Many, many thanks to all of you who answered my question about identifying the 19th Century bodice. I am so sorry for not replying sooner. Cramming a semester in three weeks has been a massive undertaking. Tonight is my first time to get a little spare time. M-F mornings I am teaching the class (9-12:00). The afternoons, I am in the fashion collection and dressing and undressing dressforms. We cover a decade a day in class, so each day the dressforms wear that decades fashions. Then I rush home and write the lesson for the next class until 1 am. It is hectic, but so much fun!
I am 2/3 of the way through teaching the course. I think this is the first class to utilize the entire fashion collection. There are so many items that are misdated, have no documentation at all, no accession records, and items in the wrong boxes. I am photographing all the items that I unbox. The 20th Century hat collection is massive. The digital photos will be used to print copies to put on the front or top of the storage boxes, so you will not have to go through several boxes to find one item. They can also be used in an accession book or catalog and hopefully get rid of those accession index cards. Maybe one day they will be in a database. I hope to put these unidentified items' photos online so that people who specialize in the time periods can assist with the garment dating process. The students are love seeing all the item in collection. It is easier for them to remember if they see the real garment and not what is just in books. This class was generally taught as lecture and slides. I talked with some former students of this class before developing my approach. I teach it in an interactive approach with the students. I don't want them to spent their whole class time taking notes. I put all of the notes online, and they fill in with what they want. We have used a lot of publications and photographs from my personal collection. Yesterday, we covered feathered handfans form the 1920s. I brought in some of my present day cheap fans, and taught them how to pop a fan. They had a blast! One student couldn't get the hang of it! I teased her and told her that I would give her an F if she couldn't pop the fan by the end of class. All the other students began teaching her how to pop the fan. She didn't receive an F. Monday, we are covering the 1950s. I am bringing in our local high school theater depts. netted petticoats. All the students get to try them on and see what it was like to wear one. They will have to wear them the entire classtime. Maybe then they will understand what a bouffant skirt is. My class is about 50% fashion design students and the other half merchandising. I teach the design and business history of the fashion industry. I hope this gives them a good knowledge of what each half of the industry does, and build a good respect for one another's area of specialty. Another assignment was for the students to go to the local thrift or vintage clothing stores and pick out 1980-1995 clothing to add to the collection. Since half the class want to be fashion buyers, they had to bargain the price with the manager. The students had to photograph and provide details of each item they want to go into the collection. All the bids/proposals are being presented to the dept. chair and will be considered for purchase. I was pretty surprised with their results. Only one item was not from this time period... it was late 1970s. FYI, all my students were born between 1985-1987. LOL! They had to research old magazines to know what the fashions were. I showed them a clip of a Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant movie and they didn't know who they were! The earliest movie star that they knew was Audrey Hepburn and not all of them knew who she was! Now, they know who William Powell is! They think he is so good looking. This one will make you feel really old... I showed the saddle oxfords aka saddlocks. I told them that I wore them to school when I was a kid and that all the kids wore them. The students wanted to know if we had to wear uniforms to school. LOL! I said, "No, they were just fashionable. Another thing is that they are amazed with the escapades of my 61 y.o. sister. That she wears mini-skirts and such. They said, "But she's a grandma!" I told them, "So am I!" We aren't dead yet! I better go and grade tests. I love seeing how much they retained about the history of U.S. textile mills from this week's classes. Many thanks again! Penny Ladnier, Owner www.costumegallery.com www.costumelibrary.com www.costumeclassroom.com Penny Ladnier, Owner www.costumegallery.com www.costumelibrary.com www.costumeclassroom.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
