Fashion and Museums: Theory and Practice

✍ Scribed by Marie Riegels Melchior; Birgitta Svensson (editors)

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 233
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Why is fashion "in fashion" in museums today? This timely volume brings together expert scholars and curators to examine the reasons behind fashion's popularity in the twenty-first century museum and the impact this has had on wider museum practice.
Chapters explore the role of fashion in the museum across a range of international case studies including the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Fashion Museum at Bath, ModeMuseum in Antwerp and many more. Contributions look at topics such as how fashion has made museums accessible to diverse audiences and how curators present broader themes and issues such as gender, class and technology innovatively through exhibiting fashion.
Drawing on approaches from dress history, fashion studies, museum studies and curatorship, this engaging book will be key reading for students and scholars across a range of disciplines.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover page
Halftitle page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING FASHIONAND DRESS MUSEOLOGY
The attraction of the new, the obvious, and the popular
Fashion and dress in museums: past and present
Fashion museology as a “new museology” controversy
Past dress—future fashion?
Introducing the book
Notes
References
SECTION 1 THE POWER OF FASHION: WHEN MUSEUMS ENTER NEW TERRITORY
1 THE COSTUME INSTITUTE AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: AN EVOLVING HISTORY
Ambition and innovation in avagrant collection
Early exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Vreeland era
The academic and the cinematic
References
2 UNDERSTANDING FASHION THROUGH THE MUSEUM
Establishing fashion as a cultural phenomenon in art museums
Fashion as popular culture: a new vision, a new approach
Fashion studies and their influence on the fashion exhibition
Conceptual fashion: explaining the idea behind the object
Fashion, storytelling, and experience design
Conclusion
Notes
References
3 CONTEMPORARY FASHION HISTORY IN MUSEUMS
Only a terminological issue?
Fashion designing the museum
Curating (with) the fashion designer
The “new” fashion history and its objects
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
4 APPRAISED, DISPLAYED, AND CONCEALED: FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY ON THE SWEDISH MUSEUM STAGE
Two art and design museums
Two cultural historical museums
Collecting, displaying, and concealing
The art of display
In conclusion
Notes
References
SECTION 2 FASHION CONTROVERSIES: WHEN BODIES BECOME PUBLIC
5 GENDER CONSIDERATIONS IN FASHION HISTORY EXHIBITIONS
The gallery of fashion
Museums, fashion, and gender
The self-styled consumer
Tasteful consumption: the uses of fashion in art education
Conclusion
References
6 CLASS AND GENDER IN A MUSEUM COLLECTION: FEMALE SKIWEAR
Fieldwork in the past
Outdoor life on skis
Winter sports and bourgeois fashion apparel
Female ski runners in “Lapp costumes”
Twin sisters Wiking ahead of their time
Short skirts hide the breeches
Sports and skiwear in vogue
Skiwear for everybody
Full-length, wide trousers
Conclusion
References
7 EXHIBITING THE BODY, DRESS, AND TIME IN MUSEUMS: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Dress, body, and time
Dress collections and exhibitions in Scandinavian museums
The Swedish System
The dressed figure: a mounted mannequin inscribed with class, gender, and the history of style
The ideal of the discrete dressed figure
In conclusion
Notes
References
SECTION 3 IN PRACTICE
8 FROM MUSEUM OF COSTUME TO FASHION MUSEUM: THE CASE OF THE FASHION MUSEUMIN BATH
Bath
The Assembly Rooms
Doris Langley Moore
The collection
Presenting the collection
Conclusion
Notes
Reference
9 COLLECTING PRACTICE: DESIGNMUSEUM DANMARK
The fashion, dress, and textile collectionat Designmuseum Danmark and the criteria of collecting
The definition of fashion and dress in relation to the practice of collecting
Some examples of the relationship between textile, dress, and fashion in the collection at Designmuseum Danmark
The challenges
Introducing a new all-inclusive collecting policy at Designmuseum Danmark
Conclusion
Notes
References
10 ENGAGING THE PUBLIC INISSUES OF DRESS AND IDENTITY: A CASE STUDY OF AMAGERMUSEET IN DENMARK
The Amager dress collection
How we got from country bumpkin to saggy pants
Dressed 1: the folk dress and the notion of the “country bumpkin”
Dressed 2: the uniform
Dressed 3: breaking the rules
Dressed 4: the alternative Amager folk dress
Dressed 5: “I am so tired of being hot!”
Perceptions and responses to the exhibition
Notes
References
11 LEARNING THROUGH FASHION: THE NORWEGIAN MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The educational program “Sources of Knowledge”
Theoretical approaches
The four boxes
On consumption
On production
On checks
Fashion for everyday use
References
12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS A PROPOSED APPROACH TO A FASHION EXHIBITION
The fashion autobiography in contemporary media
Realizing a fashion autobiography in exhibition form: the “Hotel” project
Conclusion
Notes
References
IN CONCLUSION: MUSEUMS DRESSED IN FASHION
City branding and tourism
Visibility and bodily image
Dress museology
Fashion museology
Overcoming the controversy
Notes
References
INDEX