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Petra Slinkard joined PEM in 2018, following her role as Curator of Costume at the Chicago History Museum, where she worked with a collection of more than 50,000 examples of fashion and textiles used in exhibitions, research, and community outreach. At PEM, Slinkard fosters the growth and inclusive spirit of the museum’s celebrated fashion initiative to develop a vibrant array of exhibitions, installations, and programming that celebrate the global impact and reach of fashion and textiles. Slinkard oversees the museum’s newly opened Fashion and Design gallery and was the co-curator of Made It: The Women who Revolutionized Fashion which is organized in association with the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. In her role as Director of Curatorial Affairs, Slinkard oversees the integration of PEM’s exhibition research and curatorial teams and develops departmental priorities and the strategies to deliver them.

Petra conceived and curated the exhibitions, Chicago Styled: Fashioning The Magnificent Mile®, and Making Mainbocher | The First American Couturier, for which she authored catalogs of the same titles. Prior to CHM, she worked at Newfields (Indianapolis Museum of Art), where she helped expand the museum's fashion and textile exhibition program and collection, as well as supported key events and the Museum’s Fashion Arts Society. At Newfields (IMA) she helped to shape a number of exhibitions such as An American Legacy: Norell, Blass, Halston and Sprouse, Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA's Collection, and co-curated Ball-Nogues Studio: Gravity's Loom. Slinkard is an active member of the Costume Society of America (CSA) and the American Association of Museum Curators (AAMC). She serves on the National Board of CSA, and previously served as a juror for the Milla Davenport Publication Award and the chair for the Richard Martin Exhibition Award Committee. She regularly presents programming on fashion and design history, as well as museum studies. Petra is a graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Merchandising, a Bachelor of Arts in Art History with a concentration in Modern and Contemporary Art, and a Master of Science in Fashion/Textile History. In 2017 she was recognized as one of the University’s '20 under 40' most distinguished alumni in the College of Arts and Sciences and joined the advisory board for I.U.’s newly established School of Art, Architecture, and Design.