Photos of LSU Textile & Costume Museum’s Geoffrey Beene show |

The LSU Textile & Costume Museum, Human Ecology Building, 140 Tower Drive, is showing ‘Geoffrey Beene: Coming Home,” is a retrospective exhibit of the Haynesville native and world renowned fashion designer’s work, beginning in 1961 and ending with his death in 2004.

The show runs through Jan. 24, 2025. A complementary show of the same title is running at the LSU Museum of Art in the Shaw Center for the Arts, 100 Lafayette St., through Aug. 30.

Beene was a native of the north Louisiana town of Haynesville. He was known for his attention to detail and eventually skyrocketed to international fame in the world of women’s fashion.

Pieces in both exhibits are part of a collection of more than 200 designs donated by Sylvia Karasu, MD, a clinical professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan. Karasu began buying and wearing Beene’s designs in 1991, eventually forming a friendship with the designer.

Karasu not only wore Beene’s designs but collected pieces in an effort to preserve his work. Her donation of those pieces has resulted in LSU as the largest repository of Beene’s work.

The Textile & Costume Museum’s hours are 10 a.m.-noon and 1-4 pm. Monday through Friday and 2-4 p.m. the first Sunday of each month. Admission is free. For more information, call (225) 578-1087 or visit lsu.edu/textilemuseum.

Also, at 6 p.m. June 13, Museum Director Michael Mamp will give the gallery talk, “Geoffrey Beene: A Closer Look” at the LSU Museum of Art in the Shaw Center for the Arts, 100 Lafayette St. For more information, visit lsumoa.org. And at 6 p.m. Aug. 30, the Textile & Costume Museum will celebrate Beene’s 100th birthday with a party of cake and champagne.  

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