A “closet” to envy

Clothing collections can provide valuable visual and hands-on experiences for students studying fashion merchandising, and TCU’s nearly 2,500 costumes and accessories dating back to the 1850s provide insight into decades of fashion for women, men and children. From textiles and construction techniques to sizes and styles, variations in fashion mirror changes in technology, lifestyle, economics and politics.

The collection, established in the early 1980s, has been assembled from numerous and ongoing gifts from faculty members and individuals. The collection is divided into two sections: the study collection, which is a hands-on collection for use in the classroom, and the permanent collection, which is used exclusively for research due to its rare and more fragile items.

“While we certainly collect and preserve cultural heritage through our collection, our primary goal is to support teaching and research,” said Stephanie Bailey, instructor for fashion merchandising and curator of the collection. “We use these items to tell a story from one point in time to the next and explain the reason styles return to fashion.

“Through our collection, students learn to identify construction techniques and gain inspiration for design and historical reference.”

The most unusual items in the collection include a coat made of monkey fur, a sequin and fur jacket from the 1970s, and costumes worn by Bill Camfield, aka Icky Twerp, on the television show Slam Bang Theater. Bailey’s favorite piece, however, is an intricately pleated and tucked dress from the 1950s.

Each garment and accessory is hung or boxed using hangers and padding specially designed to protect that item. Bailey and her students recently inventoried the collection to document specific care and maintenance needs for each piece, and to outline procedures for handling the items, such as washing hands, wearing gloves, securing long hair and using pencils instead of pens. With the new Fine Arts building, Bailey will have both a climate-controlled environment for the collection and an interior display window to highlight items.

TCU textile collections

Photo by Amy Peterson

As the collection grows, she hopes to create an online reference database and collections management class to expand the collection’s use to history, anthropology and other departments for use in their curricula.