February is Fashion History Month

Costume history is a subject that I find utterly enchanting and the shelves in my office groan with stacks and stacks of books on the topic. Normally I have to travel to distant places to get my fashion history fix, but this month there are a number of local exhibitions celebrating the history of fashion. 

12.12.12 Life in Three Centuries at the Fashion History Museum
Photo courtesy of the Fashion History Museum 2012

'12.12.12: Life in Three Centuries' looks at the intersection of fashion and life in 1812, 1912, and 2012 and is presented by Jonathan Walford, Kenn Norman, and members of the board of the Fashion History Museum at the newly restored Guelph Civic Museum (52 Norfolk Street) in Guelph. The exhibition is currently open 1 - 5 p.m. daily and will close March 4, 2012. For more information, please call the Fashion History Museum at 519 267-2091.

Making Fashion at the Textile Museum in Toronto
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2012

In the Making History exhibition at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto, Ryerson University Fashion students present recreations of historical garments and accessories. Dr.Alison Matthews David, who teaches Costume History at The School of Fashion at Ryerson University, developed this project as a hands-on research assignment for her students to foster respect for and understanding of the skills of the largely anonymous makers of historical dress and textiles. She said that "As a dress historian, I hope that as future fashion and costume designers, Ryerson students will take these traditional techniques, from smocking and hand-beading to painting on silk and shoemaking, and bring them to life again on stage and catwalk." The opening reception for this exhibition is on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 from 7-8 pm at the Textile Museum (55 Centre Avenue). By the way, I helped install this exhibition. In handling these objects, I could tell that these garments and accessories were made with a lot of love! 

Roaring Twenties at the Bata Shoe Museum
Photo courtesy of the Bata Shoe Museum and under copyright

And of course, if you haven't yet seen the exhibition Roaring Twenties: Heels, Hemlines and High Spirits at the Bata Shoe Museum, it continues until June 2012. Wouldn't this pair be perfect for Valentine's Day?

Convergence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Fashion

Ruth Dukas Paper Dress (Photo from the Toronto Telegram November 16, 1967)

Remember this post back in February where I wrote about a display of paper dresses at the Costume and Textile Gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum? It just goes to show you that you never know where a blog post might lead....

Not long after I wrote about that paper dress (pictured in the photo above), I received an email from the designer's son asking for a copy of the photo for his mom. Well long story short, I ended up doing an oral history interview with the designer, Ruth Dukas, for the ROM archives. As it turns out, Ruth only made one paper dress in her career, but was in fact renowned for the exquisite embroidery and beading of her evening gowns and cocktail dresses.

During the course of my research into Ruth's career as a designer during the 1960s, I fell in love with research and 1960s fashion, plus ended up back in grad school for a second masters degree.... On Saturday, I will be speaking at Ryerson University about the career of Ruth Dukas and the issues related to oral history projects.

This event called Convergence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Fashion reflects the interdisciplinary nature of scholarly fashion research today. Speakers from Ryerson, York and University of Toronto will present their research in three panels including - Narratives of Femininity in Fashion; Canadian Content? From Local to Global; and The Spaces in Fashion: Conditions & Contexts. The plenary talk will be given at 4:30 pm by Kate Strasdin of the University of Southampton and The Royal Ontario Museum’s 2011 Gervers Fellow.

The event takes place tomorrow - Saturday, November 5, 2011 at Ryerson University, 40 Gould Street, Kerr Hall South, Room 251, from 9 am to 5:30 pm. I will be speaking at 11 am and attendees are welcome to come anytime during the day. The event is free and open to the general public. More details are available at www.ryersonfashionsymposium.ca.

Check out the amusing interview with Dr. Alison Matthews David, the organizer of the symposium, on Worn Fashion Journal's blog called "Embrace Your Inner Fashion Nerd".