Silke Birte Geppert

Lektorin für Mode-, Kostüm- & Kunstgeschichte⋅Department Scenography⋅Department Fine Arts & Design

Silke Geppert is a university lecturer, curator for fashion & textiles and author. She was born in Lübeck and trained as a publishing bookseller in Hamburg. From 1991 she managed the art book publisher Nishen Publishing in London and curated exhibitions in London. She studied fashion and art history in Vienna and completed her doctorate on 15th century fashion in 2011. 2000-2004 she was director of the Museum Schloss Ahrensburg in Germany. Moved to Salzburg and worked at the Dommuseum Salzburg. From 2017-2020 she was the first Curator of Fashion and Custodian of Textiles and Carpets at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna (MAK). As curator for fashion, she conceived the exhibition "Maison Dior- Art and Fashion" at the Kunstforum in Vienna.

Silke Geppert began her training as a bookseller in a publishing house. In London she ran an art book publishing company and curated exhibitions. She studied fashion and art history in Vienna and received her doctorate in 2011 on fashion of the 15th century. From 2000 to 2004 she was director of the Museum Schloss Ahrensburg. Since 2017 she has been curator for fashion and custodian for textiles and carpets at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.

From 2014 to 2017 she worked as a research assistant in the "Fashion Textile Design" department at the University of Paderborn. She was a lecturer in fashion theory and fashion history at the Pforzheim University of Design, a lecturer in vestmental art history at the Karl-Franzens University in Graz and the University of Salzburg, and a research assistant at the Salzburg Cathedral Museum. She has researched and published on subjects such as fashion and stage costume, fashion and film, fashion and religion, as well as Burgundian fashion, textile history and contemporary art and fashion. She organizes courses and workshops on the subject of fashion polemics, fashion and traditional costume, fashion and the Salzburg Festival, fashion and temporality, and fashion and religion.

(selection)

Like a virgin_fashion and religion (in preparation 2023)
Frida Parmeggiani. Textile Artefacts, Vienna 2016
Look at my coat, little one. Of coats and of sharing. Paderborn 2016
Fashion and Film. Film Museum Munich 2014
Mantelwechsel - Bildbewegend, Berlin 2013
Fashion under the Cross. Dress Communication in Christian Cult, Salzburg 2013
Catwalk under the Cross, Salzburg, 2011
Medieval Contemporary Fashion in the Robe of the Saints, Salzburg 2010
The Harp on the Cross. Study on an exegetical crucifixion motif, Vienna/Bratislava 2004

Further publications:

Deutschlandradio interview on the Met Gala 2018 "In the fashion heaven of the Met Gala. No cult without pageantry".
Ö1 radio programme "Muster im Museum" https:/lut.sprechkontakt.at/muster-im-stoff (2019)
Ö1 radio programme "The 20s".
Interview on fashion in the Covid crisis (2020)
Article Kleine Zeitung (2021)
Potcast_Curator's tour of Yinka Shonibare CBE. Museum of Modern Art Salzburg (2021)
Video Creative Space for the exhibition Yinka Shonibare CBE. End of Empire, 2021, Art Education © Museum der Moderne Salzburg