosted by interior designer and HGTV star Carmeon Hamilton and interior designer Colin Chapman, a dinner featuring Memphis chef Karen Carrier (owner of Beauty Shop and the adjacent Bar DKDC), a speaking event with Momolu, and a cocktail event with Brooks assistant curator of photography C. Rose Smith to discuss the Met Gala theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” In particular, the 2025 Met Gala will highlight Black dandyism.
The Brooks ramped up its fashion offerings in 2024.
In March 2024, it opened an exhibition called “People Are People.” Savannah College of Art and Design curated the exhibition, the first solo one of Christian Siriano.
In October 2024, the museum’s newly launched fashion affinity group and Lee hosted a Tim Burton-inspired costume ball and fashion show.
“Come as Thou Art” was the Couture Collective’s first official event.
Memphis was ready, not only for Memphis Art & Fashion Week, but for it to include more than traditional fashion, Lee said.
She describes wearable art as one-of-a-kind pieces that use unconventional materials, forms and techniques.
In Lee’s eyes, it rejects the notion that “fashion must serve mass production.”
“Bringing fashion and celebrating it as an art form, as well, is extremely important and you’re starting to see it more and more,” Lee said, of the week.
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