Fashion parade for dolls weaveit3/18/2023 ![]() ![]() Like the unlined lace pantsuit from the 1970s. Megan Osborne also likes to wonder, particularly about some of the more couture fashions. KUNC Volunteer Jan Alexander prepares a woman's silk top from India for documentation before putting it into a storage drawer. Maybe there's no back on it because it's hot in India." "So stories are going on in your head as well when you're looking at these pieces going, oh, well she looked like she was a very tiny woman. "There was one piece that - it looked like a woman's top - but it also looked like it had a side panel where maybe she could breast feed a child," Alexander said. As Jan Alexander unpacks silk pieces from India, she likes to imagine what life was like for the original owner. ![]() Then there are the more personal stories. "It was the worst dressed list that is often remembered simply because the comments could be pretty sharp and it was directed mainly at famous people, the Hollywood set, that sort of thing," Beard said. ![]() The one Doreen Beard points out was responsible for the annual celebrity-skewering best and worst dressed list. Like Diller's bra for example, it was created by Richard Blackwell. Every piece of material and every article of clothing - including the 2,000 pieces of lace, 200 Japanese kimonos and one rhinestone bra worn by comedian Phyllis Diller - tell a story. That return process began in May.Īll summer, Osborne and a team of volunteers, like Jan Alexander, have been methodically unpacking the museum, again.Įvery Thursday, Alexander puts on a pair of white cotton gloves and spends hours removing exhibits from their carefully packed tissue paper, documenting their intake number, photographing them, and getting them ready for permanent storage. Most of the items had to be inventoried and padded in enamel drawers, specially created not only to move the items, but to house them once they came back to the museum. They swell, they expand and contract with moisture."įinding the space was just one hurdle. "What we don't like to see is a jump of 20 degrees of temperature, or 15 percent humidity. "Textiles are really vulnerable to humidity and temperature swings," Osborne said. Luckily, the former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facility on the university's Foothills Campus fit the bill. To safely store the collection during the renovation, Osborne needed the ultimate walk-in closet – complete with climate control. "There's a lot more sort of pre-planning that has to go into it."įirst of all, there's just the sheer size. "Unfortunately it's not like moving, packing your home," Osborne said. KUNC Mannequins of all shapes and sizes sit in a storage room awaiting their next wardrobe change. In 2013, another grant provided room to expand – necessary since the collection's first move, as it had grown by almost 7,000 pieces.īut before the renovation could begin, the collection had to move yet again.Īvenir curator and collection manager Megan Osborne has been a part of moving all 20,000 pieces four times. In 2009, a grant from the Avenir Foundation made it possible for the collection to move from CSU's cramped Gifford building to the then-new University Center for the Arts, where it would have its own museum and gallery space. Curator emerita Linda Carlson grew the collection into one worthy of museum exhibitions The former head of CSU's Department of Textiles and Clothing donated items from her personal historic costume collection to help students learn about textiles, textile preservation and design. It was started in the 1950s by Dagmar Gustafson. The folks at the Avenir have been thinking about the fashions and textiles of the past for a while now.īefore there was the museum, there was just the collection. If we need a new bedspread, we go out and buy it." "I mean, every age probably thinks that but - relatively speaking - we do. "In today's society, we have it so easy," said Doreen Beard, director of operations and engagement at the Avenir, which is part of CSU's Department of Design and Merchandising. Whether it's pre-Columbian burial ties from South America or a pre-millennium MC Hammer doll, you never know what you might find at Colorado State University's Avenir Museum.Īt the Avenir – French for "future" – the collection of more than 20,000 items of clothing and textiles aid students in directing the future of fashion by showing them the past. ![]()
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