History grad recognized with 2026 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise
Natalie Nudell is the director and principal investigator of the Fashion Calendar Research Database, and adjunct assistant professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. | Photo credit: Vilcek Foundation
For the past decade, fashion and textiles historian Natalie Nudell, BA 12, has uncovered the overlooked contributions of immigrant communities to the United States’ fashion industry — work that has earned her the 2026 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Fashion and Culture. The honour reflects both a lifelong passion for design and a personal history shaped by migration.
“I have a multi-generational experience of immigration because my parents came to Canada with their families from the Middle East and Europe when they were young,” Nudell explains. “Also my maternal grandmother worked as a seamstress after she arrived with my grandfather.”
A rare honour
The Vilcek Foundation, a U.S.-based organization that champions emerging voices in the arts and sciences, recognized Nudell for her research that bridges fashion studies, material culture and social history. This is the first time in a decade that the foundation has presented a creative promise award in the category of fashion and culture — a significance not lost on Nudell.
“There are many awards for designers, but very few are focused on design research,” she says. “It’s a huge honour and it’s nice to be acknowledged for this work because it helps raise my profile in this field.”
Nudell is the director and principal investigator of the Fashion Calendar Research Database, an open-source research platform that houses digitized content from Ruth Finley’s Fashion Calendar — the definitive publication of fashion shows and industry events for more than 70 years.
“We didn’t just digitize the publication,” she notes. “We added information so that the contributions of different communities — immigrants, women, 2SLGBTQIA+ — could be easily tracked. It pushes the boundaries of archival work in a way that previously was not done.”
A path shaped by Concordia
Nudell’s career might have taken a different direction if not for Concordia. Despite her passion for design, she originally envisioned a career in law, which brought her to the university to study history. A suggestion from her honours thesis advisor, Rachel Berger, BA 01 — now vice-provost of Innovation in Teaching and Learning at Concordia — prompted a change of plan.
“She encouraged me to write about the blogs disrupting the traditional fashion media,” Nudell recalls. “I realized there was an academic field studying fashion and material culture history and I could be part of that. So Concordia was pivotal in my career path.”
Today, Nudell is inspiring a new generation as an adjunct assistant professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York.
Meanwhile, her work with the Fashion Calendar Research Database continues to grow. She recently advised close friend and HIV/AIDS historian Ian Bradley-Perrin, BA 12, MA 15, on his new exhibition Love & Fury: New York’s Fight Against AIDS. She is also now expanding the database to integrate photography and video from fashion shows.
“It’s an incredible archive and there are so many different avenues for where we can take it,” she says. “The potential to support wide-ranging research about the creative industries is immense.”
Through these efforts, which will ensure the database is accessible for future generations of students and researchers, Nudell isn't just preserving history — she’s making it.