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. 

On this and that...

Dress Collection of the Lousiana State Museum
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2013

I don't usually ramble, but have not written on this blog in over two weeks. It feels like no time and a lifetime all in one. People often ask me how I get so much done, and yet I often wonder where does the time go?

If you missed it, there was an article written by Nathalie Atkinson of the National Post about my work in editing the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection called "Lanvin in the Library". My elderly mother, who was once a librarian, loved the title, and finally understood what it is that I do - to her, I'm like a librarian for old clothes! I've also had lots of questions about whether I ever try on clothes in the collection, and that is something that is strictly forbidden by International Committee of Museums Practice Guidelines. Doing so would be considered highly unethical. I cannot say that I haven't been tempted to do so - who can resist a Dior after all - but I must resist and I do. I've never, ever done so and shudder with horror and yell out "THAT IS NOT ALLOWED" when someone looks like they are going to....

I couldn't be more pleased with the coverage for the Collection. A very generous and kind donor (who prefers to remain anonymous) offered to cover the cost of the cataloguing software for the collection. This the first step in helping to ensure its longevity. Funding at the university is very, very tight, and since all fundraising efforts must be co-ordinated by the Development Office, technically I am not even allowed to ask for money.... But, I believe so very passionately in what I do and just love to help students, and hope and pray that a generous donor will step forward to help ensure this collection lives on.

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).

Memories of a Dress

From London to Chicago.... it feels like a whirlwind. This weekend, I will be attending the Costume Society of America Mid-west conference in order to present my project: Memories of a Dress. 

Peach and cream silk evening gown c.1910-1915
Ryerson Fashion Research Collection
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2012

Here is the abstract for my talk:

Clothing is material memory, carrying the imprints of our body, absorbing sweat and stains, and straining with the stress of wear, especially at seams, hems and closure points. Although museums and study collections generally seek to collect items in near-perfect condition, there are stories hidden in the marks and stains of living. In a poetic essay, Peter Stallybrass describes how the clothes of his late colleague Allon White triggered sensory memories. “He was there in the wrinkles of the elbows, wrinkles that in the technical jargon of sewing are called ‘memory’; he was there in the stains at the very bottom of the jacket; he was there in the smell of the armpits” .

The Ryerson University Fashion Research Collection is a repository of several thousand garments and accessories acquired by donation, with the oldest garments dating back to 1860. For several years, this collection was dormant and largely unknown by the student body, and in editing the collection I examined each and every item within the storage facility. It was during the process of handling of each piece that I was haunted by the traces of the makers in the hand-stitching and the turns of the hem, and by the traces of the owners in the faint sweat stains under the arms and the worn patches at the elbows. There is such poignancy in these pieces, because they are still beautiful, but not to a pristine, museum-like standard. Some of these garments are in an advanced stage of decomposition, literally crumbling into dust due to the presence of weighted silk, and embody a duality of beauty and decay, life and death, emptiness and nostalgia, memory and transience. These fragments, which mirror the fragmentary nature of the records, became the source of my curatorial obsession.

In this project called Memories of a Dress, I created a series of photographs focusing on the rare historic garments in the Collection, and manipulated those images to suggest narratives that evoke the concepts of memory, fragility and transience. Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida defined photography as an artistic medium that was intimately linked with death as “a witness of something that is no more”, and this project fixes the process of decomposition in time, marking a moment that has already passed as the items continue on their trajectory into dust. 

Introducing the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection Blog

CN Tower Jumpsuit, c.1970s
Ryerson Fashion Research Collection
FRC2013.99.003

As you may know, I am the Acting Curator/Collection Co-ordinator for the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection and recently started a Collection blog. This new blog at www.ryerson-fashion-research-collection.com is part of the effort to create a digital portal into the Collection and was supported by a grant from the Learning and Teaching Office at Ryerson University. I invite you to visit the blog and subscribe by email if you wish to receive the posts that way. I'll be rolling out the 100 key artifacts over the course of the year. Here are some of my favourite dresses, although truth be told there are many more....

Back to School, Back to Blogging

Sleeveless dress with Matching Cropped Jacket
Bill Blass for Maurice Rentner, c.1963,
FRC1986.01.01 A+B

I think this dress and jacket ensemble by Bill Blass for Maurice Rentner would be the perfect outfit for me and back to school. The colour is vibrant and the jacket could come off for those warm fall days still to come. Unfortunately, it can never be worn again as a museum artifact, but I love the timeless elegance of early 1960s looks and it makes me smile on what is a dark and rainy day in Toronto.

The scent of fall is in the air. The days are shorter and the nights cooler. I am starting to yearn for the cozy comfort of my cashmere sweaters and wraps.... It must be time to get back to school, back to work.

My summer was busy, with nary a moment of rest or relaxation. I did manage to steal away from work for a few sunny afternoons reading fiction in my backyard, but otherwise I spent many days in the windowless rooms of the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection. Not only did I move the entire collection from the seventh floor of the library, but, among other things, I also supervised two students who photographed about 100 key artifacts in the collection.

It felt like I had no time to write on this blog, especially since I am editor of the Costume Journal, have a bi-weekly column for Worn Through and also have been writing exhibition reviews for Modeconnect, and am supposed to be working on the Fashion Research Collection Blog. Admittedly, I still have some hesitation about writing on this platform after that distressing discovery last fall that much of my content had been copied elsewhere. And yet, it seems that I should be making this blog my priority -- even though many, if not most, of my colleagues in academia dismiss personal blogs as folly. 

The June Fashion Calendar

I cannot recall another time when there have been so many fashion related events in Toronto, which means that, for once, I don't have to get on a plane to get my fashion fix. Here are a list of upcoming fashion related events in Toronto for June 2013.

VIKTOR&ROLF Dolls

June 9 - 30: VIKTOR&ROLF DOLLS at the ROM as part of the Luminato Festival
In this presentation at the Royal Ontario Museum, about 25 hand-crafted porcelain dolls styled to replicate runway looks are dressed in scaled-down versions of Viktor&Rolf couture designs. Initially presented in 2008 at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, England in 2008, these dolls have been set on a specially crafted miniature runway in the ROM's Thorsell Spirit House.  The exhibition is free and open during regular Museum hours. I saw this exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in 2008 and wrote a post at that time and have written about the dolls as part of a creative process journal project. For these reasons, I am really looking forward to having another look at these uncanny incarnations.

June 9: Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture, An Illustrated Talk by Senior Curator Elizabeth Semmelhack at the Bata Shoe Museum 
Curator Elizabeth Semmelhack will discuss the history of the sneaker and the rise of sneaker culture in becoming the footwear of choice for many. My review of the exhibition was published on Modeconnect and my behind-the-scenes visit and interview with Elizabeth Semmelhack is presented on Worn Through.

June 21 at 330 pm: Decentralizing the Museum: The Ryerson Fashion Research Collection 
The Discursive Spaces Conference at the Art Gallery of Ontario (June 20-23) considers the "integration of art, design, and architecture in the creation of memorable and immersive museum experiences, while balancing the public’s expectations of self-directed expression and engagement".  In my joint presentation with architect Guela Solow, we will talk about our shared vision for the remodelling of the space to house the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection. In this conceptual plan,  the barriers of the museum have been disintegrated by integrating the collection within the university environment. Advance tickets are required for this conference and day passes are now available.

Creative Process Journal: Project Summary

Creative Process Journal Diary Page by Ingrid Mida 2012

When I began this project, I undertook to explore:
1. How to portray the fragmentary nature of the historic garments of the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection through photographs?
2. Given the nature of clothing as material memory, how do I honour/remember the women who once wore these garments?

The constraints I set for myself were to only use garments and photographs found within the Ryerson collection and only photograph items on-site and in a manner that respected their fragile state.

Creative Process Journal: The Precession of Simulacra

All is Vanity
Photo by Ingrid Mida 2010

The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true. 
                               Ecclesiastes

This quote by Ecclesiastes headlines the erudite essay "The Precession of Simulacra" by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). Although Baudrillard often gives me a headache, I always feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment when I've muddled through his densely written essays. This particular analysis of simulacra has a direct link to the creative work I am doing in creating photographic images based on the garments and found photos in the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection.


In Baudrillard's writings on simulacra and simulation, he explores the relationship between reality, symbols, and contemporary society. Simulacra refers to a representation of something that creates a hyper-reality, becoming more real than the actual object itself.

On becoming the Editor of the Costume Journal

Cover of Costume Journal Volume 42, Number 1

The Costume Journal is a bi-annual publication by the Costume Society of Ontario that features articles, exhibition and book reviews, resource lists (books, catalogues, tours), and other fashion and costume news. This journal is mailed out to members of the Costume Society of Ontario and is also collected by libraries and museums around the world.

Creative Process Journal and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Photo of Walter Benjamin in 1939 by Gisela Freund

"Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be," wrote Walter Benjamin in 1936 in an essay called "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". This essay is one of many philosophical essays written by Benjamin before his death by suicide in 1940.

The idea of the aura of the original is something that makes an artwork unique and adds value. There is a mystical quality associated with an original work of art, which can be understood by considering the  difference between seeing an artwork in person as compared to viewing it in a book or on the web.

Benjamin traces the history of the mechanical reproduction of art with founding and stamping by the Greeks, engraving and etching in the Middle Ages, and lithography in the 19th century. It was the ease with which reproduction could happen using  photography and film in the 20th century which underpinned Benjamin's analysis of how these media would shift the concept of authenticity.

Creative Process Journal: On Photography and Memory

Cabinet Card
Ryerson Fashion Research Collection

One of the most tangible links between clothing and memory exists in the portrait photograph, especially the carte des visite and the cabinet card. Popular in Victorian times, these cards were albumen prints made from glass negatives, attached to stiff card backing usually printed with the photographer’s name. In this medium, we can revisit the past to see the clothing that ordinary people wore in the latter half of the 19th century.

Sustainability is Sexy: Design Intelligence;Fashion

Design Intelligence; Fashion New York City, September 18-19, 2012

Fashion acts as a mirror of society, which is what art used to be.  It seems that fashion has supplanted art in reflecting cultural values, but has largely lacked critical reflection on its practices.  At the Design Intelligence; Fashion event which took place this week in New York, questions of how intelligent design could impact the issue of sustainability were considered. In the first day of the two-day event, the 100 “influential players” in fashion were divided into small groups of five to six people to talk through some of the issues.   The second day featured a range of speakers including Joel Towers, Hazel Clark, Gundrun Sjoden, Otto von Busch, Sarah Scaturro, and Rebecca Earley. This post summarizes my thoughts after the event.

At my table, the question posed to the group was: Emotions make us buy, whilst feelings make us keep. How do we create fashion that has a chance not only to connect emotionally, and create attachment, but also to retain it?

Creative Process Journal: Fashion Images and McQueen Backstage by Anne Deniau

New York Times Style Section Page 8, Sunday, September 9, 2012
Photo by Anne Deniau

A red and white strapless evening gown by Alexander McQueen hangs on a clothes rack. The dress is reminiscent of a Dior's New Look with a skirt is so enormous that the dress takes up half the space on the rack. The dress is ready for the runway, waiting for the model who will wear this glamourous confection and fill it with life. A small head shot is visible on a runway log. Until then, the dress hangs like a disembodied form - the deep red of the bodice and skirt front reminiscent of blood. The high contrast of the lighting creates patterns of light and dark across the image, with the huge shadows from the dress filling more than a third of the frame.

Creative Process Journal: Reflecting On the Nature of Photography

In the absence of a specific exhibition venue, the creative component of this project will take the form of photographs, which in the end might be presented as a book or in a gallery exhibition. This constraint, seemingly limiting, serves a  purpose since it will momentarily stop the clock on the inevitable decay and death of the object. 

From the moment they are born as garments, textiles begin the inevitable creep towards decay and death, ultimately turning to dust. Dust, dirt and skin plus moisture from sweat, spills and stains, serve to hasten that process of decay. Add insects or rodents into the mix and an entire collection can be imperilled. Archival storage and gentle handling with gloves or clean hands can help preserve a garment, but it doesn't entirely halt the process. Some of the most exquisite garments from 1880-1920 were made with weighted silks and the metallic salts within the fabric hasten the decay, with the result that the garment can literally crumble on touch, becoming a health hazard. 
The photos I create will in effect stop time, marking a moment in the garment's biography as time and the processes of decay marching forward. 

In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes wrote about the emotional aspect of photography linking it to the transformation of “subject into object and even, one might say, into a museum object” (13), as well as to death and loss (92-97). Barthes defined photography as an artistic medium that was intimately linked with death as “a witness of something that is no more” (xi). Barthes also wrote that: "It is because each photograph always contains this imperious sign of my future death that each one, however attached it seems to be to the excited world of the living, challenges each of us, one by one, outside of any generality (but not outside of any transcendence) (97). 

The key to transforming these photos into something more than just a documentation of the collection will be to define a point of connection, a defining element in the threads of memory, in the traces of the wearer in the folds. 

References:

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Tran. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 1980. Print. 

Creative Process Journal: Links

When I discovered this beautiful ultramarine blue bodice in an unmarked bin in the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection on Friday afternoon, I wanted to clap my hands with glee. The brilliance of the colour captivated me. Although it shows signs of stress and the inevitable decay, the colour has not faded at all. In fact, it looks almost as brilliant as this JCrew Schoolboy blazer that I purchased a few weeks ago for my back to school wardrobe. How uncanny is that?

Creative Process Journal: Curation and Obsessions

From a curatorial perspective, finding a narrative from among the hundreds of dresses in the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection that come from different donors and span over a century of fashion history is a challenge. 

Garments represent important artifacts of material culture, giving evidence of the fashions and social history of a period. Museologist Susan Pearce describes the way objects can reflect our identity: "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" (qtd. in de la Haye 12). 

Creative Process Journal: Weekly Reflection

This past week, I've been documenting some of my reading on curatorial process, teasing out the fragments of how curators come up with exhibition ideas. It might not seem like creative work, but it is part of my practice-led research project called Memories of a Dress. Using the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection, I am exploring the idea that a garment has a object biography and a memory of its former owner.

Practice-led research focuses on the "the nature of practice and leads to new knowledge that has operational significance for that practice." From what I can tell, there seems to be a gap in knowledge about the process of how fashion curation takes place. The articles in scholarly journals only offer hints at how curators come up with their ideas and unless I've missed something altogether, this process seems to be largely private. In undertaking this work here, I am making my process transparent  and thereby adding to the advancement of knowledge about curatorial practice.

Creative Process Journal: Curation and Judith Clark continued

Judith Clark's curatorial work is so rich and so vibrant that I want to read anything I can find about her process. Although the article One Object: Multiple Interpretations (co-written with Amy de la Haye) is about a mass produced women's coat/uniform worn by the British Women's Land Army during WWII, there are fragments of her general curatorial philosophy when she writes:  It is fitting singular objects into historical continuums and possible future stories that endlessly capture my imagination. Quite simply what stands next to what and where does it stand within an infinitely renewable curatorial grammer? (159).

Clark also points out that late Diana Vreeland "very astutely identified" that the exhibition viewer had to identify with the object in some way and make a connection between "finding something desirable and finding something interesting" (159). She goes on to ask: "is curating about the clarity of connections, and if so, how are these made visual or literal? How can objects be presented as a way into different stories?" (160).

Creative Process Journal: Curation and Maria Luisa Frisa

The Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language 1994 edition gives the following definition for curator:

1. the person in charge of a museum, art collection, etc.
2. a manager; overseer; superintendent.
3. a guardian of a minor, lunatic, or other incompetent, especially with regard to his property (354)."

When I first read this definition, my eyes focussed on the "lunatic",  and skipped over the words "guardian of...". I laughed, because there are times when I feel like I must be a lunatic or at least crazy to have taken on the massive project/job of editing the Ryerson Fashion Resource Collection, while also completing my graduate studies.

I am the "person in charge" of the collection, but this does not convey the essence of what curation means from a contemporary perspective. Nor does it convey the specific challenges of curating fashion.

To explore what it means to curate a fashion exhibition, I turned to a Fashion Theory article written in 2008 by curator Maria Luisa Frisa (who I met briefly in Milan at Fashion Tales 2012). In The Curator's Risk, Maria Luisa Frisa explores the idea that "fashion curating is the exercise of a critical gaze, which recognizes the multiple traces, symptoms and fragments that are around us" and identifies risks "as implicit to the working method of the curator" (171). The article is written in a reflective tone, and Frisa considers curation in general to be about "design, layout, imagining, and constructing" (172). She suggests that fashion curation allows one to "offer new points of observation" while cautioning that  it is necessary to understand "your own insights and being willing enough to take a gamble on them" (172).