Fashion and Psychoanalysis

Presenter: Valerie Steele, PhD

Tuesday, September 22, 2026, at 7:00 – 9:00 PM Central time

By ZOOM ONLY

Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for FIT

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Speaker:

Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she has organized more than 25 exhibitions since 1997, including The Corset: Fashioning the Body, London Fashion, Gothic: Dark Glamour; A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk, Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color, Paris, Capital of Fashion, and Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis. 

She is also the author or editor of more than 30 books, including Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, Women of Fashion, Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power, The Corset, Gothic: Dark Glamour, Dress, Dreams, and Desire: A History of Fashion and Psychoanalysis, and Fashion Designers A-Z: The Collection of The Museum at FIT.  Her books have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. In addition, she is founder and editor in chief of Fashion Theory:  The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, the first scholarly journal in Fashion Studies.  

Steele combines serious scholarship (and a Yale Ph.D) with the rare ability to communicate with general audiences. As author, curator, editor, and public intellectual, Valerie Steele has been instrumental in creating the modern field of fashion studies and in raising awareness of the cultural significance of fashion. She has appeared on many television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show and Undressed: The Story of Fashion.  Described in The Washington Post as one of “fashion’s brainiest women” and by Suzy Menkes as “The Freud of Fashion,” she was listed as one of “The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry” in the Business of Fashion 500: (2014 to the present).

Description: 

We tend to focus on the spoken word when listening to the unconscious. This presentation illuminates another modality, fashion, as an expression of the unconscious. Utilizing images from the exhibit “Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis” (September 2025 to January 2026 at MFIT), Dr. Valerie Steele will draw on psychoanalytic concepts using ideas from Freud, Jung, Lacan and Anzieu to interpret the work of several well known designers. 

Agenda:

In the first hour the presenter will discuss her topic with both lecture and slides and the second hour will be time for audience discussion.

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, participants should be able to:

1. Describe how fashion can be understood as a “deep surface” unconscious communication that speaks about feelings, desires and identities. 
2. Describe how Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage and the vulnerability of being seen and not being seen can be understood through fashion. Describe how the French analyst Didier Anzieu’s theory of the metaphorical skin-ego can be utilized to understand fashion as a ‘second skin’ that reinforces feelings that can both comfort and protect.
3. Describe how change in fashion can reflect transformation as similar to the psychoanalytic ideas of  the ever-changing self and larger societal paradigm shifts in attitudes about topics of sexuality and gender.

Continuing Education Credits are offered exclusively to Society members in all membership categories and those intending to join.

The presenter, Valerie Steele, PhD, and the organizer, Lisa Karaitis, PsyD, have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to report.

Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program.

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society.  The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Credits Available:

• Physicians: 2.0 Credits
• Psychologists: 2.0 Credits
• Social Workers: 2.0 Credits
• PAs: 2.0 Credits
• Nurses & NPs: 2.0 Nursing Contact Hours
• Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 2.0 Credits
  Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
• Interprofessional Continuing Education: 2.0 Credits

Other Profession Types

Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute hold the final say on which accredited activities they accept.

Disclosure Statement

None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.

*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.

Community & Culture Program

Inaugural Event - Society Members Only!

October 6 - 5:45 pm

Goodman Theater / 333 N. Lasalle Street

Not yet a member?  Join now

You are invited to the inaugural event of theChicago Psychoanalytic Society’s Community & Culture Program!

Designed to bring Society members together in person throughout the year, the program will feature some of Chicago’s wonderful theatrical and cultural offerings—with a psychoanalytic bent—along with opportunities to gather afterward for lively discussion and socializing.

Our first event will be David Byrne’s (of Talking Heads) Theater of the Mind on Tuesday, October 6, at 5:45 p.m.

Theater of the Mind takes place in the historic Reid Murdoch Building, just across the river at 333 N. LaSalle Street in Chicago’s River North neighborhood.

Tickets are $52, and space is limited to 16 participants. If you would like to join us, please register by Tuesday, September 8. This is a Chicago Psychoanalytic Society members-only event.

A post-show gathering for dinner, conversation, and socializing is being planned, with details to follow.

We hope you’ll join us for the launch of this new Society program and an evening of theater, conversation, and community!

OPEN PRINTABLE FLYER

Over 75 minutes, you’ll move through a series of rooms where you’ll participate in thought-provoking neuroscience experiences. You’ll learn how easily your own senses can deceive you. If perception and memory are both malleable, then perhaps even your identity is less fixed than you think… You may not be who you think you are. But we’re all in it together.

Additional information can be found here:  

www.TheateroftheMindChicago.com

From the theater:

Patrons may purchase parking at The Sterling Self Park (owned and operated by InterPark), for $14.00. Sterling Self Park is located at 111 W Kinzie: valid for 8 hours.  Discount parking can be purchased here: https://theaterofthemindchicago.com/plan-your-visit#transportation

The running time is approximately 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes), no intermission. Due to the nature of the experience and for the safety of performers and audience members, there will be no late admittance under any circumstances.  Please plan on arriving 15-20 prior to your entry time.

You will follow your Guide as they revisit key moments in their life in a surreal, 15,000-square-foot installation with a group of just 16 audience members.  The timed entry is every 15 minutes with a maximum of 16 percipients in each time slot.

You will need to move around the space among multiple environments with your fellow attendees. We recommend wearing comfortable shoes and clothes.  Backpacks, bags, and purses are not allowed in the experience. Complementary 12” x 12” lockers are provided.