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Indianapolis Museum of Art's Curator of Textile and Fashion Arts Niloo Paydar. (Kelly Wilkinson / The Indianapolis Star)

Paydar shows fashion trends through history. ON Thursday, March 6, the Indianapolis Museum of Art fashion exhibit "Breaking the Mode" will open. (Kelly Wilkinson / The Indianapolis Star)

Click here to see a video tour of the "Breaking the Mode" exhibit including an interview with IMA curator of textile and fashion arts Niloo Paydar

Niloo Paydar has been preparing for weeks for a big fashion show that opens today. But this fashion show lasts for three months, and the models are dummies.

"We have just crates and crates of body parts," she says.

As the Indianapolis Museum of Art's curator of textiles and fashion arts, Paydar has been orchestrating the set-up of "Breaking the Mode," a traveling exhibit coming to the IMA from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibit is making its final stop in Indy after a trip to Florence, Ital.

Paydar's enthusiasm shows through as she goes over the slide show. Textiles and fashion, after all, are her bag.

In 1986, after getting a bachelor's degree in surface pattern design and a master's in fiber structure and interlocking from Syracuse University, Paydar came to the IMA as an assistant to the curator of textiles and ethnographic art. In 1989 she attained her current position, and has since curated exhibits of quilts, lace, kimonos, wedding dresses and more.

"Breaking the Mode" includes 40 different designers working during the past 25 years. As the show approaches, Paydar is more and more charged up.

"It is really exciting for me to see the vision happening," she says.

How did you get into textiles?

I was studying industrial design. I took a course in fabric design and I loved it. I like to look at historic examples. Pattern was really 8always something that drew me.

What do you make?

I learned to weave in college. I just loved it. We were dyeing the yarn, doing the spinning; we had the wool, and then we'd spin it. It was to make a carpet. Weaving is hard -- it's not as improvised as some of the arts. You have to plan the whole thing really well in advance. It was not as spontaneous. I'm a planner.

Do you have a certain time period you admire, clothingwise?

I always tell people I'm partial to the '50s. Some of the greatest French designers emerged after the war. They put women in this beautiful, elegant clothing. The 1930s also -- it was very feminine.

What's it like working with the mannequins for IMA exhibits?

Mannequins are perfect -- that's the problem. Obviously, they don't bend, so it's hard to work with them. Because dresses are in all different sizes, and you want the dress to look like on the mannequin, there's a lot of padding and manipulation to make the dresses look right. These mannequins are cast from perfect bodies. And a lot of our fashion collection has been donated, so these are things that real women -- not size fours and perfect sixes -- wore. So they are not quite fitting. There's a lot of manipulation. People have no idea how long it really takes to mount a fashion exhibition, to just find the right mannequin and make the dress fit right. It's a big production.

Fashion seems to be on the forefront of our minds these days. When did it become so popular with the public?

It's really been the past 10 years. For me the greatest fashion show is the red-carpet shows. I'm not sure how long it has been since they have been showing them on TV; before it wasn't really that important a component. I think that has helped a lot. I tape the red-carpet display. Julia Roberts won her Oscar wearing vintage Valentino.

What does this focus mean for museums?

Now more and more museums across the country are showing fashion. And that has helped bring it to the forefront of the contemporary arts. First of all, that fashion is art and that it belongs in a museum and that it can be appreciated the same way as anything that's on the walls or in the cases at any art museum. There's a lot of creativity behind it. Also, it's something that people are familiar with. You really don't have to have an art history degree to appreciate a great fashion design.

You've done some quilt exhibitions. What do you like about quilts?

For a lot of women, this was their outlet, their creative outlet. This was a social thing, this was a source of pride for them, and they spent a lot of time planning this and creating these things.

What kind clothing show would you put together if you could have carte blanche, from around the world, no holds barred?

Hmm, that's so difficult. I went to a Balenciaga show in Paris a while ago. I love Charles James' stuff. There's an example of him in the "Breaking the Mode" exhibition. He was truly a sculptor. He would spend hours and hours and hours working on the huge ball gowns. I think a show like that would be very dramatic.

Do you sew?

No. I get asked that question quite often. People ask me if I sew, and I say no, and they're quite surprised. But when they say that, I say, "Do you ever ask painting curators if they can paint, or Africa curators if they can carve wood? Or if Asian art curators can actually make ceramics?"

How big is the collection?

It's about 6,000 pieces. But that's not just costumes. It's all textiles from all over, from Asia, East Asia, China, Japan, Indonesia, a lot of Central Asian pieces, Indian, Persian, Turkish, and then a large collection of African textiles, both North African and sub-Saharan, a lot of European, American quilts, coverlets, fashion.

What was one standout experience in talking to people in the galleries?

Something that I will never forget, and it was really, really, sort of surreal experience.

I was giving a tour in the gallery for "I Do." By the dresses, we give the name of the donor; sometimes they used to write something descriptive. There was a '20s dress. It was one of the few dresses that we didn't have a picture of. We were just looking at the dress and someone got me by the dress and said, 'That was my grandmother's dress.'" I had goosebumps. She said, 'We are just loving it.'" That was a really great experience.

How have things changed at the IMA since you came here?

It has changed a lot. Things have changed so much. This is a great time to be at the IMA. We have two to three exhibitions a year, and have dedicated galleries. We have a great space. This is the whole environment -- especially Max Anderson. It's just a great place to work and do things out of the norm. Really, the IMA is growing nationally and internationally -- it's on the map.

I just love my job. That's something that has kept me going. I just love what I do.