Clarissa M. Esguerra

2022-2025

Clarissa M. Esguerra is Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). She joined the curatorial staff in 2008 where she has overseen light-sensitive rotations within the permanent galleries and served as an advisor for numerous costume and textiles installations, both for LACMA-organized exhibitions as well as for out-going loans to national and international museums. In 2019 she curated "Power of Pattern: Central Asian Ikats from the David and Elizabeth Reisbord Collection," and in 2016, she co-curated "Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715-2015." Both exhibitions were awarded the Richard Martin Award for Excellence in the Exhibition of Costume. Her curatorial contributions also include "Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 – 1915" (2010-2011). Esguerra has written regularly on historic dress and authored, co-authored, and contributed to exhibition catalogues, journals, and magazines. Esguerra also oversees LACMA’s on-going project, "Undertaking the Making: LACMA Costume and Textiles Pattern Project," an online resource that publishes garment patterns from extant objects within her department’s collection. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Brenau Women’s College and the University of Georgia.