“Some people need sequins—others don’t.” So quipped legendary costume designer Edith Head as press covered arrivals to the 1955 Academy Awards. It was a throwaway line, the kind of quip that glitters for a moment and fades. But the exhibition that opens this fall at the University of Minnesota's Goldstein Museum of Design takes Head's joke as a point of departure rather than a punchline. Because in truth, no one needs sequins, which are definitively decorative — and that, the museum argues, is precisely why they deserve a closer look.
“Sequins: Flash and Substance” runs September 8 through December 4 in the Goldstein Gallery at McNeal Hall on the St. Paul campus, with an opening reception on Thursday, September 10 from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Goldstein's permanent collection and includes more than 30 objects, featuring American designers like Roy Halston, Mollie Parnis, Bob Mackie, and BruceGlen alongside pieces from Mexico, China, South Korea, and Pakistan. Organized by curator Jean McElvain and director Aidan O'Connor, with research support from PhD candidate Anuje Farhung, the show is supported by the Kusske Design Initiative at the College of Design.
The timing is no accident. The exhibition kicks off the Goldstein Museum of Design's 50th anniversary celebration, a year of programming that will continue throughout the 2026-27 academic year. It is a fitting opener for a milestone the museum has spent half a century earning — and a characteristically unexpected one. The Goldstein has never been a museum that simply hangs pretty dresses. It is a teaching collection of more than 36,000 multidisciplinary objects that ranges from haute couture to furniture, textiles, graphic design, and industrial objects. And its new exhibition treats the sequin not as a frivolous bauble but as a serious subject with significant historical, social, cultural, technological, and environmental dimensions.
The exhibition also carries the museum's own history within it. The Goldstein Museum of Design is named for Harriet and Vetta Goldstein, two sisters who taught in the University of Minnesota's School of Home Economics. The museum's collection began with the sisters' personal travel collections from the 1920s and '30s, informal acquisitions made during their journeys, including Southwest travels that brought Indigenous objects into the collection. Founded in 1976 as the Goldstein Gallery, it was renamed the Goldstein Museum of Design in 2000 to reflect its expanded academic role.
Director Aidan O'Connor, the museum's ninth director, sees the anniversary year as a chance to strengthen ties both inward and outward. “We are looking in and looking out,” she told the Park Bugle. Internally, the museum provides design students with direct object-based research and exhibition space. Externally, it collaborates across disciplines — campus radio station Radio K (KUOM) produced a sequin-inspired playlist for the exhibition, and the museum has even connected with University agriculture faculty through its vintage Corn King dinnerware. O'Connor has prioritized making the space welcoming, with a refreshed atrium, QR-coded exhibit brochures, and extended Thursday hours until 7 p.m. The museum has also done careful work on its collection's ethics, consulting with the University's Office of Native American Affairs and having NAGPRA Coordinator Dylan Goetsch review its Indigenous objects one by one for compliance with federal repatriation law.
For those who remember the Goldstein's earlier exhibitions, the sequin show is of a piece with a museum that has never shied from the unexpected. There was the 1990-91 exhibition “Mention the Unmentionables: 100 Years of Underwear,” which generated plenty of snickering while recognizing Minneapolis-based manufacturers Munsingwear and Vassarette. Marilyn DeLong, professor emeritus who taught at the University for 50 years, recalls the early days when department heads served double duty as museum directors and faculty became volunteer curators; it wasn't until 1988 that the museum hired a professional full-time director and staff. Former students credit skills learned in exhibit work as serving them throughout their careers.
Some people need sequins, Edith Head said. The Goldstein Museum suggests we all might benefit from understanding them.