A museum dressed to impress: Fashion finds a home in Tel Aviv

The Tel Aviv Fashion Museum will open in Sarona, a collaboration of the Azrieli Group and curator Ya’ara Keydar

By Jessica Steinberg

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Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center

A new museum devoted entirely to fashion as culture will open in Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Sarona complex in early 2027.

The Tel Aviv Fashion Museum, established by Dana Azrieli of the Azrieli Group and fashion historian and curator Ya’ara Keydar, will span three floors and face the Sarona complex.

With fashion having become a central part of artistic and cultural discourse worldwide, the Tel Aviv Fashion Museum aims to bring the same development to Israel, with a focus on Israeli creativity.

The museum will present original fashion exhibitions, promote Israeli designers, develop relationships with fashion and cultural institutions globally, and initiate collaborations and traveling exhibitions.

“The Fashion Museum is the fulfillment of a dream,” said Keydar. “For the first time in Israel, fashion has a permanent home. And everyone is invited into that home.”

Keydar and Azrieli began working on developing the museum approximately three years ago, along with Ilan Gerbi, the Azrieli Group’s director of strategic content initiatives.

From ‘Heroines,’ an exhibit about fashion design during wartime at the Holon Design Museum, from April 2025 (Credit Elad Sarig)

“This is an important step in recognizing fashion as part of our culture, and it has been made possible thanks to Dana, Ilan and the entire Azrieli Group,” said Keydar.

Azrieli noted the Group’s longstanding connection with the world of fashion and with the Israeli public.

The Azrieli Group owns and operates a nationwide network of 15 major shopping malls and commercial centers across Israel.

“The partnership with Dr. Ya’ara Keydar was a natural one for us,” said Azrieli. “Ya’ara brings deep knowledge, vision and the ability to turn fashion into a story that touches audiences. The combination of her experience and Azrieli’s entrepreneurial spirit is, to a large extent, the heart of this museum.”

High-rise buildings near Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market, January 15, 2023. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

Azrieli also noted her own personal connection to fashion, as her grandfather, the late Rafael Hirsch Azrilovitch, was a tailor and the owner of a successful workshop in Poland.

“We have an opportunity to define from scratch what a fashion museum in Israel should look like,” said Gerbi. “This allows us to think differently about the exhibitions, the audience and the entire experience.”

Before the establishment of the Tel Aviv Fashion Museum, Keydar brought fashion into Israeli museums, curating four exhibitions presented at the Design Museum Holon: “Je t’aime, Ronit Elkabetz”; “The Ball: Tailor-Made Escapism”; “Alber Elbaz: The Dream Factory”; and “Heroines: Fashion and Hope in World War II.”

The Lanvin fashion house-designed piece in homage to Alber Elbaz, the Moroccan-born, Israeli designer who died in 2021 and is being honored with ‘The Dream Factory,’ a new exhibit that opened September 12, 2022 at the Design Museum Holon (Courtesy Elad Sarig)

Together, those exhibitions attracted more than half a million visitors.

A graduate of Shenkar College, Keydar has a master’s degree in fashion studies from New York University and a doctorate in cultural studies from the Hebrew University.

She interned at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Fashion Institute of Technology.