Olivia Mahoney formerly served as Senior Curator at the Chicago History Museum. She developed numerous exhibitions related to Chicago and US history, including Edward Worst: Craftsman and Educator (1985), A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln with Eric Foner (1990), Go West! Chicago and American Expansion (1995), Chicago: Crossroads of America (2006), Modern by Design: Chicago Streamlines America (2018), Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s-70s (2024), and Threads of a Nation: Preserving Presidential Costumes (2026). Since 2019, Mahoney has been a freelance curator/researcher for the Griffin Museum of Science & Industry, the Obama Presidential Center, and the Chicago History Museum.

As assistant conservator for costume and textiles at Chicago History Museum, Julie Benner has had the privilege of working with CHM’s exceptional costume collection for a number of exhibitions, including Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair, Silver Screen to Mainstream: American Fashion in the 1930s and ’40s, Dressed in History: A Costume Collection Retrospective, and more. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Glasgow Centre for Textile Conservation and has held positions in conservation and collections management at the Field Museum of Natural History and the Denver Art Museum.

As the costume mount maker who has worked with the Chicago History Museum since 2008, Michael has collaborated on several memorable costume exhibitions from Chic Chicago (2008) to Charles James: Genius Deconstructed (2011), amongst many others, mounting over 400 ensembles and creating reproductions of existing costumes. Michael received his BFA in fashion design from the Illinois Institute of Art – Chicago and helps teach engaging sewing classes through various library makerspace programs in the Chicago suburbs.

Holly Lundberg received her degree in Conservation and Materials Science from University College London. She completed her postgraduate work in the conservation analytical labs of the Smithsonian Institution, and worked in conservation at the Field Museum of Natural History for seven years before joining the Chicago History Museum in 2005, where she specializes in the preservation, care, and conservation of materials in the Costume and Textile, Decorative and Industrial Arts, and Painting and Sculpture collections, as well as for artifacts on exhibition.

Jessica Pushor is the collections manager of costume and textiles at CHM. She holds a MA in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Pushor previously co-curated Treasured Ten: Selections from the Costume Collection (2022), Dressed in History: A Costume Collection Retrospective (2024), and has assisted on several fashion exhibitions in the past. At CHM, she worked on Silver Screen to Mainstream: American Fashion in the 1930s and ’40s (2019) and Making Mainbocher: The First American Couturier (2016).