Cynthia Cooper

Cynthia Cooper is a lecturer at Concordia University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Department of Art History, where she has taught courses on fashion history and its intersections with art. She serves as Head, Collections and Research, and Curator, Costume and Textiles at the McCord Museum in Montreal, overseeing the largest museum collection of Canadian dress.

• University of Rhode Island – MS in Historic Costume and Textiles

Her research focuses on:

• Fashion history and its socio-cultural significance
• Museum curation and heritage interpretation
• Textile conservation and Canadian material culture
• Exhibition design and public engagement
• Historical costumes as cultural artifacts
• Interdisciplinary approaches to art and fashion studies

She has authored Magnificent Entertainments: Fancy Dress Balls of Canada's Governors General (1997) and contributed to major publications including The Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (2010) and Fashion: A Canadian Perspective (2004). Notably, she received the Richard Martin Exhibition Award twice for her curatorial work.