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Description
Indigenizing Fashion in the Colonial Andes
A lecture by Laura Beltrán-Rubio (independent researcher)
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall
gallery@bgc.bard.edu
$15 General | $12 Seniors | Free for people associated with a college or university, people with museum ID, people with disabilities and caregivers, and BGC members
No late seating; admittance is not guaranteed after 6 pm.
Textiles have been central to the material culture of the Andes since time immemorial. With the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the textile primacy of the Andes adapted: rather than a straightforward imposition of European trends, Indigenous fashion and textile practices have undergone complex processes of “cultural authentication” and “survivance.” This lecture unravels evidence from archival and pictorial sources from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century to recenter the Indigenous agents, materialities, techniques, technologies, and systems of knowledge that have shaped Indigenous fashion practices in the Andes. It thus offers a reevaluation of the history of fashion and textiles in the colonial Andes to demonstrate that Native American and Euro-American histories of fashion and textiles are inevitably intertwined, complex, and mutually influential.
Dr Laura Beltrán-Rubio is a researcher, curator, and educator, specializing in the history of art and fashion. Her research explores the construction and performance of identities through artistic expression, with a broad interest in Native American and Indigenous fashion and textiles. Her first book, Empire of Fashion: Luxury, Consumption and Identity in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, is under contract with the University of Texas Press. Laura completed her PhD at the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA) and holds an MA in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design (New York). She has previously taught at Parsons, William and Mary, Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia), and De Montfort University (Leicester, UK). She is senior researcher and managing editor at the Fashion and Race Database and hosts the podcast Redressing Fashion. As a public-facing scholar, her mission is to expand the narratives of fashion to create more diverse, equitable, and socially just societies.
Image: Unidentified artist from Cusco, Virgen de los Sastres (Virgin with Tailors), c. 1750. Oil and gold on canvas, 57 1/2 x 40 3/8 inches. Museo Pedro de Osma, Lima
Date & Time
Wed, Mar 25, 2026 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Venue Details
Bard Graduate Center
38 West 86th StreetNew York, New York 10024
