Curator Koda Gets Post at Met Costume Institute

Harold Koda, one of New York’s better-known fashion curators, is putting his new landscape architecture career on hold to become the new curator-in-charge at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute in Manhattan.

He succeeds Richard Martin, who died in November. The two were longtime collaborators on books, exhibitions and their catalogs. Koda, who served as associate curator of the Costume Institute from 1993 to 1997, will assume his new post Nov. 6.

Koda and Martin staged a dozen exhibitions together at the Met, including “Diana Vreeland: Immoderate Style” and “Waist Not,” both in 1993; and in 1996, “Two by Two,” and “Christian Dior.” Koda, a Honolulu native, has co-authored 18 books and 10 catalogs for the Met shows.

The new curator, who started his career as an administrator for rare books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s in New York, came to the Met from the Fashion Institute of Technology where he held three positions: associate curator, curator and director of the college’s costume collection. At FIT, he also worked with Martin on such projects as the “Jocks and Nerds” and “Fashion in Film,” books and exhibitions.

This month, Koda received a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the graduate school of design at Harvard University.