In 1991, renowned fashion historian Valerie Steele published Women of Fashion: Twentieth Century Designers, a seminal tome and survey of female designers and their impact on fashion despite it being a male-dominated industry. From Vionnet to McCardell to Kawakubo, the collection of immense talent is a potent reminder of the innovations and illuminations that women’s perspectives on clothes and dressing can provide.

Exploring this tradition in today’s New York City, the Museum of Arts and Design teams with Garmento Zine to present Designing Women. Over the course of each evening, women designers who design womenswear discuss their creative processes and approaches to running businesses independently of the devices and trappings of a fashion industry that would see women as untenable fantasies. Together, these unique voices and experiences of Designing Women examine what really matters to women in fashion in 2015.