Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT and founding editor of Fashion Theory. Described in The Washington Post as one of “fashion’s brainiest women” and by Suzy Menkes as “the Freud of fashion,” Steele combines serious scholarship (and a Yale Ph.D.) with a rare ability to communicate with general audiences. As author, curator, and editor, Steele has been instrumental in creating the modern field of fashion studies.