The Red and Black

Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: Out & About

Media Credit: LINDSAY DOBRAS A silk satin cut gown with fox stole from the 1930s is part of the exhibit "Shaping the Silhouette" at The Georgia Museum of Art. [Click to enlarge]

Of the 20th century's many antiquated fashions, the "monobosom" might be the trend best left behind.

Beginning Saturday and running through March 10 in the Rowland and Letitia Radford Collection Study Gallery at the Georgia Museum of Art, "Shaping the Silhouette: A Glimpse into 20th-Century Fashion" will feature an outfit from each individual decade of the last hundred years.

"One of the problems we have is modern mannequins," said José Blanco, an assistant professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences during an interview in the gallery last week.

He pointed to the first dress in the series of 10, showing the way the mannequin failed to fill out the turn-of-the-century's common "monobosom" silhouette.

The students of Blanco's "Museum Issues in Historic Clothing and Textiles" course put together the exhibit in what was the culmination of a full semester of work.

The class, which consists of undergraduate and graduate-level students, was divided up to work on specific decades.

"They went through the garments we had in the (historic costume) collection - 1500-2000 items," Blanco said, adding that each group selected its top five choices and presented them for a class vote.

"We were looking for something representative of silhouettes (of the different decades)," said Blanco.

Ashley Callahan, curator of the Henry D. Green Center for the Study of Decorative Arts and "Shaping the Silhouette," said to take Blanco's course, the students had to already have completed a history of clothing course.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools