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Tucked away on the western side of Shippensburg University Campus sits the Fashion Archives and Museum. This well-known and active museum of preserved historical garments has aided Carnegie Mellon graduate student Danielle Dulchinos to win first place in the Patterns of Fashion contest in London, England. The Costume Society funds this award in honor of the work of Janet Arnold, a dress historian and a founding member of the society who is known for her accurate pattern drafts of historic garments. The contest involves sewing one of Arnold’s pattern drafts published in her Patterns of Fashion volumes. With the help and expertise of the archives director, Dr. Karin J. Bohleke, Dulchinos became the first American student to win the prestigious competition.
Dulchinos, who recently graduated from the costume production program, has worked in theater, film, and costuming with a specialization in historical costuming, even though that kind of work mostly happens in London. Knowing about the contest for a while and wanting to enter it, Dulchinos finally went on the time consuming journey for her thesis. She ended up choosing a dress from the 1790s because she wanted a design that would challenge her and one that dated before the invention of the sewing machine. The dress has a lot of detail with pleating, embroidery, and ribbon work which Dulchinos stated she had not worked with much prior to undertaking this project.
“Embroidering was more technically challenging, but the pleating was more emotionally challenging,” Dulchinos said “The pleating took about six out of the eight Harry Potter movies to complete and the embroidery took about 80 hours.”
She stated how in the 18th-century, they did not cut anything so the fabric was very thick because of all the folding from the pleats. Finding a dress form for the pattern was its own challenge due to the shoulders sitting further back. People from the 18th-century stood with their shoulder blades closer together, resulting in a different posture compared to today. Also, to stay historically accurate, she used silk thread which was another learning curve because it is not as strong as polyester, so it kept breaking.
Dulchinos said Bohleke, the director at the Fashion Archives, helped immensely and was beyond generous with time, knowledge, and resources. Bohleke helped Dulchinos in keeping the dress as historically accurate as possible by giving Dulchinos antique hooks and baleen boning, which is virtually impossible to purchase now because it comes from the mouth of sperm whales.
“Shippensburg was really really wonderful and Karin is so hands on, helpful, and enthusiastic,” Dulchinos said.
She mentioned how the access to the archives was exactly what she needed. Dulchinos considered going to PennState for help with the project, but Shippensburg had the resources, knowledge, and the garment holdings she needed to study. She came to the Fashion Archives to examine closely examples of 18th-century dresses and their construction techniques.
After the technical challenges of making the dress, came the challenge of traveling with it. Dulchinos did travel to both New York and Los Angeles, and by the time she traveled to London, she knew what to do to protect her creation. She stated that while it was still very stressful, it was more stressful the first two times. The dress had its own AirTag and several garment bags and the flight attendants even hung the dress in the closet on the plane.
The entire process totaled to be around 350-400 hours. This included making the dress as well as conducting research, submitting pictures and a video of the process, and a 20 page written summary. Dulchinos said that she would do the process again and would highly recommend entering the Patterns of Fashion competition to other students.
“I definitely want to thank Karin for all her help,” Dulchinos emphasized at the end of the interview “I am very very grateful”.
Author:
Nicole Ocker, Class of 2025
Communication, Journalism, and Media Major
The next exhibit of the Fashion Archives and Museum (FA&M) will open to the public on March 30, 2024, from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. Instrumental Fashions: Attire and Song explores the long-standing relationship between the latest fashions and current hit songs about clothing.
“Music and fashion have more in common than one might think,” explains FA&M director, Dr. Karin J. Bohleke, “Like fashion, musical genres have their moment of prominence, only to have another style emerge to replace them as newcomers on the scene attempt to differentiate themselves from the current trends. In addition, musicians incorporate keen observations on contemporary society. Naturally, fashions—from the elegant to the absurd—find themselves immortalized in catchy lyrics.”
Visitors will enjoy seeing historical boots and whether they were really “Made for Walking,” as well as the “Lady in Red,” the “Devil with a Blue Dress on,” a selection of “Sharp Dressed” men, and many other examples of fashions explored in pop songs. But sadly, unless someone has one to donate, the permanent collection has no yellow polka dot bikinis from the 1950s.
The exhibit runs through November 14.
The Fashion Archives and Museum’s latest exhibit, (Re)Shaping the Body is now open to the public through November 21, 2023. The exhibit explores body modifying underwear and optical illusion tailoring to alter the shape of the human body to match the fashion ideal of different decades.
Corsets, bustles, cages and more will be on display, as well as fully mounted garments to showcase how the body was built up, altered or reduced over different centuries. Organized by body part, the objects chosen for the exhibit considers the human body literally from head to toe. The oldest item on display is a set of stays dating to ca. 1755-1765.
The director, Dr. Karin J. Bohleke, comments that “Christian Dior famously stated that without foundation, there is no fashion. The history of men’s and women’s fashions is indeed the story of the foundation garments essential to creating the appearance of a specific body type or attribute that rarely matches most potential wearers. This explores the hidden layers and tailoring efforts that literally engineer the body into a different shape. Corsetry, for example, is alive and well, only today we call it “shapewear,” or, more specifically, “Spanx.”
The exhibit will be open on Friday, June 2, from 12:30 to 2:30 for additional special hours beyond the established schedule.
Preparations are underway for the Fashion Archives and Museum’s forthcoming exhibit (Re)Shaping the Body. The exhibit explores engineered underpinnings and optical illusion tailoring to build up, alter, or reduce various parts of the body to align it with the current fashionable ideal of the moment. Corsets, bustles, cages and more will be on display, as well as fully mounted garments. Stays from the eighteenth century and even sleeve plumpers from the 1830s are included in the object list. Fans of different centuries will find much to enjoy.
Stay tuned to this website and social media for the exact opening date information.
The Fashion Archives & Museum is pleased to announce that its latest exhibit, Celebrating Creative Hands–Yesterday and Today is now open during regular operating hours. It is a first ever collaboration with the Lancaster Spinners and Weavers Guild. The exhibit combines guild members’ creations made using traditional techniques and historical examples of the same techniques from the museum’s permanent collection.
FA&M director, Dr. Karin Bohleke notes “Textile techniques of the past continue to thrive, and the Lancaster Spinners and Weavers are true artisans, bringing traditional practices into the twenty-first century. Viewers will enjoy viewing handspun linens and clothing dating back to the 1780s, as well as garments from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This is the FA&M’s first partnership with the fiber arts community, and it certainly will not be the last.”
Handweaving is not the only fiber art highlighted in the exhibit: examples of quilting, embroidery, knitting, crochet, spinning, and tapestry illustrate over two hundred years of talented artisanal work. Examples of the necessary tools are also included.
A joint regional symposium hosted by the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the Costume Society of America (CSA) will take place in conjunction with this exhibit on November 10 through 12. Anyone interested in attending should visit CSA’s website for program and registration information as plans develop (costumesocietyamerica.com).
Celebrating Creative Hands is open through November 22, 2022, but will be closed on July 4 and September 5 for the Independence and Labor Day holidays respectively.
This year, Shippensburg University celebrates its 150th anniversary, and the Fashion Archives & Museum will open a companion exhibit. “Remember, Celebrate, Thrive: 150 Years of Fashion at Shippensburg University” will open to the general public on Friday, October 22, in conjunction with Homecoming. To kick off the exhibit, the FA&M will be open for special additional hours, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on October 22 and 23.
“The Fashion Archives & Museum” houses many historic textiles and garments associated with the university’s history,” explains FA&M director Dr. Karin J. Bohleke. “Returning alumni, faculty, and staff might see a uniform or banner dating to their time on campus. Visitors from the general public will greatly enjoy seeing the historic fashions sported by athletes, students, professors, and staff and may recall similar styles from their own universities.” The oldest surviving graduation dress, from the class 1896, will be on display, as well as the historic gym uniforms women were required to wear that featured large black bloomers and wool shirts.
Regular operating hours will resume as of Monday, October 25. Thursday, December 9, is the last day the exhibit is open to the general public. In accordance with university policy as of August 18, masks are required in all indoor spaces, regardless of vaccination status.
The FA&M opened its newest exhibit on April 29 and is excited to welcome visitors to experience the first new exhibition since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Clothed in Beauty: Recent Acquisitions of Shippensburg University Fashion Archives & Museum, features some of the most recent fascinating donations to the archives. It highlights pieces worn by men, women and children across various cultures including Native American and African American. Global fashions from Spain, Italy, China, Japan, Morocco, Afghanistan and England are also represented. The pieces in the collection range in creation from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century.
“So many aspects of directing the Fashion Archives & Museum bring joy to my day, and seeing the fabulous garments that current owners, often descendants, are willing to donate is definitely one of them. This exhibit is a celebration of generous donations to the FA&M, selected here for their beauty, intricate construction, or simply their joyful embrace of exuberant color,” said Dr. Karin Bohleke, director of the Fashion Archives and Museum.
Masks and social distancing are required in the museum. The exhibit is open to groups of fewer than 15 people. For more information, please contact the museum. The exhibit runs through July 29, 2021.
The FA&M’s current exhibit, Fashionable Dances and Dancing Fashions, which opened in January, is available for viewing online as a video tour. In this time of social distancing, technology has made it possible for the FA&M’s display to come to visitor homes. The clothing in the exhibit dates from the 1810s through the 1970s, and additional paper ephemera from the early 1800s through the 1980s provides dynamic graphics and history of a favorite social pastime.
The original exhibit closing date of July 2 has been extended, but no new closing date has yet been set pending decisions from the appropriate state and university authorities.
In the meantime, please enjoy this virtual tour by clicking on or copying this link and pasting it into your preferred browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxW3eK3pJFE.
Students in Shippensburg University’s Theatre Arts program had the opportunity to study costume history in the Fashion Archives & Museum this spring semester. Prior to spring break, as an integral component to studying fashions of the past, the students explored different eighteenth-century hairstyles. “Too often,” the instructor Dr. Karin J. Bohleke explained, “women’s hair is reduced to the towering and exaggerated styles associated with the 1770s and 1780s that featured boats and other elaborate headpieces. But there were so many other options and the century featured a much broader evolution of looks and techniques.” Using the recent publication The American Duchess Guide to Eighteenth Century Beauty, students busily worked at recreating different styles—with elegant results. One student, Eliza Eames, brought in her sister as a willing model and recreated the soft, curled hairstyle of the 1790s that appears in a number of portraits by Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun (see image below). The students unanimously agreed that the style was still eminently flattering and wearable today. They thoroughly enjoyed this hands-on experience, and of course, a towering feather adds an element of fun.
Inspired and excited by a presentation at the 2019 annual symposium of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) that FA&M director Dr. Karin Bohleke attended with the FA&M Advisory Council President Robin Dolbin, Dr. Bohleke assigned her graduate costume Applied History class a real-life museum task: select artifacts to purchase for the permanent collection. Thanks to a combination of special donations and revenues from the sales of deaccessioned items, her students had a budget of $9,000 with which to work. With such a sum, it was entirely possible to purchase significant items to enhance the collection holdings.
During the fall 2019 class, the students assessed the existing holdings and consulted with Dr. Bohleke to define areas of weak representation and at the same time become aware of time periods or types of items that needed no further development. Armed with this knowledge and a list of reputable dealers, the class divided into smaller groups and ultimately each group presented its list of proposed purchases, justifying the choices with supporting arguments. The students then had to come to a consensus as a whole in the course of an evening’s debate.
The students finalized their choices, and Dr. Bohleke purchased the following items:
As is evident from the list, students placed their emphasis on early items that are less likely to arrive at the FA&M in the form of a donation. Their choices are especially important given that students in the early American history undergraduate classes build their final research web exhibit projects starting from artifacts from the FA&M collection. In fact, a number of the items listed above made their debut in student projects before the items were even catalogued.
In addition, a generous FA&M supporter stepped in and donated the necessary funds to purchase a pair of shoes associated with a wedding that took place in Kent, England, in 1780. To maximize the available funds still further, Titi Halle and her staff at Cora Ginsburg LLC extended a generous special discount when they learned of the project and fully supported the students’ learning experience.
This project is an example of the real-life museums tasks that students pursue in the FA&M, and it is a genuinely unique aspect of the programming. Regarding her experience, Nastassia Gantz commented, “The class had to think about whether or not an item could tell a story about an important moment in fashion history, be a stand-out piece among the rest of the collection, and whether we believed that people would be excited to come and view the item it on display in a future exhibit. I was able to gain a better understanding of how institutions acquire objects along with what the general decision-making process looks like, and I left the course feeling elated that a short gown that I found was actually chosen by the class to have a permanent home at the Fashion Archives.”
Another student, Courtney Smith, noted that in their excitement for the project, “Our group took the project a step further. In order to show how the garments we selected would fit into the museum’s collection, we designed an exhibit around them. The entire experience was fantastic. It taught us real-world skills that we will definitely use.”
