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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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Hot New Accession: La Femme dans la Décoration Moderne
Created in 1902, Julius Klinger’s book of design and ornament, La Femme dans la Décoration Moderne, is a graphic celebration of the feminine. The 30 pages of motifs contained within—which all feature women—were intended to be sources of inspiration for practitioners of the industrial arts: decorative painters and ceramicists as well as designers of jewelry, posters, rugs,…
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Eleanor Lambert: The Empress of 7th Avenue
One of the most seminal figures in the history of American fashion was not, in fact, a designer at all. For more than seven decades, Eleanor Lambert (1903-2003) was American fashion’s greatest champion and advocate, pulling the strings behind the industry’s biggest names and organizations. Born in 1903 in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Lambert was raised by…
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The Fit Flapper
In 1924, American Vogue opined, “At the beginning of beauty lies the beautiful figure. For it is the single thing about a woman that comes nearest to dominating in the ensemble of her attractiveness.” It may not be able to be said more plainly the import placed upon a sleek physique during the 1920s, as…
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Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style
Just released this week, Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style, which features 200 fashion plates from our collection. Many of these beautiful images, which date between 1778-1928, have not been reproduced since their original date of publication. Thank you to Yale University Press for their unerring support of this project which is currently available as…
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What to Wear to a Revolution
(click to enlarge) In early November 1793, amidst the most violent period of the French Revolution, the National Convention issued this decree declaring that the citizens of France were “free to wear such garments appropriate to their sex in the manner they see fit,” adding that individuals attempting to force another to dress in…
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The Myth of Poiret as Debunked by 1906
As a fashion historian, working in a Special Collections unit which focuses almost entirely on the history of design, is both a fantastic job and a wonderful education in its own right. The objects which encompass my day-to-day routine continually reveal the inconsistencies, holes or misinformation that has been canonized into established design histories. I…
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Oral History Project of the Creative Industries
Beginning in the late 1970s, FIT library director John Touhey initiated the collection of oral histories as told by prominent members of the American fashion industry. Over the course of several decades, fashion designers, department store executives, Hollywood costume designers, models and style icons all generously agreed to sit down and speak about their…
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The Daring Mr. Daren
One of the greatest joys of working in a Special Collections unit is some of the discoveries you make when opening a box, that has been long tucked, safely away on a shelf, the contents of which have been seen by few—if any—in recent years. Re-discovering our Mr. Daren sketch collection (US.NNFIT.SC.43) last week put…