About the project

February 23 – August 19, 2023 

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts celebrated the long and colorful career of costume designer Willa Kim in her first-ever major retrospective exhibition, The Wondrous Willa Kim: Costume Designs for Actors and Dancers. Kim’s archive was acquired by the Library in 2017. The show featured an assortment of designs and costumes from her long and prolific career, including work from productions like Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies, The Will Rogers Follies, and her final Broadway show, Victor/Victoria starring Julie Andrews.

From her earliest designs to her very last production, Kim demonstrated her gift for creating whimsical costumes by using extraordinary combinations of color and texture. Born in 1917 to Korean immigrant parents, Kim began her professional life as a painter in Los Angeles, California, where she grew up. After studying from what would later become CalArts, she found a job as an assistant to Barbara Karinska, working under Raoul Pène du Bois who designed costumes for the Ginger Rogers 1944 film Lady in the Dark.

Following her mentors to New York, Kim began designing costumes for Broadway productions, such as The Red Eye of Love, and Goodtime Charley, Song & Dance, Dancin’, Tommy Tune Tonite! She designed costumes for some of the leading choreographers and dancers, like Eliot Feld and Michael Smuin, and production companies like Ballet Hispánico and American Ballet Theatre, as well as opera performances, figure skaters, and even some film and TV productions. She even designed salad-themed dresses for a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. The exhibition featured designs alongside some of the costumes that showcase Kim’s extraordinary range and ingenuity, and the design featured colors used in Kim’s home.

The Wondrous Willa Kim was curated by Bobbi Owen, professor emerita of the Department of Dramatic Art at the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she taught costume history and design. Owen is author of a monograph about Kim’s creative work published in 2005.

Graphic Design: Adam Cohen

Photography by Jonathan Blanc