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Weathervane Newsletter Fall 2002
Silk: A Class Act on Main Street
Historic Northampton opened a major exhibit featuring selections from its extensive costume and textile collection, this fall. Silk: A Class Act on Main Street, Democracy & Dress in America, 1700-1900, was curated by prize-winning costume authority, Nancy Rexford. The exhibit was a main feature of the annual meeting of the Textile Society of America, hosted by Smith College in September.
The conference, with its theme Silk Roads, Other Roads, brought hundreds of textile and fashion professionals to Northampton. Previous conferences, held biennially, have been held in major cities, including Santa Fe, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
The "Main Street" referred to in the exhibit title is a direct reference to TSA's conference theme, "Silk Roads and Other Roads." After all, Main Street, USA, is one of the roads to which the silk road led. "Class Act" refers to the way in which silk tends to function as a class indicator. Silks fill up a far larger proportion of museum costume storage than they ever did in real life. As luxury fabrics associated with weddings and other special occasions, they were saved for their sentimental value, while the "jeans" of life were worn out, used up, and thrown out. Thus many of the garments preserved in museums like Historic Northampton are the ghosts of aspirations past - the solid material testimony of our forebears' attempts to lift themselves up the social ladder by their bootstraps -- and even more, by their silk ribbons, pretty bonnets, and satin waistcoats. The exhibition fills two exhibit galleries at Historic Northampton: The larger of the two areas is organized historically and includes costumed mannequins and supporting objects dating from 1700 to 1900. These were chosen to show how silk clothing embodied the American belief than everyone was as good as anyone else, making silk literally "a class act on Main Street." The smaller room is organized analytically as a textile study room where visitors can take a close look at silk and learn how the various aesthetic qualities of silk are created.
The exhibition itself will provide educators with an important tool to teach social history and the role of decorative arts in defining culture. Nancy Rexford is a costume historian and author of Women's Shoes in America, 1795-1930 (Kent State University Press, 2001). The exhibit will run through February 2, 2003. Major funding for this exhibit has been provided by The Gazebo.
Contents Historic Northampton.