Curious Fashions, Performative Identities

The Human Ecology Building, located on the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton. Alberta, hosts an interesting range of textile exhibits, in the Human Ecology Gallery. The current exhibition: Curious Fashions, Performative Identities, was co-curated by Dr. Anne Bissonnette and the undergraduate students of the course "Material Culture & Curatorship," Isabelle Arden, Alexis Billiones, Janna Ehrenholz, Olivia Nash, Lola Oberhagemann, and Madison Silva.

The aim of the exhibit is to show how personal fashions change and evolve through time, and moves in cycles. History does not repeat itself exactly. Old fashion trends come back, but altered to suit current needs and aesthetic senses. 

With this in mind, Curious Fashions, Performative Identities covers a wide range of cultures and time periods, from 1700s Ireland with a silk/velvet bland court suit to a pair of 1972 blue jeans that sport some eye-catching visible mending on the pant legs. 

The display of Indigenous and cowboy fashion from 1910 to the early 2000s utilizes bead embroidery. While the display of the nursing gown and cap date from the mid 1800s, England, and America respectively. 

The embroidered cap appears to have been stitched in couture style, on a fine white mesh, with a geometric and floral design, and scalloped edging. 

In the display of the cotton dresses from the1970s, California, it was surprising to see that one of them, though so modern, was trimmed with torchin style bobbin lace. 

The last display is filled with what could be considered a hodgepodge of fashions, one manikin wears a floral dinner jacket, formal dress pants and sneakers, and another wears a conservative floral print button down shirt with jeans. Looking closer at the jeans, the conservative look is subverted with colorful surface mending. Dating from 1972, America, these jeans were repaired several times, including a patch with a floral design worked in pink, maroon and white threads, in possible running or chain stitch. 

The most striking techniques were the bead embroidered Indigenous/cowboy shirts and jackets. The bright, glossy beads mixed with some chain stitching made for some vibrant floral and butterfly motifs. These garments show the artistic heritage of their stitchers, and how the skill and style of Indigenous peoples of Alberta have been adopted and incorporated into the formal dress of ranch owners and rodeo performers. The tan hide jacket has historical significance, having been made with traditional materials, moosehide, and glass beads, by a local Alberta artisan. The floral and berry motifs are likely inspired from local plant life. 

The Human Ecology Gallery serves as a showcase of cumulative research that students, faculty members, interns and collections staff have conducted on items from the Anne Lambert Clothing and Textiles Collection, or from items on loan to the gallery.  Open from 9am-6pm Monday to Friday, during the Fall and Winter terms, and 10am-2pm, Tuesday and Wednesday, June-August, the gallery is open to the public, free of charge. 

The Curious Fashions, Performative Identities exhibit was very informative about why and how fashion trends come and go throughout time. How elements of fashion resurface, but never as complete copies, but rather as innovative reimagining of what came before, can clearly be seen in this exhibit. 

The surface embroidery on the patched jeans was the most inspiring embroidered piece. Being a slow fashion follower, I found the choice of this piece, standing side by side with a high end polyester dinner jacket, both ironic and hopeful that the fashion of the masses will continue on its current casual trend, especially when that jacket was paired with those black sneakers! Now I want to go and work on a few more items on my mending pile. I highly recommend this exhibit to anyone interested in the history of fashion and how embroidery has survived and thrives to this day, even in the mundane world of garment repair.