The Fashion Institute of Technology has organized this retrospective exhibition of the genius who was known in his lifetime as the King of Fashion – the man who liberated women’s bodies by abolishing the corset – whose imaginative creations were the ruin of a stodgy society – who was the father of modern dressmaking. In presenting the exhibition in celebration of our Bicentennial, we honor not only our political debt to France through the American Revolution but also French fashion industries for the inspiration given us for so many years.