 At the time of the merger, the Met costume collection consisted of 31,000 objects from the 17th-century onwards.The opening exhibition in 2014 featured work by British-born designer Charles James, an important figure in New York fashion of the 1940s and 1950s and whose work is in the Brooklyn collection.On September 8, 2015, it was announced that Harold Koda would be stepping down from his position as Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute.