Pamela Golbin is a French curator, author and fashion historian.Paris Fashion week, octobre 3, 2020 From 1993 to 2018 she was the chief curator of fashion and textile at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. In 2019 she became artistic director of the Jacquard artist's residency.WWD Staff, Trading Fashion History for Wearable tech, Women’s Wear Daily, March 4, 2019
Career Golbin attended Columbia University in the City of New York and La Sorbonne in Paris, specializing in Post-World War II Abstract Expressionism. During her studies, Golbin was part of the apprenticeship program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and worked at The Costume Institute. Concurrently, she pursued a similar program at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile in Paris where, following her studies, she was named curator at the age of 23.Couture Confabs”, Sotheby’s, Summer 2016 During her 25-year tenure at the museum, Golbin “helped shape the artistic sensibility in the industry”.The Wall Street Journal, january 15 2017, Mathew Dalton, “What is Luxury anyway?”
Simultaneously from 2008 to 2013 in New York City, she hosted the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) Annual Fashion Talks. In 2018, she attended the Executive Education management program at Harvard Business School.
In 2019, Golbin was named artistic director of the Jacquard x Google Arts & Culture Residency which aims to explore the synergies between art, fashion, and technology.Google Arts & Culture
Golbin collaborates closely with contemporary designers and international creative talents. John Galliano describes her as “an incomparable source of inspiration, a true well of science." Keating, « Le goût des griffes », Vanity Fair France, août 2014, page 86 Valentino Garavani admitted, “She knows more about my own work than I do” and Dries Van Noten remarks, “She has incredible sensitivity and flair”. The Financial Times wrote about her stating, “As the chief curator of fashion and textiles at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Pamela Golbin is the custodian of the history of French taste”.Susan Owens, “A sense for style”, Financial Times, June 23–24, 2012, page 14The Business of Fashion integrates her within their yearly classification of 500 of the most influential people shaping the fashion industry, Pamela Golbin in charge of "one of the most significant and extensive collections of fashion and textiles in the world”.The BOF 500, Business of Fashion
Golbin is considered for her work as a historian and curator. “Just as the discipline of architecture boasts its cast of “starchitects”, this critical re-presentation of fashion has been led by a roll call of “It” curators that includes Andrew Bolton of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Valerie Steele of the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York; and Pamela Golbin of the Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Paris”Mitchell Oakley Smith and Alison Kubler, “Art/Fashion in the 21st century”, Thames and Hudson, London: 2013, page 155
She has been described by the press as “the brains behind the Louvre’s blockbuster fashion exhibitions”. Pamela Golbin is considered an influential figure in the fashion exhibition field.Patricia Lee, « The Master Mind », Female, juillet 2013, page 70 In fact, until she stepped down as chief curator in 2018, her exhibitions attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
Of her exhibits, fashion critic Suzy Menkes wrote, "Madeleine Vionnet, Puriste de la Mode’ is an intelligent and illuminating exhibition and an example of excellence from its curator, Pamela Golbin".Suzy Menkes, “Liberating Women’s bodies”, The New York Times, July 13, 2009 Or "Balenciaga Paris" is the first major exhibition of Cristóbal Balenciaga held in his adopted city, and its curator, Pamela Golbin, has brought a fine intelligence to clothes that could seem so dissonant in the age of the Internet” Suzy Menkes, “Balenciaga: the past is the future”, The New York Times, july 5, 2006
Selected books Couture Confessions, Rizzoli, 2016 () Fashion Forward, 300 Years of Fashion, Rizzoli, 2016 () Paris: Les Boulevards, Rizzoli, 2014 () Dries Van Noten, Inspirations, Lanoo, 2014 () Fashion Icons, 2014 () Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs, Rizzoli, 2012 () Hussein Chalayan, Rizzoli, 2011 () Madeleine Vionnet: Puriste de la Mode, Rizzoli, 2009 () Valentino, Thèmes et Variations, Rizzoli, 2008 () Balenciaga Paris, Thames et Hudson, 2006 () Fashion Designers, Watson & Guptill, 2000 ()
Selected exhibitions (non-exhaustive list) Exhibition Exhibition dates Theme Notes CatalogFashion Forward, Three Centuries of FashionMad Paris, Fashion Forward 20167 April14 August To mark 30 years of its fashion collection, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs brings together 300 exceptional pieces from the museum presented through a chronological timeline from 1715 to 2015 Scenographers : Christopher Wheeldon, Jérôme KaplanArtistic Direction : Marc Ascoli French, EnglishDries Van Noten, InspirationsMad Paris, Dries Van Noten 201401 march2 November Masterpieces from the worlds of Art, Fashion, Photography and Film come together to unveil the creative processes of a fashion designer Scenographers :Dries Van Noten, ArterGraphic designer : Joseph Logan French, English, FlemishLouis Vuitton, Marc JacobsMad Paris, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs 201209 march16 September The contributions of two major personalities from the world of luxury: Louis Vuitton, a 19th-century industrialist, and Marc Jacobs, contemporary artistic director exhibiting for the first time Scenographers : Sam Gainsbury & Joseph BenettArtistic Direction : Lee Swillingham French, English, GermanHussein Chalayan, Récits de ModeMad Paris, Hussein Chalayan 20115 July11 décember First monograph in France Scenographers :Zoé Smith,Bloch Architects French, EnglishMadeleine Vionnet : Puriste de la ModeMad Paris, Madeleine Vionnet 200924 June 200931 January 2010 First major retrospective presenting the exceptional collection transmitted by the designer to the Arts Décoratifs in Paris Scenographers :Andrée PutmanGraphic designer :Atalante Paris French, EnglishValentino, Thèmes et VariationsMad Paris, Valentino 200816 June21 September First French retrospective of the couturier Valentino Scenographers :Patrick Kinmonth,Antonio MonfredaArtistic Direction :Sam Shahid French, English, Spanish, German, Italian Balenciaga ParisMad Paris, Balenciaga 20065 July 200628 January 2007 First retrospective in Paris of the Spanish couturier Cristobal Balenciaga with the participation of Nicolas Ghesquière Scenographers :Dominique Gonzalez-FoersterArtistic Direction :Fabien Baron French, English Elsa SchiaparelliMad Paris, Elsa Schiaparelli 200417 March29 August Franco-American collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the first retrospective bringing together the two heritage collections bequeathed by the designer to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and to the Arts DécoratifsScenographers :Jacques Grange French, EnglishDesign in FranceAnnée de la France en Chine 9 OctoberDecember 2004 "Design in France", Fashion curator of the Inaugural Exhibition for the French Year in China French, ChineseJacqueline Kennedy, les Années Maison-BlancheMad Paris, Jacqueline Kennedy, les Années Maison-Blanche 200219 November 200216 March 2003 Franco-American collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the John F. Kennedy Library retracing the signature of the First Lady of the United States's wardrobe and its political importance Scenographers :Pierre Charpin French, English Sixties, mode d’emploiMad Paris, Sixties, mode d’emploi 2002November 200216 March 2003 The design innovations and industry transformations of French fashion in the 1960s Scenographers :Pierre Charpin French
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