SMU's Meadows Museum will present "Canvas & Silk: Historic Fashion from Madrid’s Museo del Traje," a major exhibition of Spanish dress and fashion that will pair paintings from the Meadows’s collection with historic dress and accessories from the Museo del Traje, Centro de Investigación del Patrimonio Etnológico in Madrid.

The exhibition marks the first major collaboration between this important Spanish institution and an American museum. It will include approximately 40 works from the Meadows alongside examples of dress and accessories from the Museo del Traje (Spanish National Museum for Fashion). Displayed together, the works in the exhibition not only tell the story of how fashion trends in Spain changed over 500 years, but also reveal how elements of a country’s history, such as its involvement with global trade or the formation of a national identity, are reflected in its dress.

Concurrently, the Meadows will also present "Image & Identity: Mexican Fashion in the Modern Period," an investigation into Mexican dress spanning from Mexican Independence to modern times through photographs and prints from the collections of the Meadows Museum and SMU’s DeGolyer Library.