Laurie Anne Brewer is associate curator in the RISD Museum’s Costume and Textiles department. Her recent exhibitions include Golden Glamour: The Edith Stuyvesant Gerry Collection and Indische Style: Batiks for the International Market (both 2015). Previous exhibitions at the museum include Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion (2013, with Kate Irvin), Queen of the Insects: The Art of the Butterfly (2009–10) and Asian Textiles and the Grammar of Ornament: Design in the Victorian Age (2008). She is currently working on Nude: Fashions Most Shocking Color, an exhibition that will trace the history and politics of neutral tints in apparel and designs slated to open in spring 2020.

Brewer also serves as a lecturer in RISD’s History of Art and Visual Culture department, teaching courses on the history of Western textiles and world textiles. Prior to her post at the RISD Museum, she worked in the Department of Textiles at the Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT). She holds a BA in human ecology from the College of the Atlantic and an MA in museum studies (costume and textiles) from the State University of New York, Fashion Institute of Technology. Her research often explores the intersections of nature and art, focusing on the ecology of fashion from the 19th century to the present day.

Fall 2018 Courses

• APPAR-3043-01 The Uses Of Animals In Relation To The Industry Of Man: Design and Nature, 1851 and Now

Spring 2019 Courses

• NMSE-8900-18 ISP Non-major Elective