Unfashion Diaries
Threads of Power
Photography by Mangue Banzima
theo tyson is more than a fashion curator, she is a cultural storyteller, uncovering the narratives stitched into garments and the histories carried in cloth. Her work redefines fashion as an archive of memory, identity, and power.
In today’s Unfashion Diaries, we play dress up in New York City’s Salon 94 Art Gallery, while theo unravels stories and weaves legacies in her own voice.
Every aspiration of my life can be found, bound in fashion. Like sound and scent evoke memories, I can recall the haptic nature of happenings through garments. It has, for me, always been a means of assimilation and resistance, invisibility and visibility.
Fashion, but moreso self-fashioning and style, gave me power. It gave me authority and agency over my identity. And it gave me a voice when I was unable or unwilling to speak. Clothing and dress were the paint to the canvas of my body.
"Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life." - Bill Cunningham
With this as my lived experience, being a Curator of Fashion Arts privilèges me with the opportunity to escalate that storytelling to an infinite audience. As we all wear clothes, it is the one thing that we all share, and the most seamless point of entry to dialogue and discourse to embrace our humanity.
Only when you know who you are, will you be able to find the courage to do what drives you with integrity and grace." -Bethann Hardison
It is from this lived truth that my curatorial lens emerges: to seek out artists whose work not only demonstrates mastery, but also speaks to the deeper human conditions of power, memory, and community.
Fashion is, by default, an inclusive space, no one needs a Ph.D. or to be a rocket scientist to engage with it. Even in its simplest form, even in a nude, fashion remains part of the conversation: it is woven into our lives, in how we live in it, how we show up, and in the ways we choose to be visible, or not.
Curator of Fashion Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Theo Tyson
theo tyson is a visionary curator who frames fashion as a powerful storyteller of identity, memory, and culture. At the MFA Boston, they spotlight fashion not simply as garment, but as language, centering the voices of Black women and LGBTQI+ communities while challenging hierarchies of race, gender, and power.
With over two decades of experience, from retail and styling to curatorial roles at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, SCAD FASH, and the Boston Athenæum, tyson brings a dynamic, inclusive perspective to the field. Their exhibitions, including Four Womxn: New Musings on Blackness and Dress Up, reimagine fashion as an archive of resilience, authority, and possibility.
We’d like to thank Salon 94 and it’s founder Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn. Artworks by Australian Aboriginal artist Dhambit Munuŋgurr, Raven Halfmoon’s Neesh + Soku (Moon + Sun), and designer David Wiseman.