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Blue Gold: Jeans, Indigo, and Haute Couture

Friday, Oct 5, 2018 │1–2:30pm

ADMISSION: $5 Members; $15 General

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2018-10-05 13:00:00 UTC2018-10-05 14:30:00 UTC America/Los_AngelesThe CJM - 736 Mission St, San Francisco, CABlue Gold: Jeans, Indigo, and Haute CoutureTens of thousands of tons of the blue indigo pigment are produced each year around the world, in an attempt to quench an insatiable thirst for the eternal "blue gold" of fashion: the jeans, which this year celebrates 145 years of cult following, and is estimated to generate sales of 450 million pairs a year. This lecture plots a blue trail through time, geographies, and cultures following jeans and its precursor, the indigo dye.

Tens of thousands of tons of the blue indigo pigment are produced each year around the world, in an attempt to quench an insatiable thirst for the eternal "blue gold" of fashion: the jeans, which this year celebrates 145 years of cult following, and is estimated to generate sales of 450 million pairs a year. This lecture plots a blue trail through time, geographies, and cultures following jeans and its precursor, the indigo dye.

The unique pigment's history began centuries before Levi's: a unique pigment tied to the history of the Jewish people, especially in Central Asia, and the art of ikat dying and weaving. Fashion, history, and craft are intertwined in the lecture, revealing endless layers, and shades of blue.

Presented in collaboration with Friends of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest.

Sign language interpretation and CART real-time captioning can be requested for all programs with at least two weeks notice by emailing access@thecjm.org or by calling 415.655.7856 (relay calls welcome). FM assistive listening devices for sound enhancement are available for all talks and tours. Visit our Accessibility page to learn more.

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about the speaker
Ya’ara Keydar
Ya’ara Keydar

Ya’ara Keydar, MA, is a fashion historian and curator based in New York. Keydar teaches Fashion in Museums at NYU SPS in the Center for Applied Liberal Arts. Her recent curated exhibition, Je t’aime, Ronit Elkabetz (Nov 2017–Apr 2018) took over the entire Israeli Design Museum and was accompanied with a book she edited. Her previous exhibition, A Walk of Art: Visionary Shoes, was dedicated to artistic shoe designs by students and alumni of Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. The exhibition showed at the Parasol gallery in New York then commissioned to travel to San Francisco.

Keydar also curated Cinderella Syndrome: A Journey in the Footsteps of the Stiletto in Israel, and co-curated the exhibition Beyond Measure: Fashion and the Plus Size Woman at 80WSE Gallery in New York. She curated the bridal gown exhibitions Happily Ever After and A Wedding Photograph—Family Wedding Photography in Israel 1900–1980, both exhibited in Israel.

Keydar graduated from the Costume Studies program at NYU and is a 2016 winner of NYU Steinhardt's Samuel Eshborn Award. She holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in fashion design from Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. She interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, as well as the Museum at FIT. Keydar was a guest speaker at The Jewish Museum in New York, JCC Manhattan, Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, and more. 

supporters

Public Programs are made possible by the Koret Foundation and The Al and Rosanne Levitt Fund for Public Programs.

Veiled Meanings: Fashioning Jewish Dress, from the Collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem is organized by The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and is curated by IMJ's Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life Associate Curator Efrat Assaf-Shapira. The Israel Museum’s curatorial team includes Curator in Charge Daisy Raccah-Djivre; Exhibition Curator Efrat Assaf-Shapira; Scientific Advisors No’am Bar’am Ben-Yossef and Esther Juhasz; Head of Traveling Exhibitions Sivan Eran-Levian and Traveling Exhibitions Coordinator Chandi Medad. Exhibition texts are based on the original 2014 Israel Museum exhibition Dress Codes: Revealing the Jewish Wardrobe and on The Jewish Wardrobe (edited by Esther Juhasz) published by the Israel Museum in 2012. The exhibition is organized at The CJM by Curator Heidi Rabben.

Lead Sponsorship in San Francisco is provided by the Koret Foundation, Gaia Fund, and Maribelle and Stephen Leavitt. Major Sponsorship is provided by The Bernard Osher Foundation and Dorothy R. Saxe. Patron Sponsorship is provided by Taube Philanthropies for Jewish Life and Culture and Suzanne and Elliott Felson. Supporting Sponsorship is provided by Judy and Robert Aptekar, Britex Fabrics, Dana Corvin and Harris Weinberg, Rosanne and Al Levitt, Siesel Maibach, Shelli Semler and Kyle Bach, Eta and Sass Somekh, Ellice Sperber, and the Ullman Family. Additional support is provided by an anonymous donor, David Agger, Morton and Amy Friedkin, Joy and Joel Kellman, Dr. Michael and Davida Rabbino, the Irving and Varda Rabin Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of the East Bay, Tzipi and Sam Tramiel, and Marilyn and Murry Waldman.

Generous support is provided by the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Bernard and Barbro Osher Exhibition Fund of The Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Image Credit

Header photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.