NEW YORK CITY.- The Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology celebrates fashion. The first exhibition to pay tribute to the great American designers who made New York City a world fashion capital will be on view at The Museum at FIT, September 23 through January 3, 2004. Seventh Avenue: Fashion Walk of Fame will celebrate excellence in American fashion by surveying the history of New York fashion through approximately 100 exceptional ensembles, including iconic styles by 24 of America’s greatest designers, from Geoffrey Beene to Pauline Trigère.

The exhibition is co-curated by Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at FIT, and Ellen Shanley, curator of costume.

The designers represented in the exhibition were recently elected, by a jury of their peers, to the Fashion Walk of Fame. Organized by the Fashion Center Business Improvement District, the Fashion Walk of Fame consists of commemorative plaques situated along Seventh Avenue honoring the greatest American designers of our time.

Like the Fashion Walk of Fame, the exhibition will include both important designers from the past (historic figures like Claire McCardell) and the present (Marc Jacobs) whose talent has helped shape and define style in America and around the world. All of the garments on view will come from the permanent collection of The Museum at FIT.

New York City has been the undisputed center of American fashion since the mid-19th century, when mass production led to the growth of the apparel trades. In the 1920s, Seventh Avenue became the hub of the fashion industry and home to the greatest names in American design. Organized primarily according to designer, the exhibition will include American couturiers and deluxe ready-to-wear designers such as James Galanos, Charles James, Mainbocher, and Norman Norell. Sportswear, one of the most important categories of fashion and one unique to America, will play a prominent part in the exhibition. On view will be iconic examples by designers who helped define American sportswear, from Bonnie Cashin to Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein.

Seventh Avenue: Fashion Walk of Fame will bring together an incomparable selection of designs by Geoffrey Beene, Bill Blass, Stephen Burrows, Bonnie Cashin, Lilly Daché, Oscar de la Renta, Giorgio di Sant’ Angelo, Perry Ellis, James Galanos, Rudi Gernreich, Halston, Marc Jacobs, Charles James, Betsey Johnson, Norma Kamali, Donna Karan, Anne Klein, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Mainbocher, Claire McCardell, Norman Norell, Willi Smith, and Pauline Trigère.