Ohio University students and faculty took a trip back in time as they viewed historical fashions during a presentation by Schuyler Cone, assistant professor of retail merchandising.
Cone's speech, Cycles of Fashion: 1804-2004
addressed topics such as how social movements and military uniforms influenced fashion and the evolution of casual clothing.
As human beings we like to enhance and decorate ourselves Cone said of the constant change and historical significance of fashion.
Cone heads the Mary C. Doxsee Historical Costume and Textile Collection, started by Doxsee in the 1950s. The collection boasts over 1,000 historical items, including shoes and hats as well as conventional attire for men and women.
I have always been interested in historical textile
partly because my mom and grandma's interest in it
Cone said.
Several outfits from OU alumni that are part of the costume collection were on display after the lecture. A commencement dress belonging to Ada Wickham O'Bleness, one of the first females to graduate from O.U. in 1898, was showcased along with a restored woolen dress with battenburge lace and hand-crocheted button holes that was found in a drain during the restoration of Tupper Hall.
The lecture at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium focused not only on the change of fashion through the last 200 years but the similarities of the eras, as well. Cone said every few decades, male styles go through a peacock era
in which they are flashier, such as the 1970s. In each decade, she pointed out the mentality of the people and how this was portrayed through fashion.
The speech was one of several presented this year by the Bicentennial Colloquia, a branch of the faculty, staff and emeriti bicentennial committee. Cone volunteered the idea of fashion through the ages to the bicentennial committee earlier this year, after giving speeches on the subject in other towns, including Yellow Springs, this fall.
For information about donating money to the Mary C. Doxsee Historical Costume and Textile Collection, please contact Dr. Schuyler Cone at 740-593-2886.
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