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.
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 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.
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.
