Fashion of the Gilded Age

Step into the world of Gilded Age New York through the spectacle of women’s fashion, where lavish gowns signaled wealth, status, and social ambition. This conversation between Elizabeth Block, Metropolitan Museum of Art Senior Editor and Art and Culture Historian, and Lilly Tuttle, Museum of the City of New York Curator, centers the construction, materials, and social meaning of late-19th-century dresses, from opulent ball gowns worn in Fifth Avenue mansions to the labor and global trade networks that made such excess possible. By tracing silhouettes, embellishments, and ideals of femininity from the Gilded Age to today, the conversation explores how these gowns continue to shape contemporary design, red-carpet fashion, and ongoing conversations about luxury, visibility, and power.

About the Speaker:
Elizabeth L. Block, an art and culture historian, is a Senior Editor in the Publications and Editorial Department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She holds a PhD in art history from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, an MA in American Studies from Columbia University, New York, and a BA in English and art history from The George Washington University, Washington, DC. 

Lilly Tuttle has been a curator at the Museum of the City of New York since 2012. In that time she has curated numerous exhibitions including City Game: Basketball in New York (2020), Analog City: NYC Before Computers, and People, Place, and Influence: The Collection at 100 (2023). She has also served as co-curator on exhibitions including This is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture (2023) and New York at Its Core (2016), and most recently Art Deco City: New York Postcards from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection (2024).  

Lilly received a Ph.D. in U.S. History from NYU and a B.A. from Yale in American Studies. She often speaks to graduate students about the field of public history, has served in leadership roles in the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, and is a member of the New York Academy of History.   

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.