CONTEXTUAL TEXTILES

Sew What | Rachel Dice

---

Having worked with museum textile collections quite often over the last year and a half, it has come to my attention that textile collections are consistently inconsistent. Even when preparing for my own exhibition—which is entirely textile-based—I found that I spent more time getting lost amongst the clothes and fabrics than actually finding what I set out to find. This could be due to my own shortcomings, of course, though I doubt anyone could simply ignore splendid gowns and garments when given the chance to freely look at them.

These baby trousers are made of grey wool
and red crochet trim. They close at the front
in a "Y" shape with buttons to make dressing
a baby easier. Photos courtesy of Rachel Dice. 

Some of the greatest challenges of working with textile collections involve curiosity. For example, if a garment is buttoned, suddenly you want to know what it looks like unbuttoned and laid flat, or the opposite; an unbuttoned, flat garment creates the desire to know what it looks like completely put together. This goes beyond simple things like shirts or coats. If the face of a garment changes because it is fastened or unfastened, wouldn’t it fascinate you to see? While working at the Aurora Museum & Archives, I found a tiny pair of wool trousers, obviously meant for a baby.

They were horribly bug-eaten, and just as clearly home-made. The little trousers are entirely one piece with no seams at all and join in the front with rows of little buttons. They were designed to be buttoned onto a baby without having to force little legs through pants, much like snap-together baby rompers work now. In short, playing around with the teeny trousers to see how they work was irresistible, but how can you know whether or not some textiles can stand up to the abuse of use?

Most of the time, the textiles will tell you themselves.

Wool and thick cottons are usually very sturdy; they retain their strength and functionality even in the face of bug-eaten holes. They rarely become stiff or immovable - we can save that for leather - and usually will not rip without concentrated effort. Sturdy velvets with short pile also fall under this category, as well as thickly woven silks. Many of these fabrics were made to withstand use and wear, so they hold up well even after a century or two of disuse. Wool is my favorite textile to work with. Yes, it is often bug-eaten, but the fabric is sturdy and

This late 19th century black wool vest with butterfly sleeves
in still in amazing condition. If it wasn't part of a museum
collection, you'd hardly believe it wasn't new. Photo
courtesy of Rachel Dice.

colour-fast. It’s resistant to all kinds of use and is even self-extinguishing! Aside from bug-eaten holes or discolouration, wool garments are most likely to suffer from the thread giving away in the stitching rather than the fabric itself tearing apart.

Oftentimes, it’s silk and sheer cottons that suffer the most. Both are made from plant fibre and are much more sensitive to changes in their environment. Additionally, unlike wool, silk or cotton are not self-extinguishing. In fact, they are likely to go up in smoke in very short amounts of time. Silk also tends to dry out faster than any other fabric; it can become so dry and brittle that it begins to flake or tear apart under its own weight or even the most negligible amount of stress. Sometimes it feels like even looking at a brittle piece of old silk too intensely will tear it. It makes conservation work tricky, and, for some reason, it is often some of the most beautiful pieces that are far too delicate to ever be displayed. Such is the burden of textile collections.

This beautiful jacket is lined with cream silk. The silk is extremely fragile and brittle, and has began
ripping apart as if it was attacked by a particularly enthusiastic cat. Now, the garment needs special
supports and a backer board - it can't support its own weight, even lying down. Photo by Rachel Dice.

What makes these collections even more interesting, however, is considering how fashions today will fit into them. Will future generations centuries from now curse me for not saving an old sweater, or for recycling old shoes? At what point do we decide what kinds of fashions are representative of an era? Will schoolchildren one day cluster around a faded pair of mom jeans like we cluster around Victorian gowns and World War uniforms today?

Here we have the classic museum student, wearing mom jeans
and a colour-blocked sweatshirt. Are these the kinds of textiles we can
expect to store in the museums of our future?
Photo courtesy of Rong Zou. 

Nobody can tell the future, but we certainly try our best to create stories of the past. If it ever comes down to it, which of your outfits would you put in a museum?

MORE THAN CLOTHES

Sew What | Rachel Dice

---

Guislaine Lemay and Jordan Fee standing at the entrance to
Wearing Our Identity, photo courtesy of Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif.

A view of the exhibition, including a man's caribou coat
made, unusually, with winter fur. Photo courtesy of
Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif.

At the beginning of November, MUSSA organized a student trip to Montreal, which was written about by Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif this past Friday in her post ALLONS À MONTRÉAL: MUSEUM STUDIES FIELD TRIP. On this trip we were able to visit an alarming number of museums in pretty much three days (five museum visits for most of us, and six for a determined few). A specific exhibition stood out among the rest and has become a source of inspiration for my own work with textiles. 

The exhibit, titled Wearing Our Identity—The First Peoples Collection, is currently on display at the McCord Museum in Montreal. It is a permanent exhibition with a little twist—the objects on display switch out every two years in a pre-planned pattern. The main focus of the exhibition is to encourage the public to “explore the complex heritage of the First Peoples of Canada and learn more about how their dress has helped define their rich cultures and identities” (source). In a nutshell, Wearing Our Identity aims to show how Indigenous culture is  intrinsically linked with clothing and aesthetic representation.

Guislaine Lemay leads a group through her exhibit, including
Dr. Cara Krmpotich, Director of the Museum Studies program.
Photo courtesy of Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif.

The exhibition was co-curated by Guislaine Lemay, McCord’s resident curator for the Indigenous Cultures collection, and a dedicated team of Indigenous peoples who worked closely with Lemay to ensure accuracy in content as well as design. It was Guislaine Lemay herself who took our group on a guided tour of the exhibition.

Going into this exhibition, I was fascinated by the layout and the different styles of garments on display. One of my favourite pieces was a little girl’s parka, made of caribou fur and sinew from the early twentieth century. We were told that the parka showed it belonged to a little girl who had not yet reached the age of puberty. We were also told that the furs were sewn in a special way so that every layer did not have stitching holes inside, therefore making it warmer and more waterproof. The style of the parka and the stitching technique were specific to the Inuit Inuinnaq, and all of this contributed to the parka’s role in the identity of the wearer.

Clothing itself plays an extremely important role in our lives. The way we dress and choose to represent ourselves is a deliberate action we take, from buying the clothes, making them, or just grabbing them out of the closet. Some people even come to be known for their taste in clothes, whether they usually dress in blue polo shirts or vintage aesthetics with a modern twist. These clothing choices become part of their identity, influencing the way they see themselves and the way we see each other.

A display of moccasins made with different
styles depending on the cultural and regional
group. Photo courtesy of Laetitia Dandavino-Tardif.

Now, imagine that you couldn’t wear your favourite sweater. Imagine that those earrings your grandmother gave you were banned, even though you tried to wear them as often as possible. Imagine being forced to wear clothes that were selected for you by strangers, clothes that were strange, outlandish, and even just dreadfully boring. You would hardly feel like yourself, and perhaps if it went on long enough, you’d forget who you were to begin with. This is another important part of Wearing Our Identity. The exhibition addresses the cultural importance of clothing for Indigenous peoples, while also looking at points in Canadian history where their clothing was banned, appropriated, and even turned into marketing gimmicks.

So the next time you reach into your closet for that outfit that boosts your confidence or makes you feel invincible, remember that our country hasn’t always let others have that same choice. No identity deserves to be repressed through clothing. Remember, it’s more than just clothes.

---

For the curious ones, here's some further reading:

The Press Release for the Exhibition Opening

The Press Release for the Exhibition Catalogue

The Texts Used in Wearing Our Identity

CINDERELLA'S GLASS SLIPPER: IS GLASS FASHION MORE THAN JUST A FAIRY TALE?

Sew What | Rachel Dice

---

What do an Actress, a Princess, a Singer, and a Glass Artist all have in common?

Despite the fact that they were all ladies, their most interesting shared trait is that they were all owners of glass dresses. The combination of glass and fashion is something that most people leave in their childhood. Cinderella and her glass slippers are probably the last we’ve ever thought of it, and we all knew it was just magic anyways. But in four museums around the world are four very special, very rare glass dresses—the only four in existence, as a matter of fact.

Who wore it first?

Actress Georgia Cayvan in her glass
dress,1893. Source.

The original glass dress was created by the Libbey Glass Company in 1893 at the request of an actress named Georgia Cayvan. Georgia was inspired to commission the dress at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago—generally called the Chicago World Fair of 1893—where the Libbey Glass Company had their Crystal Pavilion. In the pavilion, visitors had the unique experience of entering a crystal room. The room was filled with furniture and decorations made from glass. Even the window curtains, lampshades, and cushions on the furniture were made from spun glass. As the story goes, Georgia fell in love. Enchanted by the room, she ordered 12 yards of spun glass fabric at a cost of $25 a yard and had her own glass dress tailored. Georgia Cayvan wore the first glass dress ever made, but soon found that it was too brittle to wear regularly. After dazzling the crowds at some of her shows, she allowed her dress to go on display in Libbey’s pavilion. 

Eulalia, Infanta of Spain posing in the
crystal room in Libbey's pavilion, 1893.
Source.

The next dress was commissioned by none other than Eulalia, the Infanta of Spain. Like Georgia, she was enchanted by the crystal room and the shimmering glass gown displayed within it. She commissioned her own dress for a grand total of $2,500—approximately $70,121 now. Not only was the dress fabulously expensive, but it also weighed over 14 pounds. The dress took a team of workers 67 hours to create, but Mr. Libbey—the owner of Libbey’s Glass—thought that it was well worth the effort. Eulalia was a popular royal and everything she did found its way into newspapers, articles, and gossip. Libbey and other glass manufacturers thought that glass clothing would soon be the next big trend in the fashion world. Unfortunately, this prediction never came true. Eulalia’s dress was donated to the Deutsches Museum in 1924 by her sister, Princess Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria.

Singer Ellene Jaqua in her glass dress
from Paris, 1902. Source. 

The third of four dresses was created for the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, and is described being made of ‘moonlight cloth’. The material of the dress is the very same as Georgia and Eulalia’s spun glass creations. The dress was purchased by an America singer named Ellene Jaqua, who was photographed wearing it in 1902. The glass ‘moonlight cloth’ would have shimmered and shifted colour under spotlights, which would have made Ellene’s performances a captivating display.  The dress was donated to the New Brunswick Museum in 1930.

Helen Munro's blue woven
glass wedding ensemble,
1943. Source.

The fourth and final dress was worn by Helen Munro in 1943. The dress was made as her wedding dress for her marriage to Professor WES Turner of the University of Sheffield. The dress was made by Fibre Glass Limited of Glasgow and is the only one to be made from industrial glass. The entire wedding ensemble included a blue dress, hat, handbag, and shoes that were all made of woven glass. According to Helen, the advantage of a glass dress in wartime Britain was that it didn’t require clothing coupons. The downside was that the shoes cut her feet. Maybe Cinderella left her glass slipper behind on purpose. Helen’s glass wedding dress is on display at the Turner Museum of Glass at the University of Sheffield and is the only glass dress on display at all, as the others are much too fragile.

Cinderella’s dress and glass slippers disappeared at midnight, but research is currently underway to stabilize and conserve these glass dresses for decades to come. When all is said and done, would you wear a glass dress?