NEW! Costume Curating Class!

The Vassar College Costume Collection has just been awarded an NEH Preservation Assistance Grant for Smaller Institutions! Now, we need YOU to help carry out the grant program!

The Vassar College Costume Collection (VCCC) is a collection of original historic clothing, dating from the 1850's to the present, that is maintained as a research collection within the costume shop of the Drama department. This grant will allow us to bring 3 professionals from the field of costume history to lead workshops for Vassar staff, students, and community members. Students can get credit for participating in these workshops, by registering for an independent study in Drama with Arden Kirkland or Holly Hummel. 

For students who are interested in museum work, this project will provide wonderful hands-on experience with museum quality objects. Working with professional consultants, participants will learn best practices for proper handling of costume objects, assessment and documentation of their condition, museum cataloging procedures, and stabilization and mounting techniques to conserve and safely display the objects.

Workshops:

Workshop 1 – end of January

Conservator Jonathan Scheer will introduce participants to the proper handling and storage of textiles and historic costumes. As a part of his visit, he will conduct a formal general preservation assessment, examining our physical environment, types of storage, and current record keeping, using the assessment as an opportunity to discuss best practices with workshop participants. Then he will model the full process of creating a condition report for an object from the collection, and supervise participants to develop their own condition reports of other objects. 

Workshop 2 – beginning of February

Costume historian Jessa Krick will teach participants best practices for cataloging historic costume. Working with an object from our collection, she will model how to write a detailed catalogue entry, and then supervise participants working in teams to develop their own catalogue entries. She will also discuss how to write labels appropriate for an exhibition. 

From these 2 workshops, we will develop a procedure guide for the handling, storage, and documentation of our collection. To follow up throughout the semester, each participant will continue working on condition reports and catalogue entries for an additional 3 objects per week. Weekly labs will bring all participants together, so that hands-on work is done under the supervision of the participating Vassar faculty.

 Workshop 3 – mid-April

Costume conservator and historian Colleen Callahan will be in residence for  a 5 day workshop on basic stabilization and exhibition mounting techniques. This workshop is based on successful workshops by Ms. Callahan at Mt. Holyoke in 2006 and Smith in 2008 (see http://www.smith.edu/news/2007-08/CostumeWorkshop.php ). Each participant will be assigned one object from the collection to work with (based on their skill level), and will perform the necessary sewing to stabilize it and properly mount it on a mannequin. This will include both formal class sessions and laboratory sessions, and will take place over a long weekend to allow for full day sessions when student participants are not in other classes.

At the end of the semester, while the objects are all mounted, we will photograph them and host a small exhibition to the public. The photographs and other information about the objects will eventually be available to the public online, as part of our digital collection.

Interested students should contact Arden Kirkland (arkirkland@vassar.edu) right away to register for the independent study. Interested faculty, staff, and community members should also contact Arden to arrange to participate. 

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You guys, take advantage of this amazing opportunity. I would kill to be in this class, but I'll be eating ragu and tiramisu in Bologna next semester, woe is me. Anyway, TAKE THIS CLASS. PLAY WITH OLD CLOTHING. IT'S AWESOME.

Keep It Fresh, Keep It Classy: What Lies Beneath

It’s cold outside, which means it’s time to layer up (obviously). So, you throw on your sweaters and jackets and gloves and whatnot. But, what are you wearing underneath all that? What’s the first layer of clothing? Probably a t-shirt on most days, I would imagine. That’s not the full answer, though. What KIND of t-shirt? Many people think the t-shirt they wear to the gym is the same t-shirt they can wear out is the same t-shirt they can wear under a sweater. Tsk tsk. The undershirt is SPECIFICALLY created for the third example. It is UNDERshirt, after all. Undershirts are usually simple: one solid color, usually white. Keep in mind: simple is, 99% of the time, classy. You don’t need slogans on your t-shirts, especially if they’re going under all those layers. The fit is mighty important as well. Normal t-shirts will make you look bulkier, whereas undershirts will fit snug and keep you warm. I have TONS of undershirts. These days, I literally wear one every single day. It’s easy, classy, and sensible, and those three rarely go together.

Reel to Real #5: Ann-Margaret in "Bye Bye Birdie"

1963's "Bye Bye Birdie" might have been my favorite childhood movie, and in no small part because of Ann-Margaret's vivacious performance. I wanted to be just like her, and considering her killer wardrobe, who could blame me? Her looks bridges 1950s and 60s fashion, consisting of pastels, full high-waisted skirts, and ruffles. And of course, her gorgeous red hair. 

But getting the look of Ann-Margaret in this film needn't only mean donning your girliest All-American attire. And who could forget the scene in which she tries on boys' clothes while singing the hilariously antiquarian "How Lovely To Be A Woman." Juxtaposition, anyone?

Even if her character's exictement over "stay[ing] out after ten" is outdated, Ann-Margaret's look is forever adorable. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Image from Rahmblr

XOXO,

Contrast

nerd boyfriend

Nerd boyfriend is my new favorite fashion blog.
Not only does it feature great photos of famous nerds whom I wish were my boyfriends, but it also details the clothes they are wearing, and where a non-nerdy boyfriend could find them.

Keep It Fresh, Keep It Classy: Get Dressy

There is a certain misconception that pervades our fashion oriented thoughts. This is a misconception that, if believed, can seriously limit one’s ability to truly look great. Quite simply, people like to divide their clothes into formal and casual, for the most part. Bad! Bad, bad, bad! You’re severely limiting your dress options when you do this, and you invariably become somewhat predictable in your clothes. So, I’m going to address one specific instance that can be easily repaired. 99% of you kids wear jeans ALL THE TIME. Yes, you may be in class, at the Deec, or just with your buddies, and these are all casual environment. However, there are other options besides jeans that won’t make you look like you’re going to a ball. Get a nice pair of wool pants. They’re super-multi-purpose. I wear mine with a coat and tie, and I wear them with my hoodie, too. Khakis are another great alternative to jeans, and, I would argue, the MOST usable pants out there. Here’s a side benefit, besides looking good, that might come in handy during the spring and summer. A pair of light wool or khaki pants is going to be more airy than your stuffy jeans. And don’t tell me you never sweat in the summer with those things on. Let me just go on the record as saying, “I love jeans.” However, you have to change it up a bit to truly appreciate them. Having contrasting levels of formality between your top and bottom is an easy way to go from predictable to snazzy.

Tim Gunn's Bad Romance/ Alexander McQueen SS 2010

This week saw the rather boring and anticlimactic conclusion to Project Runway. But that's okay, because that means... interviews with Tim Gunn! Yay! After talking about the misfortunes of this season, one of my favorite silver foxes, after answering Claire Zulkey's question about what the best trends were for women today, dropped this bomb:

I was looking at the Bill Cunningham party page in the New York Times, and a woman was wearing those Alexander McQueen hoof shoes. It not only looks ugly — I don't believe it's something you get used to and then think is pretty — it looks like the individual has a deformity. It looks like the devil's spawn. It's really horrifying.

I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Gunn. Then again, I recently wore leggings as pants the other day and actually liked it, so clearly I am a lost cause. At this point, I'm sure you've all seen these shoes, dubbed "armadillo shoes" by Mr. McQueen themselves. They come in many iterations--some less fortunate than others--but I think they're most succesful with a little bit of glitter. 

Image from Jezebel

 

Shoe. Lust. And I hate shoes. Yes, they do look like a deformity. But they're so shocking and incomprehensible that the mind is forced to accept them. (Especially when covered with sparkles.)

That last sentence could just as easily describe Alexander McQueen's Spring Summer 2010 show. I did not have the time to review it in October, but as more and more fashion forward celebs wear pieces from the collection, it would be a shame not to. 

Most of the reviews focused on the show itself, and not the clothes, which is a shame. The show was supposed to be broadcast live on the Internet, but when Lady Gaga Twittered that her new single Bad Romance was premiering at the show, the site crashed. The fancy camera cranes that dominated the stage were for naught. Nevertheless, the clothes are interesting in and of themselves. McQueen titled the collection Plato's Atlantis--the idea being that, as global warming continues and the Earth is covered with more water, humans will devolve into aquatic features. Hence the morphing feet. The show had all of McQueen's usual elements--creative tailoring, beautiful colors, new silhouettes--and stayed on trend. As with many shows from this past season, there were big shoulders and tiny waists, digitized prints (McQueen created fractals from images of animals), transparency, and, of course, lots and lots of sparkle.

Of course, one of the interesting things about creating clothing for the future--whether it's in a fashion show or in a movie--is that the designer tends to rely on pre-modern elements. McQueen has created incredible coats for this collection--they're almost indistinguishable from the dress--but he also uses some romantic decorations: lots of hoop skirts were used, as well as false sleeves, both common elements in Elizabethan dress. Several dresses have Watteau backs or melting skirts a la Polainase, integral elements of 18th century French fashion.  Even as McQueen looks forward to the future (and we will all be wearing something like this soon--I look forward to the knock-offs at Forever 21), we all look to the past.

All images Style.com.

 

Oh, and because I can't get the song out of my head, and because all of the shoes and most of the costumes are from this collection, I present to you:

WILD STYLE

Hip Hop 101 and Contrast present: WILD STYLE: A variety/fashion show explosion inspired by the 1983 movie, Wild Style.

FEATURING

A fashion show through the ages: 80's, 90's and 00's

DJ Curt Kre-Z on the tables

The legendary TC Weaver as the MC

Live Art

Free Soul Food

The newest Hip Hop 101 T-shirts, designed by TC Weaver


And performances by...

Philatheis
TCP (including Cans)
Young Have & Pook with Roc A Boy
Skillz Methods (b-boys from NYC)
Chronic Cypher (Vassar's fiercest emcees Nii, Ade, and Akil ( http://www.myspace.com/stil0ne )
Barefoot Monkeys
Shataje
Big Daddy Shawn
The Axies
Zach Sorgen
The Night Owls
Hype (Vassar dance crew)

Donations are encouraged and accepted at the door, as all proceeds benefit the R.E.A.L. SKILLS HIP HOP THEATER

SWEATER LOVE

Want to get your hands on some AWESOME sweaters? Want to know more 

about said sweaters?

Come to Contrast's first lecture and learn about the iconic knitwear from 

Ohio Knitting Mills.  

We featured the company in our Spring 2009 issue and this is Tatar's 

second visit to Vassar.

WHO: Ohio Knitting Mills

WHAT: Amazing, funky, one-of-a-kind, never-worn VINTAGE SWEATERS 

(and ponchos and vests and tunics and vests....)

WHERE: Rocky 200

WHEN : Wednesday, November 18th

Lecture: 4:30 pm

Trunkshow: 5:30-7:30 pm

WHY: you know you want some cool knitwear (and a good study break!)

SEE YOU THERE!!

Keep It Fresh, Keep It Classy: You're Not the Michelin Man; Don't Dress Like Him

That time of the year is approaching. It’s the time when we like to bundle up, play in the snow, and, generally, throw all fashion sense out the window. Yes, winter is coming. It’s one of those seasons that’s filled with fashion opportunities, yet so many people choose to look at the cold as an excuse to look sloppy. But there is hope! Not all your rugged outerwear has to make you look like you just got off the ski slope. Personally, I say “no” to the puffy jacket. It makes you look like you’re wearing 7 times as many layers as you actually are, or it just makes you look 7 times as heavy as you actually are. I like to wear a good top coat over a sweater. Pair that with a nice scarf, gloves, and a hat (I'll talk about these at another time), and you’ll not only look great, but you’ll be toasty warm, too. When you’re looking for the right top coat, think pea coat but longer. Just because it doesn’t look thick on the outside doesn’t mean it isn’t snug and layered. Keep it fresh, keep it classy, and don’t look like a balloon.

More Behind The Scenes Photos

Photo's By Kristina Duffy and Caroline Mills

Photo Shoot!!!

After a weather-related delay, we had our major photo shoot this morning on the Vassar farm!  We have a few more looks to finish up tomorrow, but here's a sneak peek of what's to come...

just for giggles...

everyone looked amazing- thanks for all your hard work!  <3 <3 

Meet the CFDA Finalists

 The CFDA/ Vogue Fashion Fund Award is one of the industry's most important award for emerging designers: the grand prize includes a grant of $200,000 and mentoring by established industry professionals. Vogue published a short profile of each nominee in its November issue.There was a mix of women's apparel designers, men's apparel designers, and accessories designers. Despite the different categories, all the designers were similar in a sense: each designer either preserves traditional craft methods in their work or utilizes sustainable practices. I picked my favorites below--feel free to post yours in the comments! Who do you think should win and why? (All images Norman Jean Roy/Vogue. Click to enlarge.)

Women's Apparel: Gary Graham 

 Graham attended the Art Institute of Chicago and worked with Broadway costume designers before entering the world of fashion design. He now has a store in Tribeca that, according to him, is meant to evoke the backstage area of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. All the world's a stage for the woman who wears Gary Graham: his collections clearly evoke certain eras of costume history while taying completely on trend. It's no small feat to balance costume and fashion, and I think Graham has succeeded. His use of darks and lights, as well as his innovative finishing processes, make his clothes look used and new at the same time. His work creates a haunting bridge between the past and present while questioning the nature of fashion in the process. 

Men's Design: Patrik Ervell

 Patrik Ervell never planned on becoming a fashion designer:  he studied the economy of industrialized societies at UC Berkeley. He moved to New York and made some T-shirts for Opening Ceremony--the rest is history. Ervell is known for designing beautifully fitting suits and utilizing fabric in strange new ways. For his Spring 2010 show, he explored the theme of Americana: he took that most American fabric cotton and invented a way to get metal to rust on fabric.

Accessories Design: House of Waris 

 

You may have seen Waris Ahluwalia in some Wes Anderson films, but he's really a jewelry designer. Ahluwalia is known for his unique designs: beautiful, handcrafted, one-of-a-kind. Ahluwalia used to have his jewelry made in New York but now produces all of his jewelry in Jaipur, India, to protect and encourage Old World craft techniques. Unfortunately, his website doesn't have any images of his jewelry, but here's a close-up of one of his famous bird pendants:

 

House of Waris/WWD.com

As for the winner, I think it will be Sophie Theallet. Her work is more traditional than the other nominees', but, like them, her focus is on preserving and adapting traditional crafts for a new era. Her designs are beautiful, her color sense spot-on, her construction impeccable. If she wins this award, it will be well-deserved.

My Boyfriend Is the President.

File this under internet obsessions: I'm pretty sure this is the best video of all time. If your brain hasn't been blown to smithereens afterwards, Gizmodo has context. (Related: Someone make me a My Boyfriend Is the White House Chief of Staff video.)

Whose Fault Is This?

 Last week, while discussing Susan Bordo's essay "Whose Body Is This? Feminism, Medicine, and the Conceptualization of Eating Disorders" in Intro to Women's Studies, we started with a now familiar exercise: looking at images from fashion editorials and magazines and criticizing them for false representations of the female body, promotion of unhealthy lifestyles, etc., etc. The exercise always annoyed me a little bit on some level, but I could never quite put my finger on it Until now. I came across this quotation from comedian Russel Brand:

The fashion industry makes an elite few feel better about themselves and most people feel worse about themselves. It makes them bulimic and anorexic. It’s stimulating a desire that could never be fulfilled. It’s decoration on a dreadful wedding cake at a marriage between us and the demise of the planet.

I disagree. In high school, I really hated all of the fashionable girls. They were short and skinny--no curves whatsoever. They happened to be very neurotic about their eating habits, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had developed eating disorders. I made the mistake of linking their neuroses with their interest in fashion, and also made the mistake of linking the industry as a whole with eating disorders. In fact, in high school, even though I told everyone I wanted to work in comic books, I secretly wanted to go into fashion to make clothes that could flatter everyone and wouldn't promote a negative body image. I wanted to be a revolutionary: if the fashion industry didn't want my curves, if it didn't value my body, then I would just have to make it do just that.

There is no doubt that the fashion industry is a very sick industry. For example, at a 92nd Street Y event about the future of the fashion industry, Issey Miyake said, "Honestly, I've actually booked girls [for a fashion show] that weren't obese, they were real girls. Like gorgeous anatomy. And one was a stripper. And you could feel the energy in the room just go down. Closed the books. Pens went down. They were angry. I could feel the anger. And I never did it again, because I thought Why bother? It takes a lot to rile women. It takes like actual breasts....Fashion advertisements are hateful. Hateful. Yeah, but they wouldn't do it unless it worked, right? It works." Even when fashion insiders try to champion different body types, the lookism and misogyny pours out. There is still an ingrained idea that there are normal-sized women, and that women just naturally hate each other.

When we blame the fashion industry for producing unattainable cultural norms, I think we really miss the mark. There's the old chicken-and-the-egg conundrum of fashion theory: does fashion produce culture or does culture produce fashion? I firmly believe that fashion is a response to the culture that surrounds it. For example, the 15th century in Europe--the height of the Gothic period--gave birth to an extreme vertical silhouette, a silhouette that echoed Gothic cathedrals. The 16th century, on the other hand, saw an effort to constrain the body in tight doublets and farthingales (early hoop skirts)--the body became horizontal, rounded, rational, an echo of humanist teaching. So to say that the fashion industry forces people to hate their bodies is to make the industry into a scapegoat. According to Bordo's essay, our culture traps us in a continuum of self-hatred--whether we exercise vigorously or suffer from an eating disorder, there is the underlying idea that the body is an unruly beast that refuses to adapt to cultural norms, and that is somehow a bad thing.

The exercise in the Women's Studies class could have been done with any advertisement, really. Yet fashion, by its very nature, amplifies our cultural norms to an extreme, and that is why we see so many skinny or even unhealthy bodies in editorials and advertisements. Perhaps this is the reason people fear fashion, because it is pure, unadulterated culture: we look at our assumptions and anxieties squarely in the face--we can choose to ignore them, mock them, or glorify them through our clothes. But the fashion industry is hardly the only industry at fault. As Bordo's argument implies, we need to tell all cultural producers--music, publishing, advertising, film, TV, entertainment, sports, etc.--is that we are sick and tired of being told that there is only one "right" way to behave or look. If we only point our fingers at the fashion industry, we just ignore the larger problem.

PS: Don't forget to vote in our poll! It's fun!!!