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Dressed: The History of Fashion
Dressed in History: 100 Years of Collecting Fashion with Jessica Pushor
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- [00:01]
Jessica Bouchor
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Javon
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April Callahan
Oh wow, a real person.
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Javon
Yep. I'm here to help with everything from selecting the perfect window treatments to wow.
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Jessica Bouchor
I've got a complicated project.
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Javon
No problem. I can even help schedule a professional measuring install. We can also send you samples fast and free.
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April Callahan
Hmm, I just might have to do more.
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Javon
Whatever you need.
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Jessica Bouchor
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April Callahan
Way the History of Fashion is a production of dressed media with over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.
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Cassidy Zachary
Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. We are friends, fashion historians and your.
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April Callahan
Hosts, April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary. Hello dressed listeners. Today we are so pleased to welcome back past Dressed guests and my friend Jessica Bouchor, who I first met in 2010 in grad school at FIT in New York and who first joined us on dressed in 2021 to discuss her fascinating work as a quote, librarian of clothing at the Chicago History Museum, where she is the collections manager and caretaker of the museum's extraordinary 50,000 plus piece fashion and textile collection.
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Jessica Bouchor
Wow.
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Cassidy Zachary
And Jessica not only takes care of fashionable hats, but she also wears many herself at the museum because in addition to her work as Collections manager, her intimate knowledge of the collection means that she has also co curated multiple exhibitions at the museum, including the one that we are here to discuss today. Dressed in a Costume Collection Retrospective. On view until July 27, 2025, the exhibition is a celebration of not only this incredible collection, but also the many people who have shaped its existence over the past 100 years.
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April Callahan
Yes, 100 years this collection has been in existence. It was started in the 1920s, which is just remarkable and numerous people have been involved in its care, preservation and growth over the years. And this includes various collections managers, curators, donors, and also the museum's Costume Council, which for the past 1550 years has been instrumental in supporting and preserving the collection. And it is because of the Costume Council's support that not only this exhibition exists, but also this podcast. Because today's episode was actually recorded live with an audience at the Chicago History Museum. And I am so excited to share Maya and Jessica's discussion about 10 of our favorite highlights from the exhibition and accompanying catalog. And this live podcast was followed by a live Q and A, which we will share with you today. So without further ado, please enjoy this live episode of Dress.
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Javon
Please welcome Cassidy and Jessica.
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April Callahan
Hello, everyone. I just want to start by saying thank you all so much for being here. Thank you to the Costume Council for having me, the Chicago History Museum, Nell, Ben, and of course, Jessica. This is such a treat to see you in person for the first time. And I think 13 years.
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Jessica Bouchor
I know it's been so long. And thank you for coming out. I'm so glad to finally bring you to Chicago.
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April Callahan
Yes. And this is, of course, a live podcast recording. And this is usually the point in my podcast recording. I've done over 500 episodes where I tell my guest that, no pressure, this is not live. But it is. We're gonna do great.
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Jessica Bouchor
I know. I'm going to try to refrain from saying any curse words.
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April Callahan
So I actually should say welcome to Dressed. And welcome back to Dressed. Because Jessica was actually already a guest on the podcast on one of our most popular two part episodes about Chicago fashion history. Yeah, it is such a treat and.
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Jessica Bouchor
It'S been really incredible because so many people have come up to me and told me that they heard me on that podcast and I have never heard that podcast because I can't stand the sound of my own voice. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I hope I was great.
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April Callahan
No, I'm really excited to talk to you today and I'm really excited to be here with everyone because as so many of you listen to the podcast or you're part of the Costume Council, fashion matters. What we wear matters. It's so incredibly important. Not just as a historical artifact, but also the stories that are literally sewn into the clothing we wear throughout history around the world. And this incredible collection here at the Chicago History Museum is such a testament to that. And I'm so excited to talk to you today about this collection that you are the caretaker of.
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Jessica Bouchor
Thank you.
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April Callahan
So, just to get started, Jessica, I would love to hear about this exhibition, which is really a celebration of not just this incredible collection, but also the caretakers of this collection, the people responsible for its continued existence, like the Costume Council, the curators and. And the collections managers over the almost 100 years it's been in existence.
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Jessica Bouchor
Yes. So in 2024, it was the 50th anniversary of the Costume Council, which is our fundraising arm of the costume collection. And in order to celebrate this huge milestone, we set out to tell a story about the entirety of the collection. And we here at the Chicago History Museum started collecting fashion back in 1920 with the purchase of the Gunther collect. Mr. Gunther, Charles Gunther was a candy maker here in Chicago and a bit of an armchair historian, and he went around and collected lots of fun things. And then we had incredible curator here who started in 1932, which, as you noted, was very early for an institution to begin collecting and displaying fashion. And Phyllis Haley was her name, and she was a curator here until 1972, when she finally retired after 40 years. And then in 1974, the Costume Council was established because the museum at that time re cemented its pledge to collecting clothing and fashion of the city of Chicago. And we had some experts come in that time and see what we had in this collection. And they noted what incredible examples we had. For being a relatively small institution, our pieces here rivaled that of much larger institutions, and that we should continue to collect costume and that we should focus on Chicago and American designers. So through the Costume Council, with that kind of initiative, they went out and they collected a lot of incredible pieces here. So Elizabeth Yakimovic was a curator here from 1974 to 1989, and during this time, they established the donor balls.
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April Callahan
Yes. These are so fun.
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Jessica Bouchor
I don't know if there's anybody here from the Costume Council who remembers those or was in attendance. There we go. But these were fabulous parties where beautiful pieces would be on display, and it would be the last night they would be worn, and there would be tableaux up here on the stage or in different parts of the museum. And then at the end of the night, all of those pieces would be donated to the institution. So here are two pieces here. An opera costume from the Chicago Lyric Opera. And then this is a beautiful Halston that came from the very first Donors Ball here, I believe, in 1978. So this helped us acquire an enormous amount of material where we're now currently sitting at 50,000 pieces. And so this exhibition was. We looked back at the past 50 years of collecting, and we asked some of our former curators to select some pieces that they themselves brought into the collection and to choose a piece that they thought was the most outstanding piece in the collection. In working with these past four curators, the most interesting thing that I found was that they each selected a piece acquired by that first original curator. We started here in 1932, Phyllis Healy. And she was such an incredible force. Without her setting the stage in building the foundation of this collection, it wouldn't be where it is today.
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April Callahan
And I think it's really important too, to note that this is such a world class collection in terms of the. The breadth of what you have here. You graciously took me into the collections today. I had such so many aha moments with Jessica because so much part of her job is opening boxes and going. And I'm sure we'll talk about some of that today and a little bit later on. But I certainly had many of those moments. But what's so fantastic about this collection is you do have the Balenciagas, the Chanels, the Poirets, all of that upper class haute couture, exquisite examples, fashion. But then you also have everything down to everyday items of dress and really those maybe more humble looking pieces, but all of which still hold these incredible stories that we're going to talk about today. And we're going to move into talking about this incredible exhibition, starting with this first piece here, which is. And something I wanted to say too, is that what's so fantastic about the Chicago History Museum and when Jessica was first on the podcast, why that podcast was so successful is because this woman has so many stories in her head about the stories literally sewn into these garments, including this exquisite 18th century Robela Francaise. Can you please tell us about how this dress made it into this collection?
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Jessica Bouchor
Yes. So this piece came to us in 1920 as part of Gunther's collection. And he had acquired it, someone sold it to him and he purchased it. And the note that came attached to it said that it was worn by Queen Caroline of England, wife of George iv. So we got this piece and we were like, what is this? Timing didn't make sense, what it looked like, everything. We were like, this is very suspect. And so in 1926, the institution held a rummage sale here at the institution. And Mrs. Bertha Bauer was the first person in line that day and, and bought this dress along with, I believe, a tea set. And you see her there, she's in the Tribune there she is looking at the piece. And Ms. Bertha Bauer was an incredible woman. She was a suffragette. She went to college, she held many jobs, she married a very wealthy gentleman who died four years after they were married. And she had fun and she loved beautiful clothes. So she purchased this 1770s dress and then wore it around town, as one does yes. So this photograph, you see her here in the center. She would wear to different art balls, different fancy dress balls. And so this is her dressed as Martha Washington. And she's not wearing the correct undergarments with this piece. And she actually took this dress, this gorgeous, beautiful dress here, and sewed a very large elastic waistband into it. But it is still in incredible shape. So this textile is authentic. It is from the 1700s. It is European made, It is hand embroidered. And the textile, the silk, is in beautiful shape. This is in probably the best shape of all the historic garments that I have on display. It is supple. It is obviously was stored in an attic for many years, but it's still gorgeous.
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April Callahan
And this is one of those pieces in the exhibition because it's behind glass. You can really get up close and look at it and check out that incredible embroidery because it really is exquisite.
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Jessica Bouchor
And I should say so, the way it came back. So in the early 2000s, her grandchildren were cleaning out different estates that she owned and found this in the attic with some other pieces that she had and redonated it to the institution. So it's had this very interesting long life. And now it's a great artifact of Chicago, of Bertha Bauer, of our own Chicago Historical Society's history as well. So we're very lucky to have it back. And it's an incredible artifact of a time period that we don't usually represent here in the Chicago History Museum because it's the 1770s and there's not a lot of collecting going on at that time here.
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April Callahan
This photograph and the dress can be seen in the exhibition catalog, which is just exquisite. And the exhibition catalog is particularly wonderful because it features pieces that are highlights from the collection that aren't necessarily on display in the exhibition. And one of those pieces is what I want to speak to next, which really talks about the practice of collecting, but also the field of fashion history and how it develops and how what we value as historians and as storytellers shifts and changes over the years and how we learn more and more the more research that people do. And so this next piece that I want to talk about is this checkered two piece ensemble from the 1860s. And Jessica, I love this story. This is actually one of the most museum's prized pieces, in my humble opinion, because of the history it holds about these two women here. But this is not necessarily a piece that the museum knew they necessarily had or knew the full value of. Right. When it was first collected.
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Jessica Bouchor
Yes. So this here is a dress purportedly worn by Mary Todd Lincoln. And so this also came through the Gunther collection. And so when Gunther collected it, he collected it because of its association to the Lincolns, to Mary Todd Lincoln. So this was part of this very large acquisition of Lincoln material that we brought in. Now, with the development of fashion history, we have looked less of who wore this piece, the celebrity of the person who wore it, and more about the woman who made the dress. So this here is Elizabeth Keckley. So she was the dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln. She was an enslaved person that through her skills as a dressmaker, I believe that she was able to purchase her own freedom.
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April Callahan
Yep. And her sons.
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Jessica Bouchor
Yes. And we have many Lincoln artifacts here that came to the collection because of her. So we have a sign affidavit from Ms. Keckley with some pieces that she sold and then were acquired and then came through us through Gunther. And it's just such an interesting story. As times change, people's focus changes. So now it's really focusing on this woman and her abilities and her story and what she was able to create. And this went on exhibit to the Peabody Essex Museum for their made it exhibit, Women in Fashion. Because of that, I couldn't put it on view in this exhibit.
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April Callahan
But it's in the catalog.
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Jessica Bouchor
It's in the catalog, yeah.
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April Callahan
And just a little bit more about Elizabeth Keckley for those in the audience who might not know who she is. As Jessica said, she was born enslaved. She was an incredibly talented seamstress and bought her freedom and that of her sons and then moved to Washington, D.C. and on the merit of her skills. On the eve of the Civil War. So in the Civil War era, In the early 1860s, before the Civil War broke out, she had clients on both sides of the impending fight based on her exceptional skills. One of her clients was also Verena Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis. And she was more than just a dressmaker. She really can be considered one of the first professional American fashion designers in the United States. She's a contemporary of Charles Frederick Worth, who we have perhaps all heard and who is valued because he is a white man working in the Parisian haute couture in the 19th century. But her skill rivals Charles Frederick Worth. She is an impeccable designer and craftswoman. So for them to have, not just. I think you have a couple examples of her work in the collection. Right. Am I lying?
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Jessica Bouchor
Maybe.
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April Callahan
Possibly.
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Jessica Bouchor
It's purportedly. There are no labels in these things. I can't. I'm not. I don't have children. I'm just gonna say, I can't say on my child's life, but on my dog's life, I can't promise we can attribute it to them. Obviously, there are people who are scholars in this and here at the Chicago History Museum. And as a collection manager, my goal is to give everyone access. So I want to give access to the researchers, the scholars like yourself, who will learn from these type of materials. We have these materials. We've had them for a long time, but I want them to be studied, and I want for all of this new scholarship to come out of it. And so that's what makes me so excited, is bringing all of this great material out to everyone.
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April Callahan
And what's also worth mentioning about Elizabeth Keckley is the reason the Chicago History Museum has a lot of the Lincoln artifacts and relics is because Keckley was incredibly close with the Lincolns, and she was actually best friends with Mary Todd Lincoln. And so she acquired a lot of these pieces from the Lincolns themselves, which is just so special. And this exhibition is fantastic in many ways, but it really expresses the breadth of the collection, which also has menswear and children's wear. And there's several examples of both in this exhibition. And these two pieces in particular are fascinating objects because of the Chicago history that they hold. Can you please share some stories about these pieces?
- [18:25]
Jessica Bouchor
Yes. So I'll start with the pocket watch here. So we wanted to put some beautiful pieces from our men's collection on view. I love men's clothing. I love men. Shout out to my husband down there. So this pocket watch here, it's by the Elgin Watch Company that was based out of Illinois. So attached to this is this long chain. So at the bottom of the chain is this locket, and there's a locket of hair in there. Unfortunately, we don't know who that belonged to, but if you follow the chain back up to the top there, where it attaches to the watch, you're going to see what looks like an acorn. So that is a anti pickpocketing device. So that acorn, when you pull on it, when you pull it out, like someone who was pulling it out of your pocket, these little spring, like little springs come out of it. Yeah, these prongs, and they would attach to your pocket. So if someone tried to lift your pocket out of there, it would tag on it. So it would alert you that somebody was trying to steal your watch. And we have hundreds of pocket watches in this collection. And to learn, we all have. We used to all have watches but to find something this kind of special, like all these little parts to that was just so fascinating. And it just tells you a little bit more and it brings you in and into more parts of fashion history. Because before I started working with this piece here, I had no idea about it. I was like, what is this little thing? And so this cane here, so this is a relic of the Great Fire of 1871. Like many cities in America, we had a great fire. It burnt down pretty much the entire city. And then this cane was made for one of our aldermen. And on it it has, around the cane it has this inscription and it goes, presented by the city of Chicago to R.B. stone, Alderman of the Fifth Ward. A relic of the bell of City Hall Chicago that struck the alarm of the fire by which the city was laid into ash. Last sound heard was 2am October 9, 1871. It's a fabulous piece of history. And you can talk about the Chicago Fire. And we don't have a lot of relics from the Chicago fire. We have some burnt up pieces. But this was made and presented to someone. And so you have these kind of personal connections. We have a lot of canes, but something like this really brings history to life and makes it special.
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April Callahan
Foreigners.
- [21:02]
Cassidy Zachary
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April Callahan
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- [22:08]
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April Callahan
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Jessica Bouchor
Yes. Okay, so this dress was worn and purchased by Anita Carolyn Belair and she wore this not to her own debut party but to that of one of her friends. So imagine you show up in this piece to another girl's debut party. I actually have Anita's debut gown and it is plain. It is white. White. She wore it to her tea. It's very of its time. She had her debut in 1910. So in 1913 she is actually invited to Gladys High, that was her last name, High to her debut and showed up in this gown. Now don't Feel too bad for Gladys. She went on to become Lady Bernie of London. But this is a very bold choice for a woman to wear at this time period. And Anita Carolyn Blair was the granddaughter of. Of the founder of the Merchants National Bank. So they were very wealthy family here in town. So this piece came in to the collection in 1958, along with some other pieces donated to us by the donor who wore this. It's had a very interesting history here. So everybody loves this dress. So here you see over here in 1969, you actually see the designer, Pauline Treger handling it without gloves. We can't do that nowadays down in the collection. She had a visit the Guild before the Costume Council invited her in, and she came down and saw the piece. And then when Elizabeth Yakimovic started here as a curator, she saw we had this piece, and she was so. Oh, she was over the moon. She went out and bought at auction this original illustration from Bon Temps and purchased that and brought it into the collection. So when I was pulling this piece, so all of the curators, past curators that I worked with on this exhibit, all of them said, this was the piece. This was the piece de resistance. This is the piece of the collection. And you know what my conservators told me before I ever talked to the curators? You cannot put this piece on display. This is the. You cannot put this one out. It's been out too many times. It's too far. Fragile, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so how do we tell the story of Poiret in Chicago? Because there are many other artifacts. It's just that this piece is so incredible. This, the sorbet gown that we always go to. That. Also back to this, the original illustration here. So after it was purchased at auction, it was just tucked into a file folder. So as we were going through and pulling this information out, I found this. And I was like, oh, this is an original. And, oh, here's the receipt from Sotheby's when she bought it in 1976. I was like, so this is now part of the collection. So we have moved this piece from just in a file cabinet to being part of our collection.
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April Callahan
Yes. And it's such an incredible piece. And something you just spoke to that I think is also really special about the Chicago History Museum collection is your relationship with the fashion industry and how you have cultivated. Cultivated that and how the Costume Council continues to cultivate that relationship. When I was down in the collections with Jessica today, she kept telling me all these stories about fashion designers like Christian Lacroix. Who came here and did a fashion show on the steps of the museum and then donated several pieces to the museum. And then also another designer, Versace. I'm sure the list goes on and on, but something related to the sorbet gown that I thought is such a fascinating story. Story is that Arete visited the collection, I believe, in 1969, when he was being rediscovered by a new generation. Because, of course, he's a very famous early 20th century fashion designer turned costume designer. But he worked for Poiret. That was his very first job, was designing for Poiret. And when he came to the collection in 1969, someone showed him this dress and he said, oh, I designed that.
- [28:14]
Jessica Bouchor
Like you do. Just like, oh, yeah, back to. Poiret actually came to Chicago in 1913. He came to Chicago, he brought all these dresses, he had a big fashion show. And in the Tribune, there are these articles about him startling the women of Chicago. We have all these beautiful pieces in the collection because he came here like a big trunk show put on in a theater here, and all of these beautiful. So there's a great turban that's on display currently in the exhibit and that is from this tour. Women, Mrs. Potter Palmer II, Pauline Kolstadt bought these beautiful hats at that time. So, yes, he has a long history.
- [28:54]
April Callahan
Here in Chicago, and I guess we probably should move on where time weighs. But there, of course, is an illustration from Arete in the exhibition that you can see.
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Jessica Bouchor
See? Yes. And so this. This is. God, there's such a story behind this. So this he made for opera costume ideas. So they were not. Oh, no, some of them were actually put into fabrication. So there was a woman here named Gana Watanaczka, and I'm saying that incorrectly. She was a Polish opera singer who came to Chicago. She Bewitched, I don't know how else to put it, was one of the McCormicks. And he fell in love with her. And she had been married, I think, six times at that time. This was going to be his second marriage. And he was putting all this money into her opera career. And so he had. Arete designed these incredible costumes. Some of them were produced, and on the night that she was supposed to premiere, she ran away. So their story, this story of the McCormick and the Opera singer is some of the intrigue that went into Citizen Kane, into that story. And it's all from here in Chicago. You can go through the archive of the Tribune and read all of this and how she lost her voice and all of this stuff. She later went out to California and had a beautiful home there that has incredible gardens that you could rent for weddings.
- [30:22]
April Callahan
And that explains why a lot of her. A lot of the Arete gouaches and a lot of the extant actual costumes that they depict are in the collection of the LACMA Museum to this very day. So of course we're going to talk about haute couture because this museum collection holds a world class collection of Parisian haute couture pieces from every designer you can possibly imagine. Chanel, Balenciaga, Givenchy, and of course, Christian Dior, who has a long history with the city, actually dating back to 1947, when he first debuted his new look collection and was here, I'm assuming, in promotion of his debut collection. This Museum has over 200 pieces from Christian Dior and the designers who followed in his footsteps. And that includes this incredible wedding dress featured here that was never actually worn by. By a bride. Can you tell us about the story of this dress?
- [31:16]
Jessica Bouchor
Yes. So this dress here is from the 1949 line that Christian Dior did. So this dress was actually purchased by Marshall Fields, which was a big department store here in Chicago. So this was the couture sample that they had in their salon that you could come and see in a fashion show and you could order it if you wanted it. After the, the season was over, Marshall Fields offered this as a prize to the debutante who raised the most money for the pass event. And so Pass event was a hospital here in Chicago. And this dress actually retailed for $3,200. And the woman who sold the most tickets and earned the most money was Janine Brooker. And you can see her right there, she actually raised 3250. So actually over the price of the dress, which in today's money is about. The dress was worth about $41,000. So it weighs, I believe, over 25 pounds. And it is made with so many yards of tulle, you have no idea. And you can see just how beautiful and tiny. And it is a sample size. It is very small. You can see here how it was pictured as a wedding dress. So it would have this kind of over long sleeve to make it more more appropriate. But this was how it was worn by, by Janine at her cotillion. She later changed into her other dress that she initially purchased because this was so heavy. But it's beautiful and we had to make a custom mount for this. There was so much work that went into restoring this piece because she had this piece in her home until the 1980s. So 40 years. So 40 years hauling around a really heavy, huge couture dress. It got dirty, it got torn, it got very wrinkly. And it took a lot to get it to this. And actually, what you don't understand about this is that the, this back swag that you see on it is very heavy and it pulls down the dress. And so we had to make it a little kickstand so that it doesn't pull on the dress and make tears. So there's a lot of little things that go into making dresses look beautiful on exhibit that you don't see, but are there because we have to preserve the piece and make sure that they're well supported throughout the entirety of an exhibition.
- [33:42]
April Callahan
Yes. And it's such a beautiful dress. And this is on display, so you can check that out in the exhibition. And next we're going to talk about a contemporary of Christian Dior. And we talked about Elizabeth Keckley's work being really brought to the fore in recent years and her life and her legacy. And the same can be said about our next subject, which this is Ann Low, who is perhaps most famously known as the designer of Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress. But she was so much more. Her career actually spans, I believe, over six decades. She began designing in the 1910s, and again, just like Keckley, an haute couture caliber designer, she was an exceptional artist. And this dress really represents the height of her skill. Unfortunately, it's not in the exhibition, but it is in the catalog. Can you please tell us about this dress?
- [34:31]
Jessica Bouchor
Once again, this dress is not in our exhibition because it was loaned out to two other exhibitions. So it first went to Made it the Women who Revolutionized Fashion at the Peabody Essex Museum in 2020 and 21. And then it went to the Anlo American Couturier exhibition at the Winterthur. And that was from September of 2024 to 2025. So because it went out on loan, I was not able to put it in our exhibition, but obviously I can put it into the catalog. So this is also another cotillion dress that was worn to the Pass Event Cotillon here in Chicago. And this one dates from 1956 and it was worn by Carolyn Duke Chaplin and was donated by her mother. She was 17 when she wore this. And this is another piece that was in the the home of the donor for 20 years and then was donated to us. And it was in very rough shape. It was very wrinkled. It was not what you're seeing here. And we work with a really Incredible team of conservators who went by hand and not steamed, but humidified. So cold steam, just a little bit of water vapor to create or to make these roses look as incredible as they do. And this is what Ann Lowe is really known for, is making these incredible roses and foliage out of silk. So we really brought this dress back to peace. And it's only with the most high end couture pieces that are in the. Using the highest end materials that you're able to resurrect something like this and. And make it look perfect. Your stuff that you're buying at H and M or something, if it was balled up in the back of your closet or your attic for 40 years, we couldn't bring it back to this. But it shows you just the high level of skill, craftsmanship, and textiles that are using that that were able to bring this back. And it's been. Ann Lowell only made dresses for. You had to be on the social registry. You're like the 1 1%. And the fact that we have one is incredible. Not many collections have survived. Yes, they're incredible. And there's a famous story that Ann Low was not allowed to come into the house of Jackie Kennedy, of Jackie Kennedy, because she was a black woman. And she was like, you don't want me to not deliver this dress. She had incredible talent, much like Elizabeth Keckley. And such incredible talent made a lot of people pay attention and buy their clothes. And we're very lucky to have this piece.
- [37:16]
April Callahan
Yeah. And again, because in recent years, scholars like Elizabeth Way, I know, has been here to visit. The collection has really been important in bringing these designers legacies and lives to light. And how special for you to have even just one of these pieces in this collection.
- [37:30]
Jessica Bouchor
And the exhibition catalog for the Anlo American Couturier is fabulous. I recommend you going out and seeing this. Our piece is featured in it. But it's a really beautiful catalog.
- [37:41]
April Callahan
Yes, absolutely. And again, just speaks to just how incredible this collection is. And something I really love about this exhibition, which I spoke to earlier, is how it highlights the range of the collection, which is these exquisite made to order pieces, but ranges from everything from that all the way to more humble pieces, more everyday wear. And I love that you highlight everyday wear in the collection, including the piece we're going to talk about next, which I'm going to ask our audience perhaps to guess what it is. We're jumping forward a decade, and this is inarguably, I would say, one of the most famous or most infamous Pieces of swimwear in the history of fashion. Yes, the monokini, which here she is in all her glory.
- [38:30]
Jessica Bouchor
Yes. So I, for all the curators I've worked with over the years, they always talk about this piece. You have a monokini. Oh my gosh, I didn't realize the Chicago history connection this piece had to us. So everybody knows the Peggy Moffat famous photograph of her sitting there with her little hair cut, with her arms tastefully over her breasts. Let me tell you about Tony Lee Shelley, a very buxom Chicago girl. And so on Monday, June 22nd of 1964, Tony Lee Shelley, who's 19 year old model, called up the Chicago Daily News, the Tribune and any other outlet she could and said to them, hey guys, I have a monokini bathing suit and I'm gonna go down to North Avenue Beach. And these bathing suits were $23. They're a good amount of money. She said, I'm going down to North Avenue beach, which if you're not from Chicago, you don't know, that is right behind the museum, it's right there on the lakefront. She said, I'm going down there, I have a monokini and I will be there at this time and maybe you should come. And so reporters from all the big news outlets descended upon North Avenue beach. And as you can see here, so did the police officers. And she was photographed. And these photographs went around the world. Okay, the Pope weighed in on it, it was in Playboy, it was everywhere. And everybody knows Peggy Moffatt, but people don't know this Chicago history story. So this went everywhere. So there were the fashion people who knew Peggy Moffat, but everybody else knew about Tony Lee Shelley at this time period. And she was arrested, she was just made to pay a fine of a hundred dollars. And she became quite popular after that. She did appear in a couple, she had bit parts in a few movies. But this piece was actually donated to us by a reporter for a fashion columnist. Her name is Peg Zwecker. She worked for different newspapers for many years. So she got this piece, I'm sure as a promotional piece. And with it, when she donated to us, she also donated all of the proof sheets from her photographers. So that's where all these incredible images come from. So beyond having such an incredible fashion collection here at the museum, we, we have an incredible photography collection. And for someone like myself who's working within a budget to put on an exhibit in order to have these kind of images where you don't have to go and pay for licensing rights from The Getty. It makes a huge difference on your exhibition.
- [41:16]
April Callahan
Yeah. And I've always heard about women being arrested. She's not the only one. I think there's one or two other examples of women being arrested for wearing this to the beach. But Rudy Gernreich is such a fascinating figure in and of himself and I think we looked at a couple of his other pieces today, but he really believed he wasn't as so much about the shock value, although certainly there's a lot of shock value. But for him it was really about freeing the body. And the 1960s was such this revolutionary period in terms of going from those Ann Low dresses and those cotillion gowns that we just saw and then completely transforming the way women dressed and felt about their bodies just in the short decade and just a short couple years. Little known or lesser known fact about Rudy is he actually produced the first commercially successful, I don't know if it was successful commercially available thong.
- [42:03]
Jessica Bouchor
Oh, after this as well, learn something new every day.
- [42:16]
Javon
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- [43:15]
E
Throughout history, royals across the world were notorious for incest. They married their own relatives in order to conceal, consolidate power and keep their blood blue. But they were oblivious to the havoc all this inbreeding was having on the health of their offspring. From Egyptian pharaohs marrying their own sisters to the Habsburg's notoriously oversized lower jaws, I explore the most shocking incestuous relationships and tragically inbred individuals roles in royal history. And that's just episode one on the History Teatime podcast. I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ royals, explore royal family trees, and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. I'm Lindsay Holliday, and I'm spilling the tea on history. Join me every Tuesday for new episodes of the History Tea Time podcast, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed.
- [44:23]
April Callahan
We are nearing the end of our time today. Jessica, this has been so wonderful. And I ended with this next piece because it's a little bit of an homage to you, because when I first saw the exhibition catalog and the exhibition photographs that were going around promoting the design, this piece is one of the signature pieces promoting the exhibit. And I said that has Jessica written all over it, because in grad school, you wrote a paper on men's western wear.
- [44:53]
Jessica Bouchor
I did.
- [44:54]
April Callahan
And the glitz and the bling. So this is perhaps not men's western wear, but it's close.
- [45:05]
Jessica Bouchor
Yes, men can be sexy. And this is a men's burlesque ensemble. So men also are in burlesque. So people really know us for Sally Rand and her fan dances. Well, we also have a very proud male burlesque in Chicago as well. And so this comes from a gentleman named John Neal. He donated this piece to us. He was a dancer, a choreographer. He made pieces. He was a promoter. And this he also donated to his huge scrapbooks full of all of the people he represented, made dances for, and made clothes for. So that is Romulus you see here. Fun fact about this photograph, that beard is actually drawn on, not real. And then he donated this piece to us as well. And so it has a, as you see, this lovely beaded thong. And it was obviously, I put it on a clear mannequin, much like I did the Monokini, because I want to show the female form. I'm not trying to. We have a lot of school kids here. But you. I want to show these pieces. I want to show you the depth and breadth of this collection. Because, yes, we have couture, but then we have all of this other history here in Chicago. People who work in theater, in make costumes, who work in burlesque, we should also be proud of that as well. And I love this picture because it's before Velcro, before snaps, so the pants come off. They have huge zippers on the side of them. Love it. And it's written Romulus on the inside. So this would be backstage. So, you know, this is Romulus'. This is important. And I also think it's really incredible to think about what do people save and then what do they donate to an institution? And so much of the pieces that are donated are after someone passes away and it's like, why was this so important to them? And finding out that story as to why this held so much value to them, I really that's what I love learning about with fashion.
- [47:06]
April Callahan
Jessica, this has been a pleasure as I knew it would be. Thank you so much for joining us again on dress and thank you for.
- [47:13]
Jessica Bouchor
Coming all the way to Chicago. It was so nice to have you here. So we are going to open it up to questions. So Nell is right back there. So if you have a question, please raise your hand and she will come over and give you the microphone.
- [47:33]
April Callahan
No pressure. How long have you been hosting your podcast?
- [47:39]
Jessica Bouchor
Yes.
- [47:39]
April Callahan
So we have been doing this since 2018. So we have over five. This is our eighth season, own over 500, I think in 4:40 episodes now. Yeah, yeah, it's been really fun. I mean, we joke that this could go on forever, but it really can because we never are wanting four topics because we go around the world and throughout history just to uncover all of these stories that are literally sewn into the clothes we wear.
- [48:05]
Jessica Bouchor
Do you have a favorite style period and what is it?
- [48:10]
April Callahan
Yes. So if the sorbet gown was Indian any indication, it is the the 19 teens. And the pre world war era is my favorite because it is such an undervalued period for the history of modern fashion. So the traditional and the popular fashion history narrative is that Chanel invented modern fashion in the 1920s in the post war era when women kicked off their corsets. Right. And moved into modernity. But really modern fashion starts in the Pre World War I era with design designers like Paul Poiret, also Lucille Lady Duff Gordon, Jean Lanvin, even Madeline Vionnet was designing for Jacques Doucet in the early pre war era. And they are designing for women without corsets. So already in 1908 you have designers like Poiret, who was one of the first and certainly the most radical, giving women corset free options at a time when the Espen silhouette that we associate with that Edwardian era, that really structured, sinuous, beautiful corset, he was offering women straight, straight dresses that hung from the shoulders and encouraged modernity and freedom of movement. And then women who went to work in the millions during World War I are the ones who pushed fashion into modernity. So years before Chanel's there. But it's really these women and these Working class women who are demanding functional clothing that push fashion into modernity. And that is the legacy, that is the trajectory that Chanel and then and other criteria than pick up in the post war era. So that's my favorite period.
- [49:45]
Cassidy Zachary
First of all, thank you so much.
- [49:46]
April Callahan
For this really riveting discussion. There are a couple of us here representing the School of Fashion from Columbia College Chicago. And my question is, do you have any advice for students or the next generation who might be interested in going into the fields that you're representing here today? I'm going to let you take that one woman.
- [50:08]
Jessica Bouchor
So I didn't know this was a job when I started. So my. No matter what job I've had, I learned something from it. Sometimes it might be that this is not what I want to do. And then I keep moving on with that. I found the one job that was. I really can't picture myself doing anything else because this is really what I'm meant to do. I've taken all the skills that I've learned from working at the universities and working retail and have come to that place where I'm like, oh, yes, this is what all of this, my weird mind is perfect for. Knowing yourself is probably the biggest thing. I knew I wasn't going to be a fashion designer. I knew that because I don't like to make clothes. I just don't. Being open to discovery and knowing yourself because sometimes you are that square peg and even if you try to force yourself into that round hole, it's not going to happen. So find what it is that you are passionate about and actually have the skills and do that. And you just truly, I feel you have to work harder than anybody and be so passionate about it.
- [51:18]
April Callahan
It's a very competitive. I will say that about the field that Jaska and I are in, although we really represent the breadth of it. I'm like a public historical historian, I would say, and I'm, I share to a broader global audience. Right. So I have a lot of general history. And then there's. And I'm on social media in a podcast. Jessica is a collections manager. Hands on. In a museum. There's also fashion historians who are independent researchers. There are fashion historians that curate such as, like Andrew Bolton, right. Famously at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But there aren't that many of those collections. And we are in a day and age where exhibitions like the Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty have really shown like these blockbuster fashion exhibitions have really shown how much people want and love fashion history. So I think we're really at a change where fashion history is being valued more. So hopefully that there will be more opportunities for students moving forward as well. But.
- [52:14]
Jessica Bouchor
And with my position here on Monday, I cleaned the exhibit. I'm doing this today, and in a few weeks I will be in charge of taking down the exhibit. So it's not glamorous all the time, but that's why I said you have to be passionate about it in order to stay with it and stay in the field.
- [52:33]
April Callahan
Yeah. And then also just, you know, I was a costumer in film and television before I went back to grad school. Thought I wanted to be a fashion designer. It's a journey too.
- [52:44]
Javon
Jessica, can you just for the listeners that are out there, can you put the costume collections value in a ranking with the rest of the national and international collections?
- [52:55]
Jessica Bouchor
Yes, we have exquisite pieces that you truly can't find anywhere else. Our collection is extremely large. As a person who's in charge of counting it, I can tell you that firsthand. Unfortunately, I haven't counted everything yet, so I can't give you an exact count, but we know it's over 50,000 pieces. But it's incredible in the depth and breadth the representatives of the high end couture to the everyday fashion. One of the pieces that we have on view right now, which I'm so excited about, this is something we didn't know we had, was an original pair of Air Jordan ones. Do you know how many fashion collections now would love to have those? Do you know how expensive those are? They're so expensive. And so for our curators here to have gotten picked Those up in 1987, on sale for $34.99 and have them as part of our collection, that's incredible because sneaker culture is huge now. That is a huge portion. There's a reason why I have three different sneakers in our exhibition right now, because kids love sneakers. That's a lot of the way that young kids are connecting with fashion and fashion history. So it's with pieces like that. So I like to say it's one of the best fashion collections in the world and just leave it at that.
- [54:14]
April Callahan
I do think what's so fascinating about reading about the Costume Council in particular is that it was formed after you had scholars from other institutions like the Met come to visit this collection and they really told you what you had or confirmed what the museum knew they had perhaps or perhaps didn't know the extent or how within the larger world of fashion collections this was. But it was incredibly valuable. And the costume Council was instrumental in really recognizing that worth and continuing to support it. But what you had here is. Yeah. Is truly exceptional, not just for the United States, but for the world too.
- [54:47]
Jessica Bouchor
Yes. And people forget that women in Chicago had a lot of money and they traveled around the world and they brought fashion back with them. And importers brought the fashion here to Chicago. So we have been a center of retail and fashion for a very long time.
- [55:04]
April Callahan
Yeah.
- [55:05]
Jessica Bouchor
You've talked a lot about many amazing pieces. Unique. What is your favorite item in the collection that maybe didn't make it into the catalog, the show, Other shows. Maybe it's more humble and doesn't quite look as fabulous. Like, what surprised you the most? My favorite, personal favorite is a Pucci. Emilio Pucci hot pant jumper. So it is incredible. It is magenta long sleeve hot pants that are this incredible purples and this kaleidoscope of colors. And it was one of those things when I. It was literally the first year I started, I was going through a box of slides slacks, which if you don't box of slacks is not that exciting. I'm going through this box and all of a sudden in it is this Emilio Pucci hot, hot pants ensemble, this jumper, this romper, whatever you want to call it. And I was like, I was flabbergasted. And I've never been been able to put it on display because the measurement from here to the crotch is so small. It doesn't fit on any of my mannequins and it has zero stretch to it. But it is one of those things that when I found it, I was just like, oh, my gosh. I called the curator at the time, Patriot. I was like, come down here. Come and look at this incredibleness. And that is the thing about this collection. Every day that I'm in the collection, I'm inventory. I'm finding something new that I fall in love with. After an exhibit like this, there are many things that I fall out of love with because I've worked with it for years. It's hard for me to pick my favorite child because there's always something fascinating that's coming up right now, obviously. So the Pope is from Chicago, and I don't know if you guys know that or not, but he's from Chicago. And so we have. I'm working with some of the other curators here about bringing in some of this incredible T shirts and graphic prints that small artisans are making in T shirt shops around the city, talking about the Chicago Pope. And so I'm super excited about that I'm excited about current history and past fashion history. And so we tell the story of the city of Chicago, and I have to be on the lookout for current stuff. So if you got any pope stuff, let me know.
- [57:28]
April Callahan
And just speaking to a couple things that Jessica showed me today, some highlights from the collection, because we've all seen the paper and heard of the paper dresses from the 1960s. She was like, have you heard. You've heard of the paper dresses, but have you heard of paper culottes? And then she pulled out. Proceeded to pull out various different silhouettes in paper. Or Tyvek, which is what it was made out of in the 60s.
- [57:49]
Jessica Bouchor
Don't forget the paper hot pants.
- [57:51]
April Callahan
Yes, the paper. Yeah.
- [57:52]
Jessica Bouchor
Wear a tiny little pair of hot pants made of paper.
- [57:55]
April Callahan
Yeah. It was a full ensemble. And then another piece that she showed me I think is a testament to social media and communicating a picture. Communicating without saying a word or communicating a thousand words without saying anything. Jessica has a wonderful Instagram, and she shares highlights from the collection, behind the scenes highlights from the collection. And one of them was, I'll let you tell the story, but it was one of those things that you did not know you had until you posted it and people told you.
- [58:26]
Jessica Bouchor
So I know a little bit about a lot of stuff, and I'm definitely more of a contemporary fashion person. And so the 1800s is not my specialty. So I was down in storage poking around, redoing some things, and I came upon this worth that I had never seen before. And I pull out pieces for different tours. I do. So I pulled out this worth. I was like, huh. Took a photo of it. It was really a beautiful worth. And I posted it. And then I had to go to this meeting. So I go into this meeting, and halfway through the meeting, I'm like, my phone is blowing up, and I look at it, and all these people are freaking out online. I was like, oh, God, what is it? What have I done? So I did not realize. I knew this piece was special, but I did not realize that nobody knew we had this or that existed. So we. Worth, Charles Frederick Worth, has this dress. It's called the iron work dress. So the scrolling on it looks like that of an iron gate fence. And there's one at the Met that is black and white, and it's beautiful. It's absolutely fabulous. We just happen to have a pink one.
- [59:32]
April Callahan
Hot pink. Hot pink, yes.
- [59:35]
Jessica Bouchor
Magenta. And I posted this, and so all these. And I tagged Worth, Charles Frederick Worth on it. And all of a sudden, people Started freaking out because no one knew we had it. I didn't know we had it. The last time this photograph was in the early 1980s, and it wasn't online, it wasn't digitized. And so all these scholars, all these fashion people started just. I'd never. I still to this day have never gotten those many hits in my entire life. And I just heard. All of a sudden, I was just like, oh, gosh. And I had. I put the wrong date with it.
- [60:05]
April Callahan
So I had.
- [60:06]
Jessica Bouchor
Yeah, everybody told me, whoops. But it has. It is in very fragile condition, but it is incredible. And I got to show it to.
- [60:15]
April Callahan
Cassidy today and pop trivia. Bertha Russell, final scene of the Gilded Age this past season, comes down the stairs in that green dress. That's a version of this dress in green.
- [60:24]
Jessica Bouchor
Ours looks better in person.
- [60:25]
April Callahan
Yeah. Hi.
- [60:28]
Jessica Bouchor
I'm curious about how you reflect, refresh the collection. If you look back over the last five or ten years, do you say, oh, we must have these items, or is it a matter of items that come to you? Most of the items that come into the collection are offered through donation, so we do purchase some objects. So the costume Council, with some funds, we purchased the off white Chicago Bulls jacket that's currently on view.
- [60:55]
April Callahan
So.
- [60:55]
Jessica Bouchor
So that was a jacket that is an homage to Virgil Abloh, who was an incredible designer who was from Rockford, Illinois, who set up shop here in Chicago. He went on not only to open his own incredible fashion house, off White, but he also was the menswear designer for Louis Vuitton. He passed away very suddenly, I believe, at age 41 from cancer. So this jacket that we purchased, purchased was a combination of Don C. Who's a Chicago designer, the Abalo family, and off white coming together. And they made the Chicago Bulls jacket, which was his favorite team, and it's an homage to them. So pieces like that I can go out and purchase. But my main goal is to figure out what I already have as a collection manager, is to go through and see. I know that nobody's going to offer me any more 1910s dresses. I also know that I have thousands of hats in this collection, and I have hundreds of wedding dresses and hundreds of baptismal gowns, and they're very important, and they're yours that you have are very important to you. I, in this collection, don't need another one at this point. So much of my job is making sure I have. I'm collecting current fashion and having those representations before they go away. But it's also a big part of my job is saying no. Thank you so much. Thank you for offering that. But I have to say no for the because I have to take care of this whole collection. And I know just by taking things more and more stuff in, I'm doing a disservice to everything I already have. So it's a delicate balance. And the mostly you know what you need by knowing what you already have. And so that's the biggest challenge and goal that I have here at the institution. With that, I want to thank you all for coming tonight. I invite you to stay. We have food, we have wine and some other drinks out there. So please come up and say hello to us and thank you so much.
- [63:07]
April Callahan
Yes. Thank you, everyone.
- [63:11]
Jessica Bouchor
We did it.
- [63:16]
Cassidy Zachary
Wine, food. Cass, was this a podcast recording or was this a party?
- [63:21]
April Callahan
We had a great time and you were dearly missed. You were already in Paris, but we had so much fun and I got to meet so many of our listeners, which is always such a treat. Thank you to everyone who came up to me, introduced yourselves, shared your fashion history interests, shared some of your dressed merch that you had, which is always fun to see in the wild. And it's just always such a gift to meet you all in person. And thank you again to the costume council, to Nell, who helped set it all up, to Ben, who did our technical components, and of course, to Jessica. In April, as Jessica and I were preparing for this podcast, she sent me an email saying, I feel like we're back in grad school all of a sudden. And I wrote her back and I was like, hopefully not with all the anxiety. But anyways, we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun going back and forth planning it, and obviously.
- [64:09]
Cassidy Zachary
You got to see the exhibition in person. But I also want to know a little bit more because you were sending me photos, Jessica gave you a tour of the collection itself.
- [64:19]
April Callahan
Yes, she did. And I was sending you pictures because it was such an incredibly special experience and she has such a wonderful job. So imagine dress listeners being in a windowless basement. Okay, maybe not top of your list, but obviously clothing has to be preserved and windowless rooms temperature controlled. But you have treasure after fashion treasure literally at your fingertips, room after room. And every day I was telling Jessica has to be like Christmas because she has this encyclopedic knowledge of this place. And she pulls out boxes and opens them and shows me things. And she pulled a bunch of treasures to show me from this really world class collection. I sent you a picture of the famous Schiaparelli Jean Cocteau coat that's embroidered by Le Sage. It's the woman dress listeners in profile and her hair is flowing down the side. So Jessica pulled that for me to see. She showed me Abraham Lincoln's hat, which was pretty crazy to see in a person. And then of course the PS de la Resistance as I also since she was seeing Poiret's sorbet gown in person, she's so carefully packed in her box to be preserved for future generations. But what an aha and special moment for me to be there. So Jessica, thank you so much. And dress listeners, be sure and follow along on social media this week at the hashtag dressed 557 for behind the scenes footage of this exhibition and the collections. I can't wait to share it with you.
- [65:46]
Cassidy Zachary
And the exhibition is only open for a few more weeks until July 27, but if you cannot make it in person, we highly recommend getting your hands on the exhibition catalog which we will link to in our show notes. It features essays by several past curators in the museum who also happen to be past dress guests including Petra Slinkard.
- [66:04]
April Callahan
And Timothy Long and dress listeners, this is the point in our podcast where I say not goodbye, but au revoir or perhaps habit because I am heading to Paris to meet April for our annual Fashion History tours of the City of Light. Which means we are also heading into our now annual summer hiatus.
- [66:22]
Cassidy Zachary
But worry not, we will have brand new dress content coming your way in August when we share all of the exciting fashion history exhibitions and other behind the scenes experience experiences we have encountered while here. And until next time dress listeners, may you consider what Dressed in History means to you. Next time you get dressed, please head to restpodcast on Instagram or Rest podcast without the underscore on Facebook to check out the visual content associated with each week's episodes.
- [66:52]
April Callahan
And remember, we always love hearing from you, so if you'd like to write to us, you can do so@helloressd history.com dressed history.com is also our website where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, our in person tours and online fashion history courses and you can check out whatever else we have up our finely tailored sleeves.
- [67:10]
Cassidy Zachary
We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations for fashion history books, so if you are interested you can always find a link in our show Notes to our Bookshop Bookshelf. So that address is bookshop.
- [67:26]
Jessica Bouchor
And there.
- [67:26]
Cassidy Zachary
You can find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles.
- [67:31]
April Callahan
And do you love Dressed but want to skip the ads you can now sign up for ad free listening with any tier on our Dressed History Patreon where you can also chat with your fellow fashion history lovers and attend one of our live Q and as and so much more.
- [67:45]
Cassidy Zachary
We are also excited to now be part of the Airwave Network work and their premium ad free history subscription Airwave History plus available on Apple Podcasts. The subscription brings dress and also 27 other popular history podcasts ad free for just $5.99 per month. More information on Patreon and Airwave is available at the link in our bio.
- [68:09]
April Callahan
Thank you as always for tuning in and more dressed coming your way very soon. The History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.
- [68:20]
Jessica Bouchor
This is Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fangirl and we're here to tell you about Jenny's scorching historical romantasy based on Alaric of the Visigoth's Enemy of My Dreams. Amanda Boucher, best selling author of the Kingmaker Chronicle, says this book has everything high stakes, action, grit, flag ferocity and blazing passion. Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world and not just survive, but rule.
- [68:55]
Cassidy Zachary
Enemy of My Dreams is available wherever books are sold.