“Made It: The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion,” on view at the Peabody Essex Museum through March 14

Made It: The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion
A gallery view of "Made It: The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion"
Kathy Tarantola, courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum

The Peabody Essex Museum is showcasing the 250-year history of women in fashion design. Prompted in part by the question “what does it mean to dress like a woman in clothes?” “Made It: The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion” features 100 objects that chart the strides women’s fashion has made since the 1700s, when women began moving beyond male-constructed barriers to develop their own fashion. The exhibition features famous designers like Coco Chanel, Katharine Hamnett and Rei Kawakubo, as well as lesser known but equally important historic designers like Elizabeth Keckley, an enslaved woman who purchased her freedom and went on to design dresses for Mary Todd Lincoln.

“It’s really about life,” says Natalie Chanin, founder of fashion and lifestyle company Alabama Chanin and one of the contemporary designers featured in the show. “It has been one of our great goals to make very beautiful things that also… you can drive your car, and pick up your child, and dance without having to take your jacket off.”

“The Actor’s Craft,” presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company on January 30 with Denis O’Hare

Denis O'Hare
Denis O'Hare performing in "An Iliad"
Joan Marcus, courtesy of ArtsEmerson

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company continues a series of virtual discussions with seasoned actors on January 30. The latest installment of “The Actor’s Craft” will feature stage and screen actor Denis O’Hare, performing passages from King Lear and discussing his interpretation of the play as well as his process for bringing Shakespeare to life on stage. O’Hare is a Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning actor, known best for his stage roles in Take Me Out and Sweet Charity, and on television in True Blood and American Horror Story.

“It's hard for me to remember a time when I didn't act,” says O’Hare. “Generally, you're ransacking your life for understanding. How can I understand what the character's going through? Where have I in my life experienced something similar?”

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