I’ve been debating for a while on whether to do a separate fashion history post for this, and I think it is time! I created posts on the culture that you can enjoy from home and the history that you can enjoy from home. While the world is a difficult and complicated place right now, I appreciate that many museums and organisations are making things available online. And there are several fashion history exhibitions that are up now, for us to enjoy. So I’ve gathered several online fashion history exhibitions to enjoy in 2020, I hope you enjoy them!
I will do my best to keep this post updated! Organisations have been putting things online and taking them down, as some are not permanently online. If there are set dates for the exhibition/ project to be online, I will try to note those. If one is taken down and I’ve left it on the post, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message.
Online Fashion History Exhibitions in 2020
The Museum at FIT- Online Exhibitions
The Museum at FIT is an incredible fashion history resource. Starting before Covid-19, they had online fashion history exhibitions and different resources up available, including the exhibition itself, symposiums, and recorded talks. They really do understand that their audience might not be able to visit them in New York City, and it is very appreciated. (I understand it isn’t straightforward, but I do hope that more museums take up this model.) They currently have three exhibitions available on their site!
To view these, you will want to go to the Exhibition page. (I have linked this page directly for each exhibition.) Scroll down and click on the first image. Once you have read the text box, you can click on “More Images” to see other pieces in that section of the exhibition.Once you have viewed all of the images for that section, use the left/right arrows to move to the next section.
Power Mode: The Force of Fashion
According to the Museum at FIT,
Power Mode: The Force of Fashion explores the role fashion plays in establishing, reinforcing, and challenging power dynamics within society. It includes both men’s and women’s clothing from the 18th century to the present, organized thematically to concentrate on five categories: military, suits, status, rebellion, and sex. Each section investigates how certain designs and garments have come to be culturally associated with power, as well as how their meanings have evolved over time. The exhibition also examines how fashion designers have interpreted these stylistic archetypes — both to convey and to subvert power.
Eleanor Lambert: Empress of Seventh Avenue
According to the Museum at FIT,
Eleanor Lambert (1903-2003) is widely recognized as the “original” fashion publicist, who revolutionized the American fashion industry. Lambert worked passionately to bring global recognition to New York as an international fashion capital over the span of her 75-year career. Ahead of her time, Lambert promoted fashion designers before public relations was a recognized career. She created a new kind of fashion professional and established industry practices that are still used today. Eleanor Lambert: Empress of Seventh Avenue is the first exhibition to explore Lambert’s tireless advocacy for American fashion designers and the New York fashion industry.
This exhibition was curated by the senior class at FIT, and it is wonderful. I find that these mid-century figures were critical in the development of fashion, but often are forgotten outside of a very niche group of people.
Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse
Few art forms have been as decidedly female as classical ballet. As George Balanchine, the legendary choreographer succinctly stated: “Ballet is woman.” Even those who have little knowledge of this dance form recognize that its supreme practitioner, the ballerina, is a highly trained and accomplished artist who embodies modern ideals of beauty and grace, seamlessly encased in a sleek and enviably toned physique. Her elevated position, however, is a relatively recent phenomenon. For centuries, ballerinas, like other performing artists, were relegated to the margins of society and exploited throughout their careers. After the successful 1909 Parisian debut of the Ballets Russes, however, her circumstances began to improve. That company, founded by impresario Sergei Diaghilev, as well as the eponymous troupe led by a fellow Russian émigré, ballerina Anna Pavlova, reinvigorated classical dance in the West and ignited a widespread and enduring craze for ballet, or “balletomania.”
I have shared my love of the Ballerina exhibition in my review post here, and my review of the exhibition book. I cannot tell you how happy this exhibition makes me, and how well-done it is. If you haven’t already visited the exhibition online, you must!
Via Association of Dress Historians FB
Worthing Theatres and Museum
The Ladies’ Paradise
This exhibition is looking at Edwardian fashion through the lens of the drawings of artist Ida Pritchard. Pritchard worked as a fashion illustrator in London, for the department store Peter Robinson in Oxford Street, and had no further artistic education once she had left school. This online exhibition includes several images of her drawings, garments, and information on Pritchard herself and the Edwardian department store. (Think Selfridges!)
Via Association of Dress Historians FB
Leeds Museums and Galleries
Fast x Slow Fashion
Fast x Slow Fashion explores the relationship between clothes shopping and people in Leeds, from 1720 to the present day. The exhibit shows how clothes shops have changed, but also highlights how people have sought alternative ways to consume fashion.
This exhibition examines ready-to-wear clothing and bespoke garments. Most people today buy ‘fast’ mass produced clothing, which is widely available and not too expensive. In the past most clothes were made for an individual. This is a slower process and a more expensive way of making clothes.
As we face a global climate crisis, some are looking to the past for inspiration on ways to make fashion and shopping for clothes more sustainable.
This is a fascinating exhibition, and very timely in 2020! Not only are we all quickly realising that we need to take a more sustainable approach to our wardrobes, quarantine has also forced a lot of us to re-evaluate our choices. I would really recommend scrolling through the interactive timeline in the exhibition, it has some interesting points (including garment theft!). There are also a few DIY sustainable fashion tutorials included with the exhibition, to get started on making your own. We are all looking for things to do- maybe it is time to make your own scrunchie?
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
Explore more than seventy years of creation with a thematic and chronological itinerary – conceived as a captivating dialogue by the two exhibition curators, Florence Müller and Olivier Gabet. And (re)discover the gracefulness of iconic haute couture designs – the virtuoso scenography recreating their sense of movement and the shows in which they were worn – as well as precious archival photographs, sketches by Monsieur Dior and his successors, previously unseen objects, accessories, paintings, a cabinet of curiosities conceived as a sweeping display of color, and much more. With the beauty of dreams more essential now than ever, fall under the spell of the wealth of enchanting treasures contained in the exhibition ‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’.
If you haven’t seen anything else online for fashion history, you have probably seen this! The Paris staging of the Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition went online in the middle of April 2020, and as of publishing, it has well over 500,000 views. Because it is a filmed look at the exhibition, you can’t choose where or when you focus on things. However, it does give you the benefit of seeing behind-the-scenes conservation and staging work that you would never see with a standard exhibition. Although I was lucky enough to see the V&A’s Dior exhibition, I loved seeing the Paris version- it isn’t the same exhibition copied, and there are some new-to-me pieces that I adored.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk
Captured as the museum was closing its doors for a while, curator Anna Jackson guides you through the exhibition spaces, providing a personal insight into the making of the show, star exhibits and the fascinating history of the kimono. Sometimes perceived as traditional, timeless and unchanging, Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk counters this conception, presenting the garment as a dynamic and constantly evolving icon of fashion.
Although this exhibition was postponed due to the virus, the V&A has made 5 different videos taking you through the exhibition. The videos are 5-8 minutes long, meaning that you don’t have to set a bunch of time aside, or you can watch them here and there. As curator Anna Jackson explains, this exhibition is notable because it focuses on Eastern fashion instead of Western- it is well worth a watch!
Via Association of Dress Historians FB
Museum of London
London’s Fashion Alphabet
Welcome to London’s Fashion Alphabet. Join us for a series of bite-sized videos where we go behind the scenes to explore our huge fashion archive, all the way from A to Z.
These videos are each 3-5 minutes long, and take you into the history of a different garment or item at the Museum of London. With the V&A and so many other textile museums in London, you may not think of the Museum of London for clothing. However, they have a fascinating collection, and it is a unique style of online fashion history exhibition. (Perhaps other museums could adopt a similar practice to stay online?) I’ve been watching one video a day, to enjoy them for as long as I can.
Fashion History Museum
Digital Exhibits
The Fashion History Museum In Cambridge, Ontario (Canada) is a true hidden gem. If you find yourself in Toronto, head to the Fashion History Museum (and the Bata Shoe Museum). And luckily for us, they have several exhibitions up online!
The Museum has twelve different online exhibitions that you can enjoy from home. There are a wide range of focuses, from the House of Dior (1947-1962), Wild and Rare, looking an endangered and exotic animals used in fashion, Ready to Tear, on paper fashion, and many more. They are on the shorter/smaller side, but they will give a great starting point. (And are just fascinating.) Given that they currently aren’t able to re-open, this is useful for both local and distant fashionphiles!
Fashion Museum, Bath
Fashions From the 1970s and 1980s
What were the fashion looks of the 1970s and 1980s? Who were the designers making the fashion headlines and setting the trends? Here at the Fashion Museum we aim to build a collection that charts the twists and turns of the fashion industry, from the 1700s to the present day.
There are always more stories to be discovered and work to be done to build a broader picture of fashion and style during this fascinating time of dress history; but we are sharing here a handful of pieces from some of the names in British fashion in the 1970s and 1980s that feature in the Fashion Museum’s collection of historic and contemporary dress.
This is a gallery rather than strictly an exhibition, but I loved going through it just the same. I’ve shared my love of the Fashion Museum in Bath– it is truly one of the most incredible museums that I have visited. It is a smaller museum, but they have a collection of over 100,000 items, and have never-ending discoveries. These highlights from the 1970s and 1980s are quite interesting to see, and while the museum is closed until 2021, it is a fantastic peak into the collection!
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If I find more online fashion history exhibitions, I will add them to this post! And if you know of any I have missed, please feel free to let me know so that I can add them.
Cheers,
The Historian
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This is a great roundup, thank you. I didn’t realise how many fashion exhibitions were online, I’ll definitely have a look. I visited the fashion museum in Bath years ago, absolutely loved it! Thanks again.