Lecture: Dressing at the Crossroads of the Arabian Peninsula
About the event
Traditional garments have long served as a visual marker of identity in Southwest Asia and North Africa. But the colors, patterns and materials used in its diverse regions can also tell a different story about relationships of cultural exchange through waves of migration, trade and colonialism.
Presented alongside Embroidered Traditions from Morocco to Afghanistan, this visually immersive talk explores traditional dress and adornment in the Arabian Peninsula—a region that exists at the crossroads of diverse cultures, languages, ethnicities and geographies.
Join Alex Aubry, director of the Fashion Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, to explore the cross-cultural connections found in rare and unexpected pieces from the region.
about the speaker
Alex Aubry is the director of the Fashion Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). His research, publishing, and curatorial work centers the Global South within histories of fashion and French haute couture. From 2013–16 he served as the curatorial director of the Art of Heritage Collection of Saudi Material Culture, and he has contributed to books on museum development and costume collecting in the Arabian Gulf region. Prior to joining SAIC, he taught art history at Northern Illinois University and served as the international features editor for Harper’s Bazaar Arabia for 12 years. In addition, he has contributed to exhibitions including Contemporary Muslim Fashions at San Francisco’s de Young Museum (2018), Lebanese artist Huguette Caland’s retrospective at Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum (2025), and the exhibition Worth: Inventing Haute Couture, at Paris’ Petit Palais Museum (2025).
If you have any questions about programming, please reach out to museum-programs@artic.edu.
Closed captioning will be available for this program. For questions related to accessibility accommodations, please email access@artic.edu.
