Clad in black-and-white uniforms, they once appeared all over the River City—leading cheers, ruffling their pleated skirts, thrusting their pom-poms into the air.
But these cheerleaders weren’t rooting for Richmond’s athletes. Instead, they were praising the city’s artists.
Reasoning that creatives need as much encouragement as jocks do, the Art Cheerleaders appeared at First Fridays, 1708 Gallery’s InLight exhibition and other events to put a bit of pep in the city’s artistic step circa 2007.
One of the Art Cheerleaders’ uniforms—sporting “A-R-T” on the front in red letters—is back in the spotlight as part of “Fancy: Costumes, Characters and the Richmond Masque,” the Valentine’s new exhibit about the museum’s eclectic array of garments, accessories and other ephemera from the city’s past.
“Fancy” explores “the many ways that Richmonders, from the 19th century through the present day, have used dressing up in costume as a way to protest, perform and party,” explains Nichol Gabor, the museum’s Nathalie L. Klaus Curator of Costume & Textiles.
Gabor says the exhibition was inspired by the Valentine’s unique holdings, which include roughly 10,000 clothing and textile pieces. The exhibition will focus on “fancy dress,” which may have a different definition in this context than you might imagine.
“For some people it means formal wear or ornamental décor,” Gabor says. “The way we’re discussing it is a term in the fashion world to describe costumes worn to temporarily transform the identity of the person wearing it. It’s not formal wear. It’s not cultural dress or any other garment that is worn without that element of pretending.”
Among the pieces exhibited in “Fancy”—and yes, they’ve heard all the Reba McEntire and Iggy Azalea jokes—is a circa-1960 velveteen mini-dress worn by an attendant at the city’s long-defunct Tobacco Festival, Pam Reynolds’ floral headpiece from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s 1996 Faberge Ball, and a purple “cow person” outfit that envisions a blending of cowboys and contemporary Black culture.
From the Branch Museum of Design’s annual Mad Hatter Garden Party event, where attendees dress in literally over-the-top headwear, the exhibit presents two hats: one in the shape of a giant Betta fish made from cardboard and one that’s a scaled down model of the museum itself, complete with small figures wearing their own little hats.
The exhibition also has a tutu from the Brown Ballerinas for Change, the group that went viral during the George Floyd protests for posing en pointe at the since-dismantled Robert E. Lee Monument.
“They were this group of young Black women who were trying to send a message about art and the ballet and protest through dance,” Gabor explains. “They formed a group dedicated to social justice and bringing the ballet to an underrepresented group of people.”
Asked if she has a favorite piece in the exhibition, Gabor cites a 19th century gown that once belonged to Elizabeth Virginia Weddell while her husband served as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. The dress was originally worn by a lady-in-waiting to Empress Carlota of Mexico in the late 1860s. Weddell modified it to wear at fancy dress balls in Mexico City in 1928 and Palm Beach, Florida in 1931. The dress will be displaying alongside a photo of Weddell wearing it.
“I really love those 19th-century pieces that have survived, because they really weren’t meant to exist” longer than the period in which they were made, Gabor says. “The fact that we have a photograph, the fact that it was [modified], tells this amazing story of how people have used fancy dress throughout history.”
“We’ve got masks from Gwar from when they were first starting out. We’ve got pieces from the Aquarian [Bookshop’s] Cone Parade, the Monument Avenue 10k, pieces from the Richmond Ballet,” she says. “There’s a little something for everybody.”
Gabor, who holds a master’s from George Washington University in museum studies and fashion history, interned with collections at the Smithsonian and the Daughters of the American Revolution’s DAR Museum before coming to the Valentine. She was drawn to costumes and textiles because of their ability to interpret and illuminate history.
“Not everybody has silver or fine paintings or Chippendale furniture, but every single person throughout history wears clothes and uses them to express themselves and their personality,” Gabor says. “I love that they can tell a very human, personal story.”
In working on the exhibit, Gabor was surprised to learn how much Richmonders enjoy dressing up in costume, especially since the city isn’t known for a singular dress-up event like Mardi Gras or Carnival: “Maybe we don’t have a particular nationally known fancy dress party, but we have a lot of dress-up events, everything from the Mad Hatter to the Monument Avenue 10k, which has a dress-up component.”
Gabor encourages Richmonders to come take a peek at some of the Valentine’s sartorial treasures and notes that the exhibition will be free to the public on opening day this Sunday.
“We’ve got masks from Gwar from when they were first starting out. We’ve got pieces from the Aquarian [Bookshop’s] Cone Parade, the Monument Avenue 10k, pieces from the Richmond Ballet,” she says. “There’s a little something for everybody.”
“Fancy: Costumes, Characters and the Richmond Masque” runs Saturday, May 10 through Jan. 25, 2026, at The Valentine, 1015 E. Clay St. Admission is free on May 11. For more information, visit thevalentine.org.
Correction: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect start date, the opening for the exhibit is Saturday, May 10.
