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Calgary’s Glenbow Museum has announced an upcoming exhibition meant to explore and honour the legacy of Canadian fashion icon, Jeanne Beker, and her influence on pop culture.
The exhibition, titled Obsession: The Unscripted Life of Jeanne Beker, will be co-curated by Beker and Paul Hardy and promises an intersection of art, fashion, music and storytelling. The two designers met in the early 2000s at Toronto Fashion Week, where Beker likened Hardy’s talent to that of Marc Jacobs or Stella McCartney.
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The co-curators use art, fashion and music to tell Beker’s “uniquely Canadian” story, according to the museum, and how she became a household name through her nearly-three decades of work as the host of Fashion Television.
Beker took her love of performing and used it to build a career rooted in passion. In addition to her work as a television personality, she is an experienced fashion and lifestyle journalist, editor and interviewer.
“Through her gifted skillset of writing, storytelling, and innate ability to connect with people, Beker pioneered new forms of reporting, that in turn democratized public access to industries like music and fashion that had been largely veiled in exclusivity,” said Glenbow officials in a news release.
Hardy, in a statement through Glenbow, says Beker’s “incredible life story” is at the centre of the exhibition. The designers brought together personal belongings, industry items and fashion from Beker’s wardrobe, all from designers she has interviewed, to create the deeply-personal exhibition.
“For years, Jeanne has brought a humanity to music, fashion, and gave voice to faces and social causes she had a conviction about,” he said.
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Beker, who will be in Calgary on Oct. 20 for a Wordfest event at the Central Library to promote her memoir Heart On My Sleeve, hopes this retrospective of her career will serve as inspiration for young people to “pursue their ambitions with passion and faith, knowing that with hard work, even the grandest dreams can come true.”
“As a child of immigrant parents, who were also Holocaust survivors, I was raised to dream and believe, be fearless, and tenacious,” said Beker in a statement through Glenbow.
Beker and Hardy both have a history with Glenbow, with Hardy serving as Glenbow’s Artist in Residence in 2015, culminating in the exhibition Kaleidoscopic Animalia, and Beker having previously supported the museum’s annual fundraiser, Schmancy gala.
Glenbow’s chief operating officer and vice president of engagement, Melanie Kjorlien, said in a news release that the museum is committed to telling unique stories, describing the exhibition as, “unlike anything people may have seen before at Glenbow or elsewhere. We’re looking at how storytelling has shaped social culture and self-expression – as told through Jeanne’s incredible career.”
This will be one of the feature exhibitions when the museum reopens in 2026 at the JR Shaw Centre for Arts & Culture after closing in 2021 for Glenbow Reimagined, a multi-year renovation project intended to enhance visitor experience, and improve museum access.
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