"Philadelphia in Style": A Century of Fashion

Isabella reporting,

As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows by now , there are few things I enjoy more than an exhibition of historic clothing. Last week I attended the preview of a splendid one: Philadelphia in Style: A Century of Fashion from the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection, Drexel University. The exhibition is now on display at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA, not far from Philadelphia, and what a pleasure it is.

I saw a selection of pieces from the Fox Collection on display last year, but their holdings are so vast (over 14,000 pieces) that there aren't any duplicates this time around. The focus of this show is Philadelphia as center of style, and features clothing and accessories made, worn, or sold by Philadelphia women from 1896-1994. Unlike many costume exhibitions, the clothes are not locked away in Plexiglas boxes, making it easy to see (and photograph) the details of stitch, lines, and embellishments. I also appreciated that, while the clothes did belong to an elite group of customers, these women also came in a variety of heights, sizes, and shapes. These aren't all minuscule model-sized garments, and they reflect their wearers' bodies (and supporting undergarments) as much as their tastes.

In addition to some truly exception clothes made by some of the biggest names in modern fashion history - Dior, Chanel, Halston, Callot Soeurs, Gallanos, Oscar de la Renta, Adrian – the exhibition also includes a selection of fashion drawings from the 1920s-1950s. These stylish sketches, (like the one middle left) some with fabric swatches attached, helped wealthy customers decide what to order from designers in those days before everyone had an iPhone aimed at the runway.

As difficult as it is for me to choose favorites, here are two of the dresses that I liked the most. The navy blue day dress, above left and right, was part of a Philadelphia bride's trousseau in 1903. The fabric is "homespun" (an evocative, romantic term by then, not a literal one) wool, but a very light-weight wool, woven in an open weave, that would have made it practical for summer travel or promenades. But it's not entirely sensible: the contrasting trim adds stylish emphasis to the dress's lines, and the embroidered Chinese-inspired applique is bright and eye-catching. The young bride who wore this dress would have begun her married life quite fashionably.

Not even twenty years separate the navy dress from my second favorite, but fashion changed dramatically in that time. Gone is the ground-skimming hem and corset-defined shape The dress, right, is a 1916 evening dress by the famous Parisian design house of Callot Soeurs, and it's as insubstantial as a summer breeze.

Made of silk satin and net, and trimmed with metallic embroidery, velvet trim, and millinery flowers, the colors are still fresh and vibrant. There are two long streamers from the back shoulders, and those, combined with the airy full skirt, must have been made for the latest foxtrot. But although the colors are still fresh and bright - I'd bet there are plenty of high school girls today who'd love to wear this dress to their proms - the dress itself is so fragile that this will likely be its one and only time on display. Like Cinderella herself, this dress will have this final time beneath the lights to sparkle, and then back it will go into careful storage.

Philadelphia in Style will be on view through June 26, 2016. See the exhibition web site for more information and directions. For more information about the Fox Historic Costume Collection, see here.

Top dress: Day Dress, blue homespun wool, 1903, American. 
Middle illustration: Fashion Illustrations for Nan Duskin, watercolor, gouache, ink on paper, c1954, American.
Lower dress: Evening Dress, by Callot Soeurs, silk satin, net, velvet, millinery flowers, with glass and metallic embroidery, c1916-1917, France.
All pieces from the Fox Historic Costume Collection, Drexel University. 
All photographs ©2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

Friday Video: Behind-the-Scenes at the Fox Historic Costume Collection

Isabella reporting,

Fashion exhibitions are wildly popular with museum-goers, but they're not easy ones for curators to arrange and mount. Historical clothing can be fragile and susceptible to lighting, and each piece requires a custom mannequin or display fixture.

This short video - by Sean Quilty and Drexel University's College of Computing and Informatics -goes behind the scenes of the Immortal Beauty exhibition from the Fox Historic Costume Collection, Drexel University. While I've already shared several pieces from the exhibition here, here, and here, this video focuses on what is perhaps the most popular garment in the entire show (at least among Philadelphians): a brilliant coral evening gown from the 1960s designed by Givenchy for Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco.

If you receive this post via email, you may be seeing only a black box or empty place where the video should be. Please click here to watch the video.

Made in America: A Stylish Silk Gown, c. 1780

Isabella reporting,

I promised I'd share a few of the pieces in detail from the wonderful Immortal Beauty exhibition by the Fox Historic Costume Collection of Drexel University (more information about the exhibition here), and here is one of my favorites.

This robe à l'anglaise was made around 1780 by a skilled mantua-maker whose name is now lost. The cream-colored silk has a faint woven shadow stripe, and is strewn with polychrome bouquets. Crisp silks like this one were the latest fashion, reflecting a new interest in designs inspired by nature with an overall lighter feel. The curators have looped up the skirts in back à la polonaise, and that gathered silk in the back would have been further accentuated by a false rump (more about these here) underneath. With all those tiny pleats in the skirts and matching petticoat, this dress would have floated around the wearer like a rustling silk cloud.

I hadn't seen the short, capped over-sleeves before (I'm sure that some of our readers will know their proper name), but they are definitely a trend that appears in French fashion plates of the time. The mantua-maker accentuated this detail by cutting the rest of the sleeve cross-ways: the upper sleeves have vertical stripes, while on the lower parts the stripes run around the arm. It's a subtle touch, and the sign of a talented seamstress. She also took care to match the fabric's blossoms on the front of the bodice and along the elegantly seamed back - a detail that not only required a good eye, but more fabric as well, adding to the overall cost of the dress.

But this could have been an expensive dress for other reasons as well. Stylistically it dates to around 1780, and in 1780, America was still in the middle of the Revolutionary War with Great Britain. This silk is English, and from its design it's unlikely to have been languishing on some colonial merchant's shelf since before the war. Was it smuggled into America past British warships? If so, then the cost would have made it an even more luxurious dress - and more special to the fortunate woman who wore it.

Day Dress, anonymous maker, c.1780. American made of English silk. Fox Historic Costume Center, Drexel University. Top & bottom left photos ©2015 by Susan Holloway Scott.  Right photo by Monica Stevens Smyth.

"Immortal Beauty": Historic Fashion on Display in Philadelphia

Isabella reporting,

Those of you who follow me on Facebook and Instagram know where I was today: at the preview of a new exhibition of historic fashion in Philadelphia. Immortal Beauty is the first retrospective exhibition of the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection (FHCC) in Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. That's a lot to remember, I know - but the clothes are unforgettable.

Seventy-five pieces have been chosen from the over 14,000 pieces in the collection, and they're the best of the best. The earliest piece in the show is a fragment of 16thc. Italian velvet, and there's also a delightful flowered 18thc. robe a l'anglaise with a looped skirt as well as an ethereal white muslin gown from 1808.

But the most impressive items highlight fashion from the 1880s onward, from an elaborately beaded and embroidered mantle from Charles Frederick Worth to an Alexander Wang dress straight from his 2013 runway. From the Callot Soeurs and Mariano Fortuny through Gilbert Adrian and Madame Grés to Chanel, Halston, Mary Quant, Givenchy, Dior, and Charles James - the clothes and accessories here are like a roll call of great designers.

What's most striking, however, is how accessible so many of the pieces are. True, few modern women would want to wear the corset the 1880s suit above would require, but the color-blocking of the skirt, combining broad stripes with the print, seems very modern, and the trio of 1920s dresses above could find their place on any modern red carpet.

And in a way, that has been the point of the collection from its earliest days. When A.J. Drexel founded the Drexel Institute in 1891, he included funding for purchasing both fine and decorative arts. The costume collection has always been a teaching collection, available to students for study and inspiration. Design students today may take pictures of the costumes with their iPhones, but who knows how a 1920s beaded ornament may evolve into the hit of some future New York Fashion Week?

But you don't have to be a student to visit and enjoy this exhibition. Immortal Beauty will be on display from October 2 - December 12 in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery on Drexel's campus at 3401 Filbert Street. The exhibition is open Tuesday-Sunday, from 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and the gallery is a short walk from Amtrak's 30th Street Station. Best of all, admission is free.

I'll be sharing more clothes from Immortal Beauty over the next weeks. Many thanks to Clare Sauro and Alex McKechnie for answering my questions, and showing me through the exhibition.

Upper left: Afternoon dress by Vitaldi Babani, c1926; Evening gown by Callot Soeurs, 1926; Evening gown by Callot Soeurs/Henri Bendel, 1919.
Upper right: Day dress by Augustine Martin/Darlington Runk, 1880.
Lower left: Day ensemble by Mary Quant, 1963; Suit by Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, 1959.
Lower right: An assortment of 18th-19thc. women's shoes.
All photographs ©2015 Susan Holloway Scott.