The Cincinnati Art Museum has announced a major retrospective titled “Elizabeth Hawes: Radical American Fashion,” running from April 24 to August 2, 2026. This exhibition marks the first comprehensive museum presentation of Hawes’s career, featuring over 50 garments spanning the 1920s through the 1960s, alongside original sketches and the first-ever publication dedicated to her work. Curated by Cynthia Amnéus, the show traces Hawes’s journey from a Paris-based designer to a pioneer of independent American couture and a vocal critic of the fashion industry.
This exhibition is significant for its recovery of a long-overlooked figure who challenged the Parisian dominance of the early 20th-century fashion world. Hawes was a visionary who predicted gender-neutral clothing and mass-manufacturing innovations while maintaining a radical political life as a labor organizer and social commentator. By highlighting her contributions, the museum contextualizes modern dressing conventions and explores the intersection of design, labor rights, and feminist history.