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Collection Preservation: Demonstrating & Demystifying
Behind a keyed elevator, a succession of swipe-entry doors and monitored by surveillance cameras from every angle, the contents of FIT Library Special Collections & College Archives rest safely snuggled in our collections rooms thanks —only in part—due to security measures. Perhaps more important to ensuring our holdings’ availability to generations to come, however, is…
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Miss 1966: Dobbie Coleman and Marc Bohan for Dior
In 2016, we received a phone call from a not-for-profit foundation with an offer almost too good to be true. They were looking to fund the donation of a set of sketches from the house of Christian Dior to a deserving institution; ‘might FIT Special Collections be willing to accept them gratis with no strings…
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The Tissue of Dreams: Paper Patterns in the Tailoring Trade
In the opening chapter of her book A History of the Paper Pattern Industry: The Home Dressmaking Fashion Revolution, curator and scholar Joy Spanabel Emery cites the October 1916 issue of Designer magazine: “There is nothing so cheap & yet so valuable; so common & yet so little realized; so unappreciated & yet so beneficial…
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Shoes to ‘Chutes: The Wartime Story of I. Miller & Sons
On January 12, 1945, the Grand Ballroom of the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City was packed full as a thousand pair of curious eyes looked on as shoe industry executive George Miller and Lieut. Col. Harold L. Lister of the US Army posed awkwardly for a photo op. The snapshot was forever immortalized…
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Emergency Mode: The Wartime Hats of Sally Victor
Promptly at 3pm on December 18, 1941, members of the American fashion press gathered at the legendary Rainbow Room in New York City and patiently awaited their introduction to emergency mode. A fundraiser to benefit the British Ambulance Corps, the event showcased the latest wartime fashions issued to accommodate, “the prospective new way of life…
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Party of the Year: The Met Gala
The first Monday in May marks one of the most anticipated fashion events of the year, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit, otherwise known as the Met Gala. Instituted in 1948 as a fundraiser to support the newly formed Costume Institute (which was created in 1946 following the donation of the holdings of…
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Egyptian Elegance: Youssef Rizkallah
One of the great pleasures of working with our collection is rediscovering the myriad of designers represented who—while well-known during their own time—have now faded into annals of history. The name Youssef Rizkallah will ring a bell with few, yet FIT Library Special Collections houses a formidable collection of both…
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In memoriam: Hubert de Givenchy
Hubert Taffin de Givenchy, 1927 – 2018 Born in Beauvais, France in 1927, the creative talents of Hubert de Givenchy were perhaps not unexpected. He descended from a long line of creative minds; his father was an architect and both of his grandfathers worked as designers in the renowned tapestry factories at Gobelins and Beauvais. …
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Fancy Dress à Paris!
While reorganizing a selection of miscellaneous engravings recently, we came across a set of plates depicting wonderfully whimsical fancy dress ensembles. The adoption of masks or other elements of disguise for festivals and celebrations is believed to date back to 1710 in London, when theaters and public gardens threw lavish fetes where anonymity reigned, open…
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Les Parfums de Rosine
After a self-imposed hiatus due to a spectacular year-long renovation (and two moves of our entire collection!), Material Mode is pleased to share one of the special items brought into the collection during our time away. A few years back, we wrote about two perfumed publicity fans in our collection from Rosine, the perfume and…