On Winning Awards

When this post goes live, I will be at Holt Renfrew about to deliver my speech at the Ryerson University School of Fashion Awards Night. I am not winning an award, but I am the guest speaker, which is typically chosen from the pool of alumni. I assumed it was my job to say some inspirational words, so I decided to share a bit of my own story.

I am not intending to read my remarks, so it might not come out exactly like this. I pre-cleared my speech with the Awards Committee and one of them suggested that maybe I should read it so I wouldn't "miss a syllable". Let's just hope that this is one of those times that my words sound golden.

Ingrid Mida with the Lanvin gown
Photo courtesy of the National Post

Here goes:

I already had a graduate degree when I signed up to do the Master of Arts degree at Ryerson.  But this is the degree I had to work the hardest for. For my MA in Fashion, I juggled the needs of my husband and two teenage boys, the responsibility for my elderly frail mother, work and many other commitments. I also had to deal with my insecurities and doubts about going back to school as a mature student. If truth be told, I almost dropped out at the end of first term, not because I couldn’t handle it, but because I wasn’t sure that it would make any difference in the end. With the encouragement of Dr. Kimberly Wahl, I stuck with it and earned a cumulative GPA of 4.220.  

Perhaps the best part of my story began on February 12, 2012 when Dr. Alison Matthews David opened an unmarked door for me on the seventh floor of the library. Behind that door was a dusty room, packed with boxes, bins, cupboards, and racks of clothing, accessories and fashion ephemera. While most of the other students were reviled by what they saw -- the dust, the mess and the smell -- I saw opportunity. I stepped forward and took on a project that was far bigger, messier, and more difficult than I ever imagined. 

This was not the first time I’d taken on a challenging project, and I’ll admit there have been more bumps in the road than I like to remember. I did not do it for thanks, for an award or for press. What drove me forward was the knowledge that most students do not have the curatorial connections that I do, or the financial means to go anywhere else to do object-based research. Behind that door in the library, there were gowns by Balenciaga, Balmain, Dior, Nina Ricci, Valentino and other designers. There were also Canadian success stories like Ruth Dukas, Claire Haddad, Alfred Sung, Marilyn Brooks and Canadian labels like Holt Renfrew, Eaton's Simpson's, and Morgan's. All of these items had been neglected and forgotten for several years. 

I think I’ve helped ensure that it will be forgotten no more. And, I’m pleased to say that the collection is now safely stored in renovated facilities in Kerr Hall West. The images that you see on the posters behind me are examples of some of my favourite pieces in the collection and I would like to acknowledge that these lovely photographs were taken by Jazmin Welch with the help of Kate O’Reilly. 

There are many more beautiful garments that were not photographed - including a stunning ruby red silk velvet jacket by Christian Dior that just today I matched to a photograph in Harper's Bazaar from September 1949.  - and I want to invite you to come and visit the Fashion Research Centre if you would like to see more. Or if you don’t have time to come in, check out the collection blog and Pinterest sites. Or follow me on twitter. My aim is to be the antithesis of the cranky curator – to make the Fashion Research Centre a welcoming and friendly place where there is no such thing as a stupid question. 

I would like to close by congratulating all of you for your achievements and awards. You should savour this moment and be proud of yourself. Celebrate and enjoy tonight.  I hope you will continue to follow your dreams and live your passions. Make your mark. 

Engaging Students with Objects

Black silk parasol with cream cordwork embroidery, c.1900-1910.
FRC 1989.02.001

The weather looks lovely in New Orleans for this coming week. I'll be flying down south on Tuesday afternoon to speak at the ITAA Conference on the topic of Engaging Students with Objects: Preliminary Experiments in Reviving a Dormant Fashion Research Collection.

Thanks to the support of Dr. Lu Ann Lafrenz,  a grant from the Learning & Teaching Office at Ryerson University, and the work of two very talented students - Jazmin Welch and Kate O'Reilly - (who worked together to photograph 160 garments, accessories and other artifacts that I selected for this project), I have lots of beautiful images to chose from to illustrate my talk.

Here is the abstract:

Balenciaga Evening Gown, c.1957-1962
FRC1992.01.019 A

Seeing a dress in a photo is a very different experience than feeling the weight of the fabric in hand, examining the details of cut, construction and embellishment, considering the relationship of the garment to the body or searching for evidence of how the garment was worn, used or altered over time. Study collections offer students the opportunity to engage with actual objects, offering physical specimens for design inspiration and material culture studies. Susan Pearce conveyed the narrative power of artifacts when she wrote: “Objects hang before the eyes of the imagination, continuously representing ourselves to ourselves and telling the stories of our lives in ways which would be impossible otherwise”(1992).

The April Fashion Calendar

Alexandra Kim: A Royal Presentation

April is a busy month for art and fashion related events. Here are selected highlights on the calendar!

April 3, 2013: Meet the Artists: Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Internationally renowned artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller share insights into their work and collaborative practice at 7 pm at the AGO.

April 5, 2013: Behind the Scenes at the Costume Institute. A talk by Chris Paulocik at the Royal Ontario Museum from 4-6 pm, presented by Friends of Textiles & Costumes.

April 10, 2013: Fashion Crimes. A panel discussion at the ROM on what it means to be Canadian in the fashion industry. BIG Business, BIG Pressure, BIG Names and BIG Hype.

Curator's Tour of Shine. Textile Museum of Canada. 630 pm. An exhibition tour that highlights the TMC collection as well as the work of contemporary artists Carmelo Arnoldin (Toronto), Ghost of a Dream (New York), Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky (San Francisco/Toronto).

April 11, 2013:  Mass Exodus at Ryerson University School of Fashion.

April 13, 2013:   A Royal Presentation: Curating the dress collection at Kensington Palace. A talk by Alexandra Kim at the Textile Museum of Canada at 130 pm, presented by the Costume Society of Ontario.

April 17-18, 2013: The Launch of Europeana Fashion - online digital platform - in Florence.

April 19, 2013: The Opening of Musée du costume et du textile du Québec (MCTQ) in Montreal.

April 29, 2013: Lectures related to the Exhibition Fashion, Impressionism and Modernity at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, 3-5 pm, including a talk by Valerie Steele on the corset.

Notice of copyright: 
All text and images on this blog are the copyright of Ingrid Mida, unless otherwise noted. The copying of posts, images and/or text without proper attribution is violation of copyright and legal action will be pursued.

Every Body Counts

Caryn Franklin
Photo courtesy of Ryerson University

"Every body counts" was the message that Caryn Franklin imparted to an audience of fashion students, faculty, media and invited guests at the first annual Diversity Now! lecture at Ryerson University on October 20, 2012. As a former fashion editor, Caryn had many years of experience as a fashion insider, and wanted to foster a movement that challenged and redesigned the beauty ideal to be more inclusive, where "every body counts". In 2009, Caryn Franklin, along with supermodel Erin O’Connor and communications specialist Debra Bourne, founded All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, a campaign to promote diversity in the size, shape, ethnicity and age range of models on the catwalk and in fashion imagery.

In her first lecture in Canada, Caryn encouraged fashion students to think about the unattainable standards of beauty seen in mainstream fashion imagery that perpetuate the standard of the tall, thin, young and white ideal. She noted that fashion imagery has "begun to normalize something that is not normal" in promoting and perpetuating "image of unachievable beauty", and quoted statistics about body image and self esteem to show the level of "unease and destabilization that the fashion industry creates." She said "we have all internalized a body dysmorphia" and asked "isn't it time to make changes?"

February is Fashion History Month

Costume history is a subject that I find utterly enchanting and the shelves in my office groan with stacks and stacks of books on the topic. Normally I have to travel to distant places to get my fashion history fix, but this month there are a number of local exhibitions celebrating the history of fashion. 

12.12.12 Life in Three Centuries at the Fashion History Museum
Photo courtesy of the Fashion History Museum 2012

'12.12.12: Life in Three Centuries' looks at the intersection of fashion and life in 1812, 1912, and 2012 and is presented by Jonathan Walford, Kenn Norman, and members of the board of the Fashion History Museum at the newly restored Guelph Civic Museum (52 Norfolk Street) in Guelph. The exhibition is currently open 1 - 5 p.m. daily and will close March 4, 2012. For more information, please call the Fashion History Museum at 519 267-2091.

Making Fashion at the Textile Museum in Toronto
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2012

In the Making History exhibition at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto, Ryerson University Fashion students present recreations of historical garments and accessories. Dr.Alison Matthews David, who teaches Costume History at The School of Fashion at Ryerson University, developed this project as a hands-on research assignment for her students to foster respect for and understanding of the skills of the largely anonymous makers of historical dress and textiles. She said that "As a dress historian, I hope that as future fashion and costume designers, Ryerson students will take these traditional techniques, from smocking and hand-beading to painting on silk and shoemaking, and bring them to life again on stage and catwalk." The opening reception for this exhibition is on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 from 7-8 pm at the Textile Museum (55 Centre Avenue). By the way, I helped install this exhibition. In handling these objects, I could tell that these garments and accessories were made with a lot of love! 

Roaring Twenties at the Bata Shoe Museum
Photo courtesy of the Bata Shoe Museum and under copyright

And of course, if you haven't yet seen the exhibition Roaring Twenties: Heels, Hemlines and High Spirits at the Bata Shoe Museum, it continues until June 2012. Wouldn't this pair be perfect for Valentine's Day?

Convergence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Fashion

Ruth Dukas Paper Dress (Photo from the Toronto Telegram November 16, 1967)

Remember this post back in February where I wrote about a display of paper dresses at the Costume and Textile Gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum? It just goes to show you that you never know where a blog post might lead....

Not long after I wrote about that paper dress (pictured in the photo above), I received an email from the designer's son asking for a copy of the photo for his mom. Well long story short, I ended up doing an oral history interview with the designer, Ruth Dukas, for the ROM archives. As it turns out, Ruth only made one paper dress in her career, but was in fact renowned for the exquisite embroidery and beading of her evening gowns and cocktail dresses.

During the course of my research into Ruth's career as a designer during the 1960s, I fell in love with research and 1960s fashion, plus ended up back in grad school for a second masters degree.... On Saturday, I will be speaking at Ryerson University about the career of Ruth Dukas and the issues related to oral history projects.