Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme

September 15, 2017 – January 6, 2018

Norma Kamali On Creating the “Sleeping Bag” Coat

In an intimate conversation at The Museum at FIT’s annual fashion symposium, Fashion, Science, and Exploration, Norma Kamali shares with MFIT’s Deputy Director Patricia Mears the story behind creating the infamous “sleeping bag” coat and what has continued to motivate her through the years.

Watch her tell the story of the “sleeping bag” coat at the 18:38 mark!

Norma Kamali, an FIT graduate, started her eponymous clothing line in 1967. Among her most celebrated creations is the “sleeping bag coat.” Designed in the 1970s, it remains one of the fashion’s best appropriations of extreme environmental wear and is featured in Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme runs through January 6, 2018 at The Museum at FIT in NYC.

Fur, Funk, Fame and Fear

Professor Jonathan FaiersJonathan Faiers is Professor of Fashion Thinking at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. U.K. Originally studying fashion design at Central St. Martins, Jonathan worked as a theatre designer and a retail consultant for the Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as exhibiting his video work internationally before embarking on his career as a writer and academic, focussing on the interface between fashion and popular culture. Jonathan’s publications include Tartan, Dressing Dangerously: Dysfunctional Fashion in Film, and essays for Alexander McQueen and London Couture 1923-75. He contributed the essay “Fur: The Final Frontier” to the book, Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

Why write about fur and why now?
These are questions I have had to ponder since working on my latest book provisionally titled Fur: A Controversial History (Yale 2020).

A simple answer would be that there is no book in print that tells the complex history of our relationship with fur, a history I was honoured to consider for the book accompanying the remarkable show Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

In spite of increasing pressure from anti-fur lobbies (last month’s London Fashion Week attracted unprecedented organised protests), a considerable number of designers are using fur in their collections. Opposing arguments put forward by the fur industry argue that fur is a natural sustainable material offering a real alternative to fast fashion, while some fake fur’s non-degradability and environmentally polluting manufacturing processes have added yet another side to the argument.

Whatever one’s position on wearing fur, its controversial nature has meant that reasoned discussion of its historical, economic, and cultural importance is rare, and it is this lack of serious research that really attracted me to the subject.

For example, it is impossible to research the history, economic development, and socio-cultural transformation of North America and Canada without addressing at least some aspects of the fur industry, and while the Hudson’s Bay Company’s history is well known, we might also consider John Jacob Astor’s millions made from fur, or how significant movie moguls such as Adolph Zukor (the founder of Paramount) invested furry fortunes in order to establish the emerging film industry.

One of the many aspects of fur that I have become especially interested in is its power to transform the wearer, whether that be psychologically, sexually or economically and how these transformations have been imagined in popular culture.

In the track ‘Wrapped In Black Mink’, from the 1978 album Giant by funk supremo Johnny Guitar Watson, the only lyrics, apart from Watson scatting and uttering ‘Come here guitar’, is the phrase ‘Wrapped in black mink’ – whispered some 29 times! This funk masterpiece, which was included in the impeccable vinyl set spun by DJ Dellores @vinylbunnies at the glamorous Expedition opening night party, distills in one simple phrase fur’s sensuous, sartorial power.

Johnny Guitar Watson surrounded by fur-clad fans for the cover of his 1977 album A Real Mother for Ya.

Johnny Guitar Watson surrounded by fur-clad fans for the cover of his 1977 album A Real Mother for Ya.

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Conservation of Expedition Objects

Bio picAnn Coppinger is The Museum at FIT’s Senior Conservator. In the following blog post, she took some time to explain her critical role at the museum and to detail a couple of particularly challenging objects that we were able to include in Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

I am a graduate of both of FIT’s Fashion Design and Patternmaking programs. At the beginning of my career, I worked in New York City’s fashion apparel industry, specializing in women’s dresses and sportswear; more specifically I was involved with the manufacture of moderate priced garments. I have especially enjoyed creating patterns and toiles for fashionable garments and the challenge of crafting and manufacturing clothing. After twenty-plus years in the fashion industry, and confronted with a domestic industry on the decline, I discovered FIT’s Graduate Study program for Historic Textiles and Costumes. It seemed to be the perfect marriage of my carefully honed hand skills and super inquisitive mind. That is how I began my career as a textile conservator. I worked at a regional conservation center before coming to The Museum at FIT. For the last ten years, I’ve been managing the conservation department, where I have the opportunity to work on some of the most wonderful and fascinating textile and costume objects.

A conservator is essentially a trained professional who is charged with caring for and protecting material culture objects. The individual usually possesses an interesting mix of creative skills accompanied by scientific knowledge and practical ability, an ostensibly impossible combination of the analytical and the creative.

The practice of conservation can be thought of as an astute investigation into and documentation of objects that are representative of their time and place. Materials and methods of manufacture are recorded, researched, and evaluated in order to determine the best possible stabilization and preservation approach for each individual object. Conservators will always advocate for an artifact’s long-term preservation, to ensure that future generations may enjoy the opportunity to view and interpret it.

At The Museum at FIT, we mount innovative exhibitions that are dependent on very close collaboration among the conservation, curatorial, and exhibition design, and development teams. We form a small, experienced, multidisciplinary group where teamwork is vital. The conservation department is responsible for the stabilization and safe display of all the objects that will be in the exhibition.

There are many inherent challenges associated with conserving and displaying historic textiles and dress. A critical factor in displaying a costume and textile collection is crafting a safe and appropriate presentation of these objects. The creation of the proper silhouette for each garment serves to enhance the viewer’s experience and understanding of the artifact. The condition of each object should always inform display options within the desired design parameters. However, object treatments sometimes don’t work out as planned, and modifications have to be made. Here are some issues we were confronted with while working on Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

Madame Grès' après ski ensemble, pictured here in Vogue, is on display in Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme . Vogue , September 15, 1969.

Madame Grès’ après ski ensemble, pictured here in Vogue, is on display in Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme . Vogue , September 15, 1969.

This exhibition features several examples of real fur garments that are either high fashion or are true functional garments created specifically for survival in extreme environments. Fur garments are quite different from more traditional cloth garments, with differing needs and considerations. They are constructed and tailored based on complex joins of a patchwork of animal pelts, while contemporary cloth garments are constructed with more regularly shaped pattern pieces. The pelts tend to become dry and desiccated as they age, presenting unique conservation challenges.

The Madame Grès apres ski ensemble of 1969, worn by the New York socialite Isabel Eberstadt, consists of an off-white, ribbed wool, chunky knit sweater and spectacular, beigey-brown wolf fur pants. The sweater is in excellent condition. The pants, however, showed signs of general wear accompanied by fur loss along the top edges of the contoured waist and high hip area of the pants. Along the top portion of the pants, large fur patches were breaking off and crumbling. The fur skins were dry and desiccated throughout the garment, sounding slightly “crunchy” when being handled, signaling that most likely the skins would continue to crack and split when moved. Before beginning to treat the pants, conservator Nicole Bloomfield spent many hours researching the nature of fur technology and manufacturing in order to gain a firm grasp of the technical issues that she might encounter while undertaking the stabilization of the wolf pants. Upon further examination, she discovered that the construction of the pants was quite complex, with no simple or straight seams. The fur skins were joined by using a very expensive technique whereby very small, herringboned strips are pieced together, creating a more even distribution of the fur.
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Reaching the North Pole

Headshot_Lesley Ann BeckLesley Ann Beck is the Senior Communications Manager for the Berkshire Museum. After a career in journalism, she joined the staff of the Berkshire Museum in 2011. She writes and edits press releases, marketing materials, and web content for the Museum, as well as working closely with the exhibition team to research and write labels and panels, interpreting the objects in the galleries. The Berkshire Museum, located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is home to an astounding array of interesting objects.

Long a favorite with visitors to the Berkshire Museum, the fur suit worn by Matthew Henson during Admiral Robert E. Peary’s successful 1909 expedition to the North Pole is now on view as part of Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme at The Museum at FIT in New York City.

Matthew Henson’s fur suit worn on his successful 1909 expedition to the North Pole. Courtesy Berkshire Museum.

Matthew Henson’s fur suit worn on his successful 1909 expedition to the North Pole. Courtesy Berkshire Museum.

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Designing Spacesuits

Elizabeth Way bio image-v2Elizabeth (Liz) Way is an assistant curator at The Museum at FIT. She assisted deputy director Patricia Mears, curator of Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme, and wrote an essay titled “Looking Back at the Future: Spacesuits and Space Age Fashion” for the companion book to the exhibition.

Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme is a unique exhibition because it brings together areas of technology that have not previously been studied with fashion. I found one of the most fascinating parts of research for my essay to be in going back to the inspiration for Space Age fashion and exploring spacesuit development. The earliest versions were pressure suits, created during the 1930s for high-flying pilots. As a human travels towards space, air pressure decreases, detrimentally affecting the body. It becomes harder to take in oxygen and eventually liquids, like blood, will start to boil. Pressure suits counteract these possibly fatal effects.

Early pressure suits were modified for the USA’s Mercury missions (1961-1963) and served as an extra layer of protection within the spacecraft. It was only when the Apollo missions (1963-1972) aimed for the moon that “real” spacesuits were invented — suits that serve as the only barrier between an astronaut and the vacuum of space. Although these spacesuits might seem more like equipment than clothing, the Apollo spacesuits were created for NASA by a company called ILC Industries (formerly International Latex Corporation) based in Dover, Delaware. During the 1950s and 1960s, a spinoff branch of ILC was the largest producer of shapewear, or foundation garments, such as bras and girdles, in the United States, selling under a name you may recognize: Playtex!

Seamstresses on the shop floor at the Dover, DE ILC plant, June 28, 1967. Courtesy of ILC Dover, Inc.

Seamstresses on the shop floor at the Dover, DE ILC plant, June 28, 1967. Courtesy of ILC Dover, Inc.

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A Brief History of The Explorer’s Club

Headshot Lacey FlintLacey Flint is The Explorers Club Archivist and Curator of Research Collections. Her support of Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme provided a truly unique partnership between two seemingly disparate institutions. She authored the essay, “The Explorers Club: A Brief History,” in the exhibition book, and here, she shares a bit about The Explorers Club’s incredible collections.

In early June of 2015, I received an email, quite out of the blue, from Patricia Mears. The brief missive served two as an introduction to both Patricia and a project she had tentatively entitled Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme. She inquired about visiting The Explorers Club and discussing the scope of the work and the possibility of our potential collaboration. I remember being a bit skeptical of both The Club’s involvement and my own. I wasn’t entirely sure what relevant resources our Collection could provide a project such as this. And thinking of explorers, past and present, in all of their gear as having influenced runway couture? Not possible. Patricia must have never seen early diving helmets or glacier goggles.

On a personal level, I know next to nothing about fashion (often overwhelmingly evident, but never more so than on any cold winter’s day when I try to convince myself that no one will notice I’m attempting to pass off fleece leggings as stockings) or its history. At the time of Patricia’s email, I was only a little more than a year into my tenure at The Club, after finishing my graduate work in Museum Studies at The University of Leicester. We can all thank my year in UK climes for the fleece legging trick.

However, after meeting with Patricia and discussing the project’s thesis, I was absolutely convinced that, yes, my explorers and their gear had indeed influenced fashion. The winter parkas we all have tucked away in our closets were undeniably inspired by polar and mountaineering treks. And what about moon boots and neoprene dresses? All of it could be traced back to various scientific expeditions. The vision and scope of the project was unchartered territory, much like the work and discoveries of Club Members past and present. I enthusiastically agreed to come on board and provide any resources I could. This brought on the next challenge: I was tasked with detailing the history of exploration.

The interior of The Explorers Club Library which features a ceiling from a fifteenth century Italian monastery. The Explorers Club Research Collections.

The interior of The Explorers Club Library which features a ceiling from a fifteenth century Italian monastery. The Explorers Club Research Collections.

What is exploration but curiosity in action? Humans have always been exploring. Thousands of years of nomadic life, diaspora, conquest, trade route discoveries, colonizing, re-colonizing, mapping – and that’s just scratching the surface of geographic exploration. Add to that technology, ethnology, all branches of field science – the list goes on. My assignment then became narrowing the scope of exploration to something manageable and meaningful. I decided to focus on the history of scientific exploration as told through The Explorers Club’s “Famous Firsts.”

Since its inception, members of The Club have dedicated themselves to our mission, which at its most basic level is to explore land, sea, air, and space. Hallmarks of pioneering 20th century exploration have come to be recognized as The Club’s “Famous Firsts.” Robert Peary, the Club’s third President, and Matthew Henson “discovered” the North Pole in 1909. The discovery of the South Pole by Member Roald Amundsen followed soon after in 1911. Club Members Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to summit Mt. Everest in 1953, and the lowest point on Earth, Mariana Trench, was attained by our Honorary President Don Walsh and Club Fellow Jacques Piccard in 1960. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins reached the moon in 1969 carrying The Explorers Club Flag.
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Polar Explorers and Their Clothes

Pickman headshotSarah Pickman is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University studying the history of science and medicine. She contributed the essay “Dress, Image, and Cultural Encounter in the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration” to the book, Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

When you’re a graduate student, one of the questions you’re asked most frequently (besides “What are you going to do with that degree?” and “When are you going to finish?”) is, “How did you get interested in that?” In my case, my interest in polar exploration and clothing started with a single pair of boots.

I’ve always been interested in fashion history. I love browsing vintage clothing sales and thrift stores. About seven years ago, I purchased a pair of mid-century sealskin boots at a vintage fair in New York. They intrigued me because, while I knew little about traditional Inuit clothing at the time, the shape and material of the boots seemed to evoke native Arctic footwear, while the laces, short shaft, and rubber soles pointed to shoes made for a mainstream Western market. The boots were a kind of fashion hybrid. I put them in my closet, planning to wear them when the weather was cold enough.

The author's vintage sealskin boots, c. 1940-1960 Produced for Capitol of Canada by Indian Slipper Co., Ltd., Loretteville, Quebec

The author’s vintage sealskin boots, c. 1940-1960
Produced for Capitol of Canada by Indian Slipper Co., Ltd., Loretteville, Quebec

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Q & A with Expedition’s Exhibition Designer

Kim Ackert headshotKim Ackert, head of the design firm Ackert Architecture, is an internationally renowned architect and a respected professor of architecture, teaching at Harvard, Cornell, Yale, and, most recently, Parsons, The New School. She has designed some of The Museum at FIT’s most transformative exhibitions, including Elegance in an Age of Crisis: Fashions of the 1930s, Yves Saint Laurent + Halston: Fashioning the 70s, and Fairy Tale Fashion. Here, she sheds some light on what went into conceptualizing and realizing the dramatic design of Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

1. Describe your job as the exhibition designer. How is this similar to or different from other projects that you design as an architect? Who do you collaborate with during the exhibition design process (curators, lighting designers, exhibition managers, conversation team, etc.)?
The design process for an exhibition is very different from that of an architectural interior space. Building or interior design usually starts with the client’s functional wants and needs and is then translated into a “program,” but an exhibition designer starts with the preliminary list of objects developed by the curator, who in this instance was Deputy Director Patricia Mears and Assistant Curator Elizabeth Way. Although the list may change and evolve, it provides the fundamental concept for the design, which is further developed through a series of loose sketches and historical references for presentation to the entire production team. This team consists of the lighting designer Eric Steding, and the production team managed by Michael Gotia and coordinated by Ryan Wolfe, who advise and do a tremendous amount of research on the materials, construction details, and final touches.

Concept sketch for the Expedition design by Kim Ackert

Concept sketch for the Expedition design by Kim Ackert

2. Describe your design concept for Expedition and how you were inspired to create it.
The planning for Expedition started over a year ago with a visit to the American Museum of Natural History, where the entire team looked at dioramas as a concept for the intro gallery. This idea eventually evolved into the centrally located “safari” diorama of the Serengeti desert. We wanted the main gallery to provoke a sense of “danger” and a connection to the natural world. It was decided early on to create a large, almost overpowering central element that would contain the “outer space” collection. This element quickly became known as “space mountain,” and its tubular frames and translucent panels evoke a man-made and deconstructed world view. The perimeter platforms are designed to be topographical and support large foam blocks sculpted to suggest a variety of natural environments, ranging from deep below sea level to the thin air of the highest mountain peaks! Atalay Harrison, the project architect in our office had experience working with foam and was instrumental in creating the look and feel. He worked closely with Eric Steding’s group Shop to bring the final creation to life.

Atalay making a foam maquette

Atalay making a foam maquette

3. What reactions do you hope to get from the audience?
We hope to create a physical environment that is both a meaningful backdrop for the clothing and a dramatic prelude to the exhibition. As with all the exhibitions we’ve worked on at the museum, experiencing the collection should feel like a journey or an escape into another world.

4. What were the most challenging aspects of designing Expedition and what are you favorite parts of the design?
This was a challenging design because there were a number of different parts and pieces that required a close collaboration with the entire crew and production team. The scale of the space mountain presented some challenges early on, but came together quickly once the details for its construction were established.

Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme runs through January 6, 2018 at The Museum at FIT in NYC.
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Clarifying Facts on Parkas and Puffers

patricia-mears-headshotWritten by: Patricia Mears, deputy director of The Museum at FIT and lead curator of Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

This week’s Expedition blog illustrates the challenges that my colleagues, Liz Way and Ariele Elia, and I faced while charting a new topic in fashion history: the influence of expeditions on high style clothing. While there are a growing number of scholarly publications on both subjects, almost nothing exists on their overlapping histories. In addition, many books and articles contain information that is sometimes inaccurate and/or not fully detailed.

It has come to my attention, then, that there are inaccuracies in my essay for the companion book to the exhibition, also titled Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme. I am fortunate that this blog (published well after the submission of the Expedition texts to our publisher last year) gives us an opportunity correct any misinformation.

"Eddie’s down jackets and sleeping bags were so prized by the airmen stationed in Alaska during the World War II Aleutian Campaign that they were wagered in high-stakes poker games. When the U.S. Army Air Forces brass got wind of this, they asked Eddie to design a cold-weather flight suit for them. He built the B-9 Parka and A-8 Flight Pants, the U.S. military’s first down-insulated flight suit." Photograph courtesy of the Eddie Bauer Archives.

“Eddie’s down jackets and sleeping bags were so prized by the airmen stationed in Alaska during the World War II Aleutian Campaign that they were wagered in high-stakes poker games. When the U.S. Army Air Forces brass got wind of this, they asked Eddie to design a cold-weather flight suit for them. He built the B-9 Parka and A-8 Flight Pants, the U.S. military’s first down-insulated flight suit.” Photograph courtesy of the Eddie Bauer Archives.

Our colleague Colin Berg, the Eddie Bauer Brand Historian, has clarified the facts behind Eddie Bauer’s innovative, down-filled jacket. In the book, I document the creation and influence of this now ubiquitous coat, one that in recent years has been seen on the most prestigious high fashion runways. But a number of the details I cited were either incorrect or vague.

I thank Colin for helping me correct these errata.

Colin is the Brand Historian at Eddie Bauer, a position he’s held since 2007. As the historian and brand storyteller, he curates the company archives, conducts tours, and speaks at local museums and historical societies. He has also shared the company’s history at media events in New York and Munich, and will be traveling to Cologne, Germany this fall as part of the opening of an Eddie Bauer shop-in-shop. Colin’s background is as a writer; he has been a professional copywriter for 30 years.

For my essay, I relied primarily on a biography by Robert Spector – The Legend of Eddie Bauer, published in 1994 – as well as a magazine article Spector wrote about Bauer in the early 1990s. Ironically, this first edition of his book had a number of factual inaccuracies that were corrected in a second edition published seventeen years later. Colin notes that although the “inaccuracies do not change the fundamental story,” they “don’t jibe with the facts.”
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1960s Fashion Photography

patricia-mears-headshot

Harper's Bazaar, May 1966, photograph by Bob Richardson / Art Partner.

Harper’s Bazaar, May 1966, photograph by Bob Richardson / Art Partner.

Written by: Patricia Mears, deputy director of The Museum at FIT and curator of Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme.

One of the most compelling components of Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme was fashion photography of the 1960s. My fellow curators, Liz Way and Ariele Elia, and I all found this decade to be the era in which expeditions made a decided impact on high fashion. Not only were designers turning to the Space Age, deep sea diving, and the Arctic for inspiration, so too were fashion editors. We were so taken with the vibrant imagery that we chose John Cowan’s girl on an ice floe as the “poster girl” for our exhibition and book.

The influence of expeditions on 1960s fashion photography was celebrated brilliantly in the pages of leading magazines throughout the decade. This phenomenon is understandable, as the rise of youth styles and the deterioration of established fashion codes allowed photographers to experiment far beyond their studios. Magazine editors occasionally styled models in actual space suits and diving equipment. They also clad their models in outrageous fashions while diving in the ocean or standing on the frozen tundra.

China Machado, Russian Snow Leopard by James Terence Brady of Bonwit Teller, St. Donat, Quebec, June 25, 1962, photograph by Richard Avedon. © The Richard Avedon Foundation.

China Machado, Russian Snow Leopard by James Terence Brady of Bonwit Teller, St. Donat, Quebec, June 25, 1962, photograph by Richard Avedon. © The Richard Avedon Foundation.

Harper’s Bazaar, for example, created an editorial spread that was shot in a snowy landscape for the October 1962 issue.¹ Titled “Beautiful Barbarians” and captured by Richard Avedon, the model in the cover image (set on a vertical fold-out), as well as models shot on location and in studios, were swathed in furs such as civet, Mongolian lamb, and even Russian snow leopard. Editorial copy stated that Avedon “calls up the outer steppes of some unimagined frontier — and ambience of fearless, far-out, magnificence. Feathered, furred, leathered, or swathed in silks, his Beautiful Barbarians project is a proud, untamed, magnetism which all women may look to . . .”² The lead model in the spread was China Machado. Of Portuguese and Chinese/Indian descent, her non-western looks enhanced the “exotic” look of the “barbarian” images that, in turn, articulated the period’s racist view that indigenous peoples were less civilized than cultures south of the Arctic, an idea that continued decades after they were first denigrated by early European explorers.

Despite the less-than-enlightened approach of some fashion imagery, dramatic location shoots became a mainstay of Vogue magazine from 1963 to 1971, when Diana Vreeland was its editor-in-chief. Dynamic and highly creative, Vreeland consistently pushed the limits of fashion styling and photography throughout her decades-long career. She was among the first editors to oversee location shoots around the world while an editor at Harper’s Bazaar during World War II. By the time she arrived at Vogue, Vreeland not only expanded the scope of travel to exotic locations, she amped up the glamour quotient and sense of daring.
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