Gaby Aghion’s Chloé gets its first museum show in New York

Egyptian Jewish fashion designer, Gaby Aghion, is getting her first museum exhibition on her life and her luxury brand, Chloé, in October.

The exhibition will take place at the Jewish Museum in New York this fall, startin the 13th of October 2023 until the 18th of February 2024.

According to the museum’s website, the exhibition highlights “Aghion’s vision of effortless, luxurious fashion, and the work of iconic designers who began their careers with the brand, including Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, and Phoebe Philo.”

Aghion was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1921 to an upper class family and her father was the manager of a cigarette factory.

She moved to Paris along with her husband, Raymond Aghion, in 1945, where she started her fashion house in 1952. She is also known to have coined the phrase “prêt-à-porter” with her designs.

Aghion created soft, feminine, body-conscious clothes from fine fabrics to be inclusive of the female body.

“All I’ve ever wanted was for Chloé to have a happy spirit, to make people happy,” she said.

Chloé had its first show in 1956 at the Café de Flore, a significant meeting point for young intellectual Parisians at that time. In 1966 she made Karl Lagerfeld her main designer.

Since then the company’s customers included Jackie Kennedy, Brigitte Bardot, Maria Callas, and Grace Kelly.

Chloé now has boutiques in more than 30 cities including Toronto, Las Vegas, New York City, Sydney, Paris, and Munich.

It also has boutiques in Moscow, Istanbul, London, Tokyo, Beirut, Doha, Seoul, Dubai, and Kuwait.

Aghion died in 2014 at the age of 93, leaving behind a revolutionary legacy in the fashion industry.