“Quinceañera: Dress and Memory in Latine Culture,” a colorful exhibition at Queens College’s Godwin-Ternbach Museum celebrates a pivotal cultural tradition, showcasing seventeen dresses and accessories loaned by members of the local Latin American community.
The exhibition running from September 25th through December 18th explores the cultural significance of the Quinceañera, a traditional rite of passage signifying a 15 year old’s entry into adulthood.
The show is the vision of Emily Ripley, Director of the Fashion and Design program at QC, whose background includes working at the Calvin Klein Archive and the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition involved collaborations across the Queens College Fashion and Design Program. Students helped make handmade fabric flowers for the exhibition.
The idea for the exhibition came from a student’s assignment: Stephanie Giraldo-Deabreu’s Quinceañera essay for Ripley’s “Dress Matters” class.
“She beautifully articulated the experience of embodying the dress, its textures, and the power of a transformative moment. I was blown away, and really wanted to shout it out loud, to celebrate this ritual and the Latine culture,” said Ripley in a statement to The Knight News. “This exhibition is a labor of love, a full-throated support of the diverse Latine culture, and the students that I serve.”
Intern Alexis Puebla (Fashion Design major, class of 2026) worked with Ripley on the exhibit. “During my teenage years, I had the wonderful opportunity to be a chambelan [an escort] for my friends’ Quinceañeras. After explaining the exhibition to them, mostly all [of them] wanted their dress to be a part of the show, they truly saw how meaningful the show was,” said Puebla.
Regarding the efforts to prepare the dresses, Puebla added: “The hours and I mean hours of steaming to bring these dresses back to their voluminous selves. Some days we would really only get through one dress due to the layers of tulle and fabric. It was really a four-person task, two people holding up the fabric and two people steaming.”
The dress, according to Puebla’s research, has its origins in 16th-century Spanish debutante culture.
The exhibit features variations on the Quinceñara–for example, the Cincuentañera, a version that celebrates one’s 50th birthday, emerged for the Latina women who didn’t have the opportunity at 15. In Puebla’s words, this “demonstrates the cultural impact and self-healing properties the dress holds.”
The dresses are displayed alongside a motion-activated audio system that plays segments from six oral history interviews, reinforcing the exhibition’s themes of private life, family, community, and tradition.
Two other significant symbols are the accessories and their corresponding rituals, both central to the tradition. The first is the changing of the shoes, where the father or father figure replaces the young woman’s flats or sneakers with high heels, symbolizing the young woman’s transition to womanhood. The second is the last doll, a tradition that involves the young women surrendering their dolls to symbolize their transition to adulthood.
Puebla described opening night as “pure joy.”
The curation of the exhibit was designed especially for the women who haven’t seen their dresses in so long, and would have never thought they would be in a museum. “I hope the lasting memory is that this ceremony is more than an extravagant birthday but a commitment of all family members to keep the tradition alive and grow as a community,” said Puebla.
