Exhibit: 'American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity'

Evolution of Style
From the 1890s heiress dependent on Old World European ideas of style to fashion her identity to the independent sensibility of 1940s screen sirens, the Metropolitan Museum's exhibition features 80 examples of high fashion from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, which was moved to the Met in January 2009. Many of the pieces have not been displayed in more than 30 years.

• Yves Saint Laurent, 1936-2008