Why Chinese billionaire millennial Wendy Yu made groundbreaking donation to Met’s Costume Institute
We look at how Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Met curator Andrew Bolton played key roles in Yu’s multimillion-dollar endowment and the part it plays in Yu’s plans to boost China’s fashion industry
Earlier this year, the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that its superstar curator Andrew Bolton would assume the title “Wendy Yu curator in charge”.
Yu is the founder and chief executive of Hong Kong-based Yu Holdings, whose family wealth comes from her father’s door manufacturing business. In recent years she has become a regular at fashion shows and high-profile events such as the Met Gala, which is hosted by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour every year at the Metropolitan Museum.
A source familiar with the Metropolitan Museum’s fundraising efforts says Yu would have paid between US$3 million and US$4 million for the endowment.
It was a meeting with Wintour during Paris Fashion Week two years ago that led to Yu’s involvement with the Costume Institute, which has a collection of more than 33,000 costumes and accessories. Before Yu’s donation, it was the only department at the museum without an endowed curatorship.
Even more remarkable is that the position of Wendy Yu curator in charge is in perpetuity, as Bolton explained last month during New York Fashion Week.
“It will always be the Wendy Yu curator in charge, forever,” he said. “Every department at the Met has endowed positions, so this was the last department to benefit from an endowed, named position. We’re hoping that there will be other endowments in our department in the future, but this is our first one.”