← Dressed: The History of Fashion
Dressed: The History of Fashion
Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities, Part II, an interview with Dr. Colleen Hill
00:39:26
Loading summary
Transcript94 lines
- [00:01]
Sponsor Announcer
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
- [00:31]
Lowe's Announcer
Don't miss your chance to spring into deals at Lowe's right now. Get a free 60 volt Toro battery when you purchase a select 60 volt Toro electric mower. Plus buy three 19.3 ounce vegetable and herb Bonnie plants for just $10. It's time to give your yard a grow up Lowe's we help you save valid to 423. Selection varies by location while supplies last. Discount taken at time of purchase. Actual plant size and selection varies by location. Excludes Alaska and Hawaii Dress the History.
- [01:01]
Cassie Zachary
Of Fashion is a production of dress media. With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.
- [01:15]
April Callahan
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.
- [01:23]
Cassie Zachary
Hosts Cassie Zachary and April Callahan, Dress listeners. We hope that your curiosity was piqued earlier this week by part one of our conversation with Dr. Colleen Hill, Senior Curator at the Museum at FIT, who joined us earlier this week to speak about her current exhibition, Fashioning a Cabinet of Curiosities, which is currently on view at the Museum at FIT in New York City through April 20, 2025.
- [01:51]
April Callahan
Yes, so if you have not tuned into part one as of yet, we recommend you do so as April and Colleen speak about the fascinating of Cabinets of Curiosity or Wunderkammer, which were private personal collections of rare and unusual objects from around the world. And these were popular from really the early 16th century into the mid 18th century. And cabinets of Curiosities could contain examples of just about anything under the sun, from biological and botanical specimens so preserved or living, to musical instruments, trompe l'oeil objects meant to trick or fool the eye, and even items of fashion and.
- [02:28]
Cassie Zachary
Dress, using the Cabinet of Curiosities as a lens to evoke the wonder evoking power of fashion. Dr. Hill's exhibition contains more than 200 objects, and in part one of this episode we cracked open the proverbial cabinet, so to speak, to learn more about the Supremely special pieces in the show, many of which are artisanal masterpieces. And it's here where we pick back up on our discussion about craftsmanship.
- [02:53]
April Callahan
Colleen, welcome back for part two.
- [02:56]
Cassie Zachary
Well, another really super smart inclusion in your show pertaining to craftsmanship is that it's not just these expertly crafted garments. You also show some tools of the trade in terms of, like, how some of these things are made. Would you tell us about these?
- [03:13]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Sure. I was lucky enough for this exhibition to have a few loans from the New York Historical, and they have a really great online collection. And I spent a little bit of time looking to see what kinds of objects, particularly for the what is it? Section that they might have that would fill in some gaps. A chatelaine, for example, these really beautiful, usually gold or silver pieces that would house all sorts of things. Little scissors and keys and thimbles. And they are another kind of obsolete object these days.
- [03:47]
Cassie Zachary
We've done an entire episode on chatelaines, guys, just so you know, you can return to that and learn more. Cassidy is massively obsessed with chatelaines.
- [03:55]
Dr. Colleen Hill
They are beautiful. So she's gonna have to take a good look at this gorgeous New York Historical piece. And so anyway, as I was doing that, I also found this object that, again, piqued my curiosity. It is called a knitting sheath. And I don't think you've had an episode on those because they're very niche. But I bet we'll have a few really great knitters who will know what I'm talking about. I'm not a great knitter, so I apologize if I don't explain this, but they were essentially these sheaths made from wood that would be tucked into apron strings, usually on the right side of the body. And you could then insert a knitting needle into the top of them. And meant to not quite allow knitting to be one handed, but to speak, speed up the process. So they were meant to be. And you can find videos. I. I definitely spent some time like, how were these used? And people still do use them or know how to use them, but I was really fascinated by this. So this knitting sheath from the New York Historical was. Is also very beautiful. It's a single piece of wood that is carved quite elaborately to create these kind of miniature colonnaded structures, which also this idea of these tiny carved things are very much part of that virtuosity that I talked about in the cabinets. And eventually that was initially in my what is it? Section. And eventually I started to think about more fashion tools. So, for example, I Love the wire dress forms from the late 19th century. The museum collection has a number of those. And so I started to think about shifting these ideas into a particular section on tools, which was a collecting category within the cabinets, these beautiful utilitarian objects. So there's a few examples in the show.
- [05:56]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah. Also too, you just pulled me straight through into the next question. Thank you very much. Our regular listeners will know that Cassidy is also obsessed with miniature objects. And you have a whole other section of the show devoted to this. So we have to talk about this. Do you have a couple of favorites that you might want to share with us? And in the context of what was their original purpose or how were they used?
- [06:20]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Sure. I too love miniatures and dolls and I am very fortunate to have a wonderful team at the museum who we all know each other's interests very well. And so somewhat recently, a small but really great collection of miniature clothes came up for sale at auction. And one of those pieces, the most spectacular of this grouping was a miniature woman's suit made from red wool from about 1890 or so. And it's just absolutely beautifully constructed. It's pretty, probably about 18 inches tall total. So a little larger than what you might think, but very elaborately constructed. And its shape is really fantastical, but also very kind of sinuous and beautiful. It could have been on a doll, on a fashion doll, or it could have been on some kind of form. Our conservators made a really beautiful form for it. So you can really get a sense of its shape. And it really was a salesperson sample that was. But I also included, for example, a tiny bag that is made by a miniaturist named Philip Naveen. And I absolutely love his work, which is often inspired by high fashion and high fashion accessories in particular. And I say inspired by. Because this is a bag that references the Chanel 255. It is not meant to be a copy. There's no copyright infringement there. It's just inspired by. And I think what's actually really important about stating that is that he distills this famous bag into this tiny replica and you can still tell exactly what it is. And it's got the quilting, it's got the chain handle. So it really speaks to some of the hallmarks of these well known designs and how even at a tiny scale they're recognizable. And it's also great because this is strictly this tiny bag, which will be next to a full size version, is really meant to be in miniature. It has no function other than to Enjoy it. And I think that's really important too.
- [08:40]
Cassie Zachary
It'd be charming.
- [08:41]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Yes, it is very charming.
- [08:44]
Cassie Zachary
I also want to ask you about the miniature foundation garment that's included. And it's more. Gosh, it's more. It's not really a corset, per se. Right. It's more of a. What are we going to call it?
- [08:58]
Dr. Colleen Hill
It's. I think it's bordering on girdle. But yes, it's in between. It's early 20th century in between moment. And yes, that was also a salesperson sample. And what's so interesting about that is it is very charming. It's maybe 5 inches high, but its fastenings are giant. So it's not really to scale.
- [09:21]
Cassie Zachary
Scale gone wrong? Yeah.
- [09:23]
Dr. Colleen Hill
As something like the miniature dress that I mentioned or the suit that I mentioned earlier, all of its little buttons and fastenings are very much to scale. So it's interesting to see how that goes wrong. But we still understand what this object is and really what it would have.
- [09:38]
Cassie Zachary
Looked like in scale and how it would have been worn on the body. It's very readable and understandable.
- [09:44]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Definitely. And again, conservation made a really beautiful little form for that. So you can really get a sense of it.
- [09:54]
Ann
I was never really a runner. The way I see running is a gift, especially when you have stage four cancer. I'm Ann. I'm running the Boston Marathon. Presented by bank of America. I run for Dana Farber Cancer Institute to give people like me a chance to throw thrive in life, even with cancer.
- [10:13]
Sponsor Announcer
Join bank of America and helping Anne's cause. Give if you can, @b of a.com supportan what would you like the power to do? References to charitable organizations is not endorsement by bank of America Corporation. Copyright 2025 Race the Rudders.
- [10:27]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Raise the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger, wait.
- [10:34]
Lowe's Announcer
Is that an Enterprise Sales Solution?
- [10:36]
LinkedIn Announcer
Solution Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started today at LinkedIn.com results. Terms and conditions apply.
- [10:58]
Cassie Zachary
Speaking of the body, I learned a new term by way of your exhibition, and that is anatomical theater. Could you define this for our listeners? And how did it play out in the Curiosity collections and then by extension, your show?
- [11:14]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Sure. The anatomical theater was typically part of these larger collections. So as we mentioned, often the most prestigious collections could be a series of rooms. And that meant that sometimes those rooms were quite specialized in what they showed so anatomical specimens of varying sorts, everything from skeletons to preserved limbs. I know this is a little gruesome, but scientifically important at the time, all of these things might be displayed in a specialized room that was known as the anatomical theater. And as we progress in time, usually into the 18th century, sometimes those collections expanded to include these sort of demonstrations of surgical procedures or medical procedures. And that's when we really get the idea of the theater. And, of course, universities start to incorporate these into their modes of learning as well. So some of you may be familiar with films that you've seen where young doctors are in these theaters and looking down and learning about medicine through these sorts of live procedures. So it's very much a sort of early version of that thought process of these surgical years. Yeah.
- [12:40]
Cassie Zachary
And I have to say, if anybody is like, super into this topic and you don't know about the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, put that on your list to visit, because it is an entire museum devoted to medical history. And certain aspects of those displays are extremely. Cabinet of curiosities within the museum itself. It's a fascinating place to visit.
- [13:03]
Dr. Colleen Hill
It is. And that's absolutely one of the places that when I would mention to someone what I was studying, they would ask about that museum. And also the Pitt Rivers in Oxford.
- [13:14]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah. And I'm sure some people brought up the Museum of Jurassic Technology in la, which is really this utterly unique experience. The New York Times once described it as a museum about museums. And they go on to say the persistent question when you're there is, what kind of place is this? It really is part art project, art history museum. And the museum, some of the displays, the information is historically accurate in terms of what they're talking about, but then a whole other good portion of it is entirely fiction, made up to look like it's history. And so it's basically forcing you to question the truth. And again, this hierarchy of who gets to decide what is valid and isn't valid within museum collections, the entire museum feels like a sleight of hand, essentially. Exactly.
- [14:09]
Dr. Colleen Hill
It's so clever and just fascinating. That alone is piquing everyone's curiosity.
- [14:15]
Cassie Zachary
And there's a wonderful book called Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder that's about the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I don't think they're open to the public anymore. Every single day. I think you have to. I think it's a by appointment only now or something like that. So maybe.
- [14:28]
Dr. Colleen Hill
But the book itself is fascinating and I think gives a great idea of what its intention is.
- [14:34]
Cassie Zachary
So Illusion is a huge theme within the Museum of Jurassic Technology, also in the Wunderkammers. How does this play out in your exhibition?
- [14:44]
Dr. Colleen Hill
This was a really fun one for me to think about because I don't think it's such an obvious connection to anyone who hasn't studied these cabinets at greater length. But one of the ways to inspire curiosity within the cabinets was to astound visitors with these illusionary techniques. And that could be done in a lot of ways. If anyone is familiar with perspective boxes where you know it, if you look at something straight on, it's this kind of painted box, and it looks crazy. And a cat is absolutely enormous in scale versus the rest of the room. And then you look through a particular lens, and suddenly everything is in perspective. Anamorphosis paintings were also part of the cabinet. So you look at the painting in one direction, and it's one image, and then you look at it in another direction, and it's a completely different image. There were Trump loy paintings. So one of my favorite findings from my research was that one collector, if he felt frustrated by not being able to find what it was he wanted, would just have a very realistic painting made of that object.
- [15:50]
Cassie Zachary
Like, I know he's. I know what's missing in my collection. Just so you know that I know.
- [15:55]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Exactly.
- [15:56]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah.
- [15:56]
Dr. Colleen Hill
I guess would actually try to fool people. Who knows who is actually. But, yeah, I just thought that was really fascinating because even today, in working on any exhibition, you're always missing something and trying to figure out how to represent that object or kind of work around it. And so that was really fun. And there was also something that I found early in my research. I mentioned going to Uppsala and viewing the objects from this really important early and mostly intact freestanding cabinet. And as I was going through the list of objects, there was something called illusion gloves. And I was like, what are illusion gloves? And it literally took me three years before I finally found an actual description of them, which is so obvious. But it was essentially a pair of gloves that were stitched so that you entice a visitor to try them on, and then they couldn't actually get. So I thought.
- [16:55]
Cassie Zachary
Which is a rather charming but cheap trick.
- [16:58]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Yeah. And that's it. They're cheap tricks, which is funny. It also underscores that these were meant to be spaces of learning and awe, but they were also meant to be entertainment. And I think we're still in this space in museums where we want to do all of these things for our visitors.
- [17:16]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah.
- [17:17]
Dr. Colleen Hill
So as I started thinking about the idea of illusion. Of course, there's a lot of examples of fashion that have trompe l'oeil motifs. And so that was a really fun way for me to start thinking about a new group of objects. And I considered trompe l'oeil in everything from the way something is printed to the way something actually hangs on the body. So there's a really amazing Byron Lars kind of jumpsuit or romper that looks like it's actually pinned to the body using laundry pins rather than like, actually physically on the body. But it's doing both, which is really interesting. And, of course, embellishment can be part of the trompe l'oeil technique. But also there was a really beautiful evening gown by Ralph Rucci. And while I was working on the exhibition, it happened to be hanging at the end of one of the bays in our collection storage and kind of facing out. And I looked at it and thought, is that some. What is that image? And so I backed up and backed up, and as I got about five feet away from it, I realized that it was an oversized print of a woman's face in profile. And close to it, you can't tell. It just looks really abstracted. And the farther back you get, the more that image comes into view. So I've included that in the exhibition as well, and it will be far enough away that people can play with that perspective.
- [18:53]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, I saw something fascinating just a couple days ago on Instagram, actually. Do you know this practice of illusion knitting?
- [19:00]
Dr. Colleen Hill
No. Please tell me about it.
- [19:02]
Cassie Zachary
So basically, it's a knitting technique where, you know, might be just like a scarf or a sweater and looks completely normal. But then when you change its perspective, all of a sudden an image will come into view.
- [19:13]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Oh, oh. So it's like the anamorphosis painting.
- [19:15]
Cassie Zachary
Exactly, but it's in knitting. And so I, like, bookmarked that immediately. And I was like, I gotta look into this a little bit further, but I tumbled down the rabbit hole with the hashtag illusion knitting. But I'm sure we'll do something on the show at some point. I need to do some more research and find out if this is, like, a super contemporary practice. People are still doing it, but I also want to know more about the history of this as well, so expect that in the future, listeners. Okay. So I also really love this bit in your exhibition text that you talk about mirrors and how, quote, mirrors Symbolize luxury in 17th century Europe. Aristocrats wore small examples on belts, while mirrored rings and necklaces are. Were given as wedding gifts. And also mirror work thrived in India during the same time. And I was familiar with this concept of mirrors or reflective surfaces being intended to thwart the evil eye. I actually have a Moroccan wedding blanket that has those metallic sequins all over it that serve that purpose. But you have a whole section of the show called Reflections and Refractions. Do you want to tell us about some of the pieces you selected to explore this theme?
- [20:28]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Sure. Clearly, optics, whether it was illusions or through things like lenses and mirrors and microscopes, were very much a part of these cabinets collections. And so mirrored objects were a pretty clear cut example of that. We have Indian mirror work from Lanisha Arora. We have a really great dress by CD Green that was designed for Tina Turner. And it's a silver mini dress that then has circular mirrors embroidered on it. So it was really meant to reflect the lights of the stage, which.
- [21:03]
Cassie Zachary
And she was tiny. If you guys have ever seen some of her clothes, I've seen some of her alaias in person and I'm like, oh, my gosh, she was a tiny human.
- [21:12]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Yes.
- [21:12]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah.
- [21:13]
Dr. Colleen Hill
And just look absolutely stunning in this dress. And I also included that in part because oftentimes, as I was thinking through what to include, there were really obvious examples. Again, we're talking about reflections and refractions using something that's mirrored as a very evident choice. But also, within the original cabinets, the idea of collecting clothing that was worn by notable people was important and obvious. Tina Turner is a very notable person. So to me, there's always these kind of multiple connections to the way I'm thinking about drawing my fashion examples back to the cabinets. But also I wanted to get a little bit into other types of motifs. Kaleidoscopes themselves were not invented yet. They were, I believe, an early 19th century invention. But regardless, there were all sorts of ways that people were thinking. Camerupts, mascaras, for example. Ways that people were thinking about the reflections and refractions of light that created interesting techniques. And so I have some mirror image prints from Jean Paul Gaultier. One of my very favorite pieces in the whole show is a 1960s Qipao that is made from op art printed fabric, which is fun.
- [22:33]
Cassie Zachary
Oh, cool.
- [22:34]
Dr. Colleen Hill
So within all of these selections, which are meant already to give this idea of sensory overload, which again, goes back to the psychology of curiosity, my colleagues have created this cabinet that is entirely mirrored. So you'll be seeing these objects reflected in this sort of infinity way, which is really interesting.
- [22:58]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, I bet everyone's going to touch It. I will tell you why I say this. Some of our listeners may remember that before I became a fashion historian, I was a contemporary art gallerist for almost a decade. And we would always joke in the gallery, and it didn't matter which gallery I was working at the time. We always had this joke about, quote, unquote, shiny objects, because most people know that you're not supposed to walk into a museum or a gallery and touch the art, but that entirely would fly out the window. Anytime we had anything in an exhibition that was sparkly, the wall would walk up and immediately touch it. Which is, of course, bad form in museums and galleries. Not necessarily, though, in Historic Cabinets of Curiosities. Right. And you incorporate this idea of the haptic and the sensorial in your show as well?
- [23:50]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Yes, yes, absolutely. One of the things that was actually a really important part of the Cabinets of Curiosities.
- [23:57]
April Callahan
Experience.
- [23:58]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Experience was being able to engage directly with objects. And again, these collections were typically, with few exceptions, not open to the public. So you knew visitors were. And they would be in very small groups, if not individual. So this was a very different time in the way that we were interacting with things. But visitors would be encouraged to pick things up, to shake them, to smell them, to really get a sense of what they were. And of course, we don't do that in museums today. And I wanted to bring in as much of that as I could in an ethical way. One of the theories that museologists have is that any kind of haptic or touch experience is helpful. So I've created these sort of themed accessories. There's sea life, there's gold, there's insects and animals. And people are encouraged to open drawers that have these themed accessories within them very carefully nuzzled into these conservation safe spaces. And I also asked a graduate student, her name is Catherine Shark. So thank you, Katherine. An fit graduate student in the MA Fashion and Textile Studies program and former Special Collections intern.
- [25:13]
Cassie Zachary
Formerly my intern. Hi, Catherine. Yes, yes.
- [25:17]
Dr. Colleen Hill
And she created a muslin replica of a moly new dress that we have in the museum collection. The dress itself will be on display behind plexi because we do not touch the dress, but the replica will be open and available for people to engage with. And it has, I believe, eight pockets around the waist and hips that are actually functioning. So Catherine has recreated these pockets so you can play with the dress a little bit. But frankly, a poor part of the reason I've included this is because this show is on view for two months and this muslin replica is going to get Dirty. And you will see the destruction of this piece. And that really underscores why we don't allow this kind of engagement. And then finally, I have selected a few objects in the exhibition that were intended to make noise. And of course, as we display objects, they are in collections or in exhibitions, they're mute. And we've actually worked with our conservation team and some great folks at FIT to record these objects. And then we have a sound cone so you can actually look at them and hear what they sounded like.
- [26:36]
Cassie Zachary
Something interesting too is we've really been speaking about these cabinets of curiosities for from the vantage point of the fashion accessory objects that were in them. Right. How that pertains to your exhibition. But also I have to. I also want to bring it back and maybe like flip that lens a bit because it goes without saying that museum collections have been a major source of inspiration for fashion designers. So we're looking at it the other way. And early on in the exhibition, you make a point to point out that Lee McQueen's library had books on cabinets of curiosities in them and that also he played with these ideas himself. Would you tell us about the two McQueen pieces that are in the exhibition that speaks to his interest in both collections of various types and also museums themselves?
- [27:30]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Sure. One of the things that I found early in my research was a scarf that is from the McQueen brand that the motif is known as the Cameos and Curiosities scarf. And it's really large, it's about 5 by 5ft, silk screen printed scarf. And it has these really beautiful motifs that also really speak to the McQueen aesthetics. A lot of insects, lover's eyes, jewelry, cameos, of course, but often those cameos, rather than having what we might expect, have a skull hours. And so there's this really intricate repeat pattern that really speaks to this kind of collection of or accumulation of objects. And so I've included that in the introductory gallery as one of actually very few examples of these sorts of overt references to the cabinets oftentimes made my own associations. And with other McQueen pieces, there's another example in that intro gallery where I have a paired McQueen dress that is chiffon printed to look like a colorful macaw's feathers. And it looks almost exactly like a. An example of an actual live bird that was collected by Emperor Rudolph ii, who actually makes two appearances in the exhibition the Major Collector. And then I also ended up including an object from McQueen from his last collection before his death that references the Hieronymus Bosch painting the Garden of Earthly Delights. And the other reference to Rudolph II is a Comme des Garcons dress that has a portrait portrait of Rudolph that was made by Giuseppe Archimboldo, but it's one of his composite portraits. So it's Rudolph as plant life essentially, and vegetable fun. But as I was looking at this McQueen jacket and thinking about Hieronymus Bosch, it made a lot of sense in the Kunstkammer and this idea of an art gallery. But I thought there has to be something with Bosch and curiosity. It predates the cabinets a little bit. But as I researched his work, I found that it was popular in its day and people considered his work to be very curious, even though it was also well known and enjoyed. But the really interesting connection is that there's these kind of two theories about where this painting came from or why it was made. And one was that it was commissioned by Count Engelbert II of Nassau in the 15th century for his son Hendrik III. And it so it's either commissioned or it may have been purchased later by Hendrik III for his Cabinet of Curiosity.
- [30:39]
Cassie Zachary
That's a very fun disc.
- [30:44]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [31:06]
Cassie Zachary
Payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra C4 terms@mintmobile.com Hey everyone, it's Dan.
- [31:16]
Dan Souza
Souza from America's Test Kitchen. I'm super excited to let you all know that we're launching a new video podcast that takes you behind the scenes into the messy, imperfect but riveting day to day life right here in our test kitchen. Not only do I get to talk to my colleagues about the latest taste.
- [31:30]
Ann
Test they attended, I just came from a tasting of salted caramel apple pie bars and then roasted garlic. So I apologize.
- [31:37]
Dan Souza
Or about a recipe. Be there developing.
- [31:39]
Cassie Zachary
The thing about this recipe is it's a secret.
- [31:42]
April Callahan
The restaurateur refuses to tell people what.
- [31:44]
Cassie Zachary
Her secret ingredients are.
- [31:45]
Dan Souza
We also chat with amazing guests from the culinary world and beyond. The lamest joke I've ever said. I said to Marie Bamberg.
- [31:52]
Ann
Great.
- [31:52]
Cassie Zachary
It's the definitely joke.
- [31:54]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Thank.
- [31:54]
Dan Souza
Thanks. Make sure to subscribe to in the test Kitchen so you don't miss an episode. You can watch in the Test Kitchen on YouTube and Spotify and listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Can't wait to see you in the Test Kitchen.
- [32:10]
Cassie Zachary
This will be my last question. I'm curious if you have any other favorite discoveries in the course of working, not just on the exhibition, but your PhD dissertation as well, that really sparked your curiosity like a fact, an object, an idea, even the object that has.
- [32:28]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Long inspired my curiosity that I was finally able to use is a table of. It's a table. The only table we have in the museum at FIT Collection, which is all fashion that was embellished by Bill Cunningham or a woman named Isabel Eberstadt. And the table is very likely an 18th century table that Cunningham has fully covered in this really elaborate, beautiful pattern of pheasant feathers. And the story behind it is that Isabel Eberstadt was an author and a socialite who had absolutely incredible style. And when I first started at the museum a number of years ago, I actually received a call from her husband, Frederick, who said, my wife just passed away. I have some pieces from her wardrobe. Would you be interested? And he proceeded to list the most amazing designers and oh yes, we would love.
- [33:26]
Cassie Zachary
I'll be right over.
- [33:27]
Dr. Colleen Hill
First season courage. That kind of wow fashion. And she just looked spectacular and also had a pretty daring fashion sense. So we acquired a number of pieces from Isabel Eberstadt's wardrobe. And in the meantime, my colleagues noticed this beautiful table in Frederick Eberstadt's home. And a number of years later, he contacted us again and stayed asked if we were interested in the table. And of course, there was some debate about it because it's not the kind of thing we typically collect. But we did acquire it. I am obsessed with it. And it is now finally going on view, I think about 10 or 11 years after its acquisition in the Aviary. So I hope people will enjoy it as much as I do.
- [34:17]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah. And just a little context here. Bill Cunningham was of course, best known as like a street style photographer for the New York Times for decades. His work is incredible. But also he began his career as a milliner, so he was. He had a design background as well. And finding a Bill Cunningham object or hat is like a one in a million chance. And everyone is like thrilled and to have them and find them for their collections. So a rarity indeed.
- [34:46]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Yes. Yeah. And he did love feathers, so we do have some of his hats. And he also did things like wood cover, framed mirrors and feathers. He really had a feather thing. So feather fetish. It was the early 60s and for anyone who's looking for his hats, his hat label is actually called William J. So if you come across any of those, they are indeed rare and valuable.
- [35:12]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, yes. Colleen, thank you so much for this beguiling exhibition. Everyone has to see it. When is it up until it is?
- [35:20]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Up until April 20th at the museum at FIT.
- [35:24]
Cassie Zachary
All right, thank you so much for joining us once again on Dressed.
- [35:28]
Dr. Colleen Hill
Thank you.
- [35:28]
Cassie Zachary
Thanks for having me, Colleen, thank you.
- [35:31]
April Callahan
So much for joining us all this week to satisfy all of our curiosity about your incredible exhibition, which is now on view through April 20, 2025 at the Museum at FIT in New York City.
- [35:42]
Cassie Zachary
Well, I think that does it for us today. Dress listeners, may you consider the history of wonder in your wardrobe next time you get dressed.
- [35:50]
April Callahan
Dress history.com is where you will find information about everything else we have up our sleeves, including our in person tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which April conducts twice a week. And then I have an upcoming fashion history class, what Women Wore to the Revolution, which I did teach in 2024. I guess I taught it last year, I'm teaching it again. So if you want to learn about the evolution and revolution of women's fashion from the 1850s to the 1920s, join me in May. You can also write to us. We always love hearing from you@hello dressed tish.com and of course DM us on Instagram at Dressed Underscore Podcast, which is where we post images to accompany our episodes. If you like to search for Instagram content connected to this week's episode, you can search the hashtag dressed532 and dressed533.
- [36:38]
Cassie Zachary
Love dress but want to skip the ads. We are so excited to now be part of Airwave History plus a premium history subscription on Apple Podcasts featuring 27 popular history podcasts including ours without the ads for just $5.99 a month. More information is available at the link in our bio and more Dressed coming your way soon. Dressed the History of Fashion is a part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. You can listen and subscribe to other podcasts and their vast catalog@airwavemedia.com the history of fashion is a production of Dressed Media.