Nelly Furtado’s ‘Maneater’ vest heads to museum as Calgary exhibit opens ahead of Hall of Fame induction

The black sweater vest from Nelly Furtado’s 2006 “Maneater” video now sits under museum lights, perched on a 20-foot illuminated catwalk in downtown Calgary. Nearby, a custom silver ensemble the singer wore at the 2024 Juno Awards glints behind glass, flanked by lyric notebooks and looping video of early-2000s music television.

Exhibit opens March 25 at Studio Bell

Beginning March 25, visitors to Studio Bell—home of the National Music Centre—will file past those artifacts as part of a new feature exhibition titled “The 2026 Canadian Music Hall of Fame Inductee: Nelly Furtado.” The show opens four days before Furtado is set to be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during the 55th annual Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ontario.

Together, the exhibition and Hall of Fame honor move one of Canada’s most commercially successful pop artists from the charts into the country’s official music canon. They also arrive less than a year after Furtado said she was stepping back from performing, citing intense scrutiny of her body and appearance—an undercurrent that complicates the timing of celebratory tributes.

The Calgary exhibition, announced March 11 by the National Music Centre, runs through February 2027 and is included with general admission to Studio Bell. It is mounted in partnership with the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), the body that administers the Junos and oversees the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

In a statement released by the centre, Furtado described the show as a chronicle of her creative evolution.

“Music has always been about exploration for me, and this exhibit captures so many chapters of my journey,” she said, calling it “such an honour” to see her career traced in the museum’s galleries.

Costumes, notebooks, and a multilingual career

Curators at the National Music Centre position the exhibition as a portrait of a career that has “transcended borders—sonically, culturally, and linguistically.” The displays span her rise from a Victoria, British Columbia, teenager recording demos to a global pop figure who has released music in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Key artifacts include the “Maneater” costume, tour outfits from across two decades, and the silver stage look Furtado wore when she hosted and performed at the Juno Awards in 2024. Original lyric sheets and notebooks highlight her songwriting process, alongside archival photographs and immersive video installations.

The exhibition anchors the fifth floor of Studio Bell, which houses permanent displays for the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and Quebec’s ADISQ Hall of Fame. A separate exhibit celebrating the full 2026 Hall of Fame class is expected to open later this year.

Andrew Mosker, president and chief executive of the National Music Centre, said the feature show both spotlights Furtado and broadens the picture of Canadian music history presented at the museum.

“Nelly Furtado is one of Canada’s most influential and globally recognized artists,” Mosker said. “Her career has crossed borders and bridged cultures.”

Induction set for March 29 at the Junos

CARAS and public broadcaster CBC announced in November that Furtado will be formally inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the Juno Awards ceremony on March 29. The broadcast from Hamilton’s TD Coliseum will air and stream across CBC platforms in Canada and online.

Allan Reid, president and chief executive of CARAS and the Juno Awards, called Furtado “an undisputed icon whose innovative songwriting shaped an era and transformed pop music,” adding that her work “continues to resonate worldwide.”

Furtado’s induction also reflects a generational and stylistic shift for the Hall of Fame, founded in 1978 and long associated with artists rooted in rock, folk and classic pop. Recent inductees have increasingly come from genres that defined the late 1990s and 2000s, including pop-punk and hip-hop.

From “I’m Like a Bird” to ‘Loose’ and beyond

Born in 1978 to Portuguese parents who immigrated from the Azores, Furtado grew up in Victoria singing in choirs and writing songs. She moved to Toronto in the 1990s, and her debut album, “Whoa, Nelly!” (2000), produced the global hit “I’m Like a Bird,” earning her a Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance.

Her 2006 album “Loose” marked a commercial peak, with singles such as “Promiscuous” and “Maneater” topping charts in multiple countries. Over the course of her career, Furtado has sold an estimated 35 million albums and, according to CARAS, her catalog has been streamed more than 20 billion times worldwide. She has three No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, 10 Juno Awards and additional honors including a Latin Grammy and BRIT Award.

Later releases expanded her linguistic reach and genre palette, including the Spanish-language album “Mi Plan” (2009). In 2024 she returned with “7,” her first studio album in several years, describing it as an “inner revolution” that embraced a more celebratory pop sound.

Institutions, legacy, and the economics of nostalgia

The museum and Hall of Fame celebrations follow a difficult period in the spotlight. On Oct. 25, 2025—the 25th anniversary of “Whoa, Nelly!”—Furtado announced on social media that she was stepping away from performing for the foreseeable future, pointing in interviews and posts referenced in entertainment coverage to fatigue with online attacks and commentary about her body.

The National Music Centre exhibition does not directly address that recent chapter, focusing instead on instruments, costumes and creative milestones. Still, its timing underscores how cultural institutions and the music business treat back catalogs as enduring assets, especially as early hits resurface on social platforms and streaming playlists for audiences too young to remember their original release.

For Calgary and Hamilton, the joint focus on Furtado also speaks to how mid-sized Canadian cities leverage music heritage and major events. Studio Bell, which opened in 2016, has become a centerpiece of Calgary’s East Village redevelopment and houses more than 2,000 instruments and artifacts. Hamilton officials, meanwhile, have projected roughly $12 million in direct economic impact from hosting the 2026 Junos, citing hotel bookings, restaurant traffic and international media exposure.

As visitors walk the catwalk of Furtado’s stage outfits in Calgary and viewers watch her induction from Hamilton, two sites will frame the same story from different angles: one as a carefully curated retrospective, the other as a live, televised ceremony. For an artist known for crossing musical and cultural borders, the dual tributes signal that her work now belongs not only to the present—but also to Canada’s official record of its musical past.