Tailor Made

Museums, like garments, are fashioned for a purpose. Museums have a seamless public appearance, with everything from the exhibition cases to the seating neatly pinned and tucked in place. This is by design. Yet, when turned inside-out, a fuller narrative is revealed. There may be traces where a seam came undone, a sleeve adjusted, or a hemline let down. Patterns differ; the process of becoming is the same. Usually a dedicated person and a few like-minded individuals share a vision and then patiently sew the pieces together.

This is how Baton Rouge’s LSU Textile & Costume Museum came be. One of the few university museums of its kind in the region, the collection is global in scope and contains more than 12,000 items demonstrating the history of textile and costume design. A few months ago, the Museum moved into a first-floor space within LSU’s Human Ecology Building at Tower and South Campus drives. With a larger, renovated gallery and street level access, the Museum and its rotating displays have been ready to welcome the public since March, when unfortunately, their grand opening was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. I was happy to be given the opportunity recently to join Pamela Rabalais-Vinci, the Museum’s director and driving force behind the Friends of LSU’s Textile & Costume Museum, on a private tour of the collection’s latest home, whose new opening date this fall is still pending. 

Immediately upon entering the foyer, I was struck by the sheer grace of a sleek black cocktail dress, its long sleeves encrusted from cuff to elbow with handsewn crystals and colorful beads. Rabalais-Vinci informed me that it is a 1966 creation by James Galanos, a California fashion designer known for his elegant craftsmanship and use of luxurious materials. Galanos enjoyed an elite clientele that included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Nancy Reagan. “This [particular] dress,” Rabalais-Vinci said, “is special to the collection.” The dress is one of many designer fashions donated by the late May Baynard, a Baton Rouge patron well-known for her stylish attire. Baynard was instrumental not only in organizing the Museum’s support group but she also sponsored their first fundraising gala in 1995. The dress later was rendered by Steven Stipleman, a former illustrator for Women’s Wear Daily. Rabalais-Vinci stated, “The dress, along with the rendering, inspired the Museum’s branding.” An image of the drawing has been used as the Museum’s logo since 1995.

In the Museum’s gallery, more treasures awaited. Entering the intimate exhibition room, I viewed selections representative of different aspects of the Museum’s diverse holdings, ranging from Byzantine-era textile fragments and a 19th-century Turkish wedding robe to an Antebellum bodice. Designer fashions by the likes of Yves St. Laurent and Valentino also were on display. Rabalais-Vinci pointed out a 1971 beige wool suit from Chanel’s final collection. The jacket’s gold-tone buttons were fastened, with the signature chain-link weight at the lower interior edge. 

Representations of our shared local, state, and regional history form another important aspect of the collection. “We have something from every gubernatorial tenure beginning with Governor Edwin Edwards in the 1970s,” said Rabalais-Vinci. Supriya Jindal donated both of her lovely inaugural gowns; and I, personally, got a kick out of Governor and Mrs. “Mike” Foster’s matching His and Hers leather motorcycle-riding outfits. Hers was on display. Among the many items donated by local and Louisiana celebrities, I ogled over C.C. Lockwood’s circa 1990s Teva sandals worn while photographing Louisiana wetlands, “Buckskin” Bill Black’s fringed shirt, and a  sequin-covered blue Hollywood-style dress worn in the 1970s by Donna Douglas, best known as Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, any LSU collection worth its salt includes plenty of Tigers memorabilia. During my visit, for example, I observed George Roddy Hatcher’s 1923 LSU letter sweater for football, basketball, and track and the 1936 LSU boxing robe presented to Larry Landry.

When asked how the collection got started, Rabalais-Vinci told me the first items were acquired in the 1930s. Most came from faculty who traveled over the summer and then brought the items back for use when teaching Home Economics courses. Established in 1915, LSU’s Department of Home Economics originally offered a curriculum that included studies in clothing,  cooking, sanitation, household decoration, and home management—expanding in 1920 to include millinery, canning, gardening, and even dairying. “Can you imagine being required to learn how to milk a cow today?” joked Rabalais-Vinci. “All women students at LSU, except those in the Law School, were required to take one year of Home Economics in those early years.” 

Throughout the twentieth century, when American women were barred from so many of the opportunities of their male cohorts, Home Economics was a critical pathway into higher education. According to an online exhibition, From Domesticity to Modernity: What Was Home Economics?, put forth by Cornell University, which housed one of the earliest such programs: “New scholarship in American women’s history suggests that Home Economics was a progressive field that brought science to the farm home and women into higher education and leadership positions in public education, academia, government, and industry.” According to LSU records, so many women were enrolled by the 1950s that the University constructed a new Home Economics building in 1960. The name was changed to the School of Human Ecology in 1989, with an updated curriculum of more concentrated specializations including: textiles, apparel design, and merchandising. Although a doctoral program was added in 1992, subsequent academic restructuring over time led to the School of Human Ecology being removed completely by 2015. 

A graduate in Home Economics herself, Rabalais-Vinci arrived back at LSU to pursue graduate studies just as the Department’s collection was beginning to gain attention. The first formal letter requesting acquisitions was sent out in 1980 by Dr. Rinn Cloud. Rabalais-Vinci, who arrived three years later, was assigned to document what had become the Department’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection holdings. She recalled that in those days, everything fit in a closet, and laughed saying, “From that closet on the shelf, I’ll never forget pulling out items labeled ‘Queen Victoria’s toweling’ and ‘Mussolini’s jute’!” Rabalais-Vinci and Professor Jenna Tedrick Kuttruff received a grant in 1992 from the Louisiana’s Board of Regents to renovate a classroom into a small exhibition space and collection storage area, and thus the Historic Collection became the Textile & Costume Museum. That same year, Rabalais-Vinci founded The Friends of the LSU Textile & Costume Museum with the goal of someday having a a very large and accessible exhibition gallery.

Today, the Museum is an important educational resource, allowing students and researchers the opportunity to study authentic garments of the past for both inspiration or duplication. Casey Stannard, Professor of Apparel Design, joined us during my visit. Her mantra for students is: “Fashion is always evolutionary, not revolutionary.” Stannard explained that students are often surprised to discover that their proposed design concepts are not new. She stated: “It’s been done before… It’s a learning opportunity to show [for instance] how couture is really built. It looks like a confection made of air but really it has steel bones underneath.” Students use the collection to study the composition and construction of historic textiles and garments, and then apply what they have learned. In addition to a sewing lab, they have a Digital Design Technology Hub, complete with textile printers and a state-of-the-art 3D, 4D Size Stream body scanner capable of taking upwards of one hundred measurements in less than six seconds to create a computer-generated avatar. When used in the motion capture mode, a 4D avatar is formed, permitting the study of incremental changes that occur in the body and apparel during movement. 

Stannard showed me a recent project in which she took a digital photograph of the embroidered design—couching— on a 1920s coat, manipulated the image, and then printed the design onto cotton sateen. The resultant print was then sewn to form ruffles adorning a dress she had designed. Rabalais-Vinci compared Stannard’s contemporary creation, made using high-tech equipment, with a sacque— infant garment—handsewn by a Home Economics student in the 1930s, pointing out how education, indeed daily life, has changed. 

Yet, LSU’s Department of Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising still maintains the spirit of creativity and mission of empowerment begun during its years as part of a Home Economics program. Textile and apparel are one of the most significant sectors of the manufacturing industry and rank among the top markets in the world by export value. According to Fashion United, the global apparel market is valued at $3 trillion, employing 58 million people and accounting for 2% of the world’s gross domestic product. Degree students in apparel design and merchandising learn to conceptualize and realize products while gaining entrepreneurial skills in business strategy, consumer behavior, and management. Also offered are degrees in textile science, which involves studying the development of new fibers and their use in society. Among the Department’s best-known grads are Project Runway All Stars winner Anthony Ryan Auld and New Orleans bridal designer Suzanne Perron. As Rabalais-Vinci proudly stated, “We are training industry leaders.” Now located within the former Human Ecology Building, the LSU Textile & Costume Museum has come full-circle, tailor-made to support not only academia and students, but also all who seek to expand their knowledge on the history of textiles and apparel—or to simply enjoy fancy stitches. 

LSU’s Textile & Costume Museum will officially open in their new space this Fall with Traje: Maya Textile Artistry. This celebration of their recent acquisition of over 195 pieces of handcrafted ancient and modern Maya textiles and garments will be accompanied by a juried student show of wearable art inspired by Mayan culture. textilemuseum.lsu.edu

Elizabeth Chubbuck Weinstein is an independent curator, writer, and creative consultant based in Baton Rouge.