Objects of Permanence, a special installation curated by Mellány Sánchez and presented during New York Fashion Week, seeks to spotlight the rich histories of the Puerto Rican and other migrant community labor forces in New York City’s garment industry.
This show spotlights the Lower East Side as a pioneering capital of the garment industry in the mid-20th century. Objects in the form of artifacts, both real and imagined, work to preserve and tell the story of LES residents of the past and present, whose labor was integral to the development of New York City as a fashion capital. Simultaneously, it will unite these voices of the past to the direct descendants and beneficiaries of their legacy—today’s fashion designers.