Suchergebnisse

The last decade has seen the growing popularity and visibility of fashion as a cultural product, including its growing presence in museum exhibitions. This book explores the history of fashion curating and exhibitions, highlighting the continuity of past and present curatorial practices. Comparing and contrasting exhibitions from different museums and decades – from the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 to the Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011 – it makes connections between museum fashion and the wider fashion industry.

By critically analyzing trends in fashion exhibition practice over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Julia Petrov defines and describes the varied representations of historical fashion within British and North American museum exhibitions.

The international wave of Women's Marches in 2017 (and subsequent years) was fuelled by anger about the misogynist tone of the American election (aimed at contender Hillary Clinton) and a sense that the rights of women and sexual minorities were being threatened. In particular, protests were triggered by the newly elected president's unearthed comments about female genitalia: 'grab 'em by the pussy'. Following the instigation of craftivists in California, women around the world donned pink knitted hats with points resembling cat ears, which became known as 'pussy hats'. This chapter uses examples collected as rapid response collecting after the marches in Edmonton and Calgary (Alberta, Canada) for the Royal Alberta Museum to argue that the pussy hat is an example of anti-fashion in its embrace of anti-consumption, and its role to promote political accountability. The pussy hat, in effect, is the uniform of a feminist political ethics.

Abstract
Modern discussions of nineteenth-century-male fashion claim that this was the period when male dress was standardized into a uniform of acceptable respectability. Indeed, to twenty-first-century eyes, the prevailing image of the Victorian male seems to be a homogenous mass of black suits, bowler hats and stiff collars. Contemporary observers were able to instantly size up a man's character, class and professional ambitions by a mere glance at their clothing. The collar, whether paper, linen or celluloid, became the locus of social distinction, and is therefore the best example of the nuanced associations attached to male clothing during the late nineteenth century. Taking a material culture approach, with additional support from popular literature and visual sources, may help historians to better understand and interpret the strict hierarchy of Victorian men and the uniforms that prescribed their social existence. Questions of sincerity, aspiration and moral uprightness are also inextricably linked to this topic, and the conclusions drawn may have additional implications for how scholars and historians understand the corresponding feminine sphere during this period.

Abstract

Abstract
Coinciding with a rising public interest in the life and times of Oliver Cromwell, an exhibition of the costumes of the women of Cromwell's family was staged twice in different locations in London in 1833–1835. The dresses, accessories and related objects had impeccable provenance, as they had been descended from Cromwell's daughter to a distant relation, Jane Luson. Upon Mrs Luson's death, the costumes were exhibited thanks to the enterprise of the heir of this collection; in designing his display, Mr William Anthony, a Clerkenwell clock-maker, unknowingly invented the characteristics of the modern museum exhibition of historical costume. Drawing on archival documents and published accounts, this article describes these exhibitions and argues that, although they are the first documented instance of a dedicated display of historical dress, they nonetheless demonstrate the key conventions of fashion curation practised to this day, including mannequin dressing, props, historical and biographical documentation, label copy, merchandising and sponsor product placement. As fashion exhibitions become more common across cultural venues worldwide, it is important to look back at the beginnings of the trend and acknowledge the debt owed to this early precedent.