Andrew Bolton Chosen to Lead Met’s Costume Institute

After a prestigious 14-year run as the curator in charge of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, Harold Koda will be stepping down in January. Andrew Bolton, his fellow curator and former Out Tastemaker, was chosen as his successor.

"There's almost a tonic effect," Bolton told The New York Times on the comparison between old and new fashion. "Historical fashion informs contemporary fashion, and contemporary fashion enlivens historical fashion."

Bolton, who spearheaded two of the museum's most popular shows, 2011's "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty," and the most recent, "China: Through the Looking Glass," faces the task of maintaining historical fashion's relevance in a world driven more and more by technology. Though they've been met by staunch criticisms in recent years, Koda and Bolton both defend their art form. "There's a belief that we're just puppets," Koda told the Times, "we don't work for the brand, we work for the museum."

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Oh, and don't forget that Bolton and Thom Browne are longtime partners -- and were recently featured on Vanity Fair's International Best Dressed list -- so there's that cozy connection, too.

Though fashion can be a volatile and unforgiving place to toy with new ideas, the more than 600,000 attendees to "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" and more than 800,000 to "China: Through the Looking Glass" prove that Bolton is worthy of the Costume Institute's caretaking.

Read the full New York Times article here.