Laurie Brewer

Laurie Anne Brewer is a curator of costume and textiles at the RISD Museum. Her recent exhibitions and research projects include the NEH-funded From Kyoto to Providence: Preserving the RISD Museum’s Lucy Truman Aldrich Collection of Asian Textile Masterworks (2020-21) and The Art and Design of Spider Silk (2019). Previous exhibitions at the museum include Luminous Lace: Metallic Trims 1500-Now (2016), Golden Glamour: The Edith Stuyvesant Gerry Collection (2015), Indische Style: Batiks for the International Market (2015), Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion (2013, with Kate Irvin) and Queen of the Insects: The Art of the Butterfly (2009–10). At RISD, Laurie also serves as a lecturer in the departments of Apparel Design and Theory and History of Art and Design, teaching such courses as The Uses of Animals in Relation to the Industry of Man: Design and Nature, 1851 and Now, Global Fashion and Baa Ram Ewe: Fiber Tales and Pathways. Prior to RISD she worked in the department of textiles at the Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology. She holds a BA in human ecology from the College of the Atlantic and an MA in museum studies: costume and textile history from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her research often explores the intersections of nature and art, focusing on the ecology of fashion from the 19th century to the present day. In addition to her curatorial and teaching practices, she is an avid hand spinner, knitter and papermaker.