"Imagine a time...when color and texture played no part in fabrics, when, as Jack Lenor Larsen put it 'the insipid pale tints of the depression prevailed.' It would take a pioneering spirit to experiment with new materials and daring color
Ann Wilson
Special Collections Technician, Textile & Costume Collection, Thomas Jefferson University
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A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes is on view at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. I had the thrill of seeing it recently, along with Jade Papa, our curator. Like many textile enthusiasts, I'd been anticipating
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When I'm not working at the Design Center, I sometimes help out at the Gutman Library circulation desk. A major perk of that job is being able to browse the world-class fashion and textile book collection. About a year ago, while checking in
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Usually, my main focus when photographing our objects is documentation. But recently, I gave some our hats the glamour treatment. This came about because I needed a subject for my final project for a Studio Photography class I recently completed
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As we close out another year, we'd like to share some holiday nostalgia from our collection of handkerchiefs. These hankies were donated by Pamela Moses, who, along with her daughter Mary Beth Handler, collected hundreds of handkerchiefs over
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Before computer-aided design, the work of the textile print designer was all done by hand. Designs intended for repeating patterns were hand-sketched and painted. This age of pre-digital textile design is documented in the Point Papers
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Part of what makes cataloging our pieces so interesting is learning about designers who may not have big name recognition, but nevertheless made significant and often underrated contributions to textile and fashion design. One such designer who
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This summer, I tackled a project that quickly turned into an obsession. The task was to inventory our collection of American Fabrics magazines, consisting of 116 issues that date from 1947 to 1986. It’s an incredible collection of primary
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We've been deep into the process of photographing our Womenswear since August of last year. We decided to start with our objects from the 1980s and work our way backward through the 70s, 60s, and so on. These fashions are a bit easier to fit
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In December, legendary textile designer and innovator Jack Lenor Larsen passed away at the age of 93 at his home in East Hampton, NY. It would be difficult to overstate his contributions to textile design, particularly to the mid-20th century