Department of Costumes and Textiles records

When the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences incorporated on 23 April 1890, the charter demonstrated a foundational commitment to the industrial arts: “the encouragement of the study of the arts and sciences, and their application to the practical wants of man.”¹ From this early date, the Museum “encourage[d] the specialist, either as an investigator in the sciences or as a creator in art,” thus laying the roots for the Industrial Division, the Design Laboratory, and later, the Costumes and Textiles Department.²

An important early step toward establishing a textiles collection occurred in 1914 and 1915, when Brooklyn Museum Curator of Ethnology Stewart Culin conducted an Eastern expedition to Japan, China, Korea, India, and Ceylon. He collected textiles and costumes and kept meticulous notes about his acquisitions.³ Upon his return, Culin began to collaborate with Morris (M.D.C.) Crawford, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History. Together they organized a textile exhibition for the National Association of Silk Manufacturers in 1915. Crawford’s role as Research Editor of Fairchild Publications, publisher of Women’s Wear Daily and other fashion magazines, helped advance the public presence of the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. Both Culin and Crawford shared the belief that museums could play a vital role in the industrial age.

Prior to World War I, the fabric and apparel industries of the United States relied heavily on France for inspiration. However, the conditions of the war prevented French couture’s influence on the American market. A new source of inspiration was needed, and Stewart Culin offered a solution:

Using his influence in the fashion world, Crawford brought department stores and designers to the Museum, where Culin showed them costumes and textiles he collected on his many expeditions that they could adapt for their own uses. Contrary to standard museum practice, Culin allowed designers to touch the materials so that they could learn about their construction. By 1918, the popularity of the collection as a research tool among designers required a textile study room in the Museum. Designers and manufacturers discovered rich source material in the Museum’s vast collection, with objects from India, China, Persia, Japan, Europe, and the “primitive arts” of the New World. Of particular interest to the textile trade were swatch books of fabrics from Asia, which helped to influence the fast growing ready-to-wear dress industry in New York City. In the fall of 1928, four lectures on clothing were given at the Museum for fashion students.

On 8 April 1929, at the age of 71, Stewart Culin died. His collaboration with M.D.C. Crawford provided the foundation for what would later become the Museum’s Industrial Division. After Culin’s death, Crawford created a strategic plan in order to continue the work that he and Culin initiated. He began to work with Edward Blum, a merchant with an interest in the relationship between industry and museums for design research.⁵

Administrative changes influenced new directions for the Museum over the next decades, significantly impacting the development of the costumes and textiles collections. Franklin W. Hooper, the Museum’s first director, died in 1914, succeeded by William Henry Fox. Fox’s vision moved away from the natural sciences toward the arts, and he acquired both modern art and decorative art. In 1931, Fox arranged for Mr. and Mrs. Edward S. Harkness to purchase the Shabelsky collection of Russian costumes and textiles and the gowns of Princess Viggo of Denmark for the Museum.

Fox resigned in 1934 and his successor, Philip Newell Youtz implemented further change. Trained as an educator and an architect, Youtz was a modernist who believed that the Museum should serve contemporary needs. He also felt that it was important not to duplicate the work of other city-supported museums, and wished to develop a service not being offered elsewhere. Under Youtz’s influence, the Museum Governing Committee implemented a new policy with special emphasis on social and industrial implications of art.

In June 1935 Youtz, with Crawford, proposed establishing an Industrial Center for Greater New York at the Brooklyn Museum, to be funded by the Public Works Administration. The proposal involved construction of a new building, attached to the Museum, which would house collections and exhibitions of examples of industrial design. Approved by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in Washington rejected the proposal in October 1935. Crawford wrote an appeal, backed by supporters, such as trade, labor, retail, and educational organizations. However, Crawford was unable to overturn the rejection.

Departmental administrative changes laid the foundation for an official Industrial Division. In 1936 the costume, textile, and jewelry collections were consolidated, inventoried and transferred to the care of Louise W. Chase, Assistant Curator of Medieval Art. The Museum organized a Textile Division in the fall of 1937, under the direction of Chase. The Division aimed to showcase their expansive collection of costumes, textiles, and laces with new exhibitions every few months. This year the Annual Report also lists a Division of Industrial Arts, also under the direction of Acting Curator Louise Chase. This Division did not continue into the following year.

Michelle Murphy, an education docent since 1932 and later Supervisor of Education in 1938, had an interest in textiles and costumes. She worked with Elizabeth Haynes, Assistant Curator of the Decorative Arts Department. Together they organized a special exhibition for the International Silk Guild in 1934. During Haynes’ tenure, the Museum acquired the Perry Collection of nineteenth-century gowns designed by Charles Frederick Worth.

In November 1939, the Governing Committee of the Museum voted to officially establish an Industrial Division to enhance use of the Museum’s costumes and textiles collections. By the time the Industrial Department was founded, the Museum had one of the most diverse costumes and textiles collections in the world. Its holdings included hand and machine-made textiles from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; European textiles from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries; street and formal costumes of Europe and America from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries; national costumes from Scandinavia, Russia, Central and Southern Europe, and the Near and Far East; millinery from all parts of the world; underclothes, both adult and children’s, from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. As Supervisor of Education, Murphy was appointed to be the first curator of the Industrial Division and M.D.C. Crawford was named Honorary Advisor of the division.

In 1942, Crawford helped establish a museum committee in the textile industry. Soon after, Crawford instituted an Industrial Membership program to financially support the efforts of the department. There were two categories of annual membership: Associates of the Laboratory ($500), which included such companies as Fairchild Publications, E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc., and J.P. Stevens & Company, Inc; and Members of the Laboratory ($100), which included Parson’s School of Design, Sally Victor, Women’s Day, Goodall Fabrics, Inc. Firms representing new fabrics, clothes and accessories came to the Brooklyn Museum for research and advice. The Society of New York Dress Designers, a professional educational organization of dress designers, held their first fashion show at the Museum on the evening of 3 June 1948. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle sponsored luncheons to acquaint local retailers with the work of the Industrial Division.

The success of the Industrial Division called for a larger, more professional lab. In 1947 the Department received a $50,000 gift from Abraham and Straus, Inc. and seven associated members of the Federated Department Stores. The Museum created a state of the art design laboratory to provide scientific and artistic research equipment for designers and technicians in all decorative arts industries. The lab included eight individual sound-proofed workrooms equipped with drafting tables and temporary storage for various instruments for scientific investigation such as microscopes, color analyzer, dressmaker forms, power sewing machine, and transfer table, under the direction of Curator Michelle Murphy. The lab was dedicated on 14 October 1948, named in memory of Edward C. Blum, who died in November 1946, and whose work helped to make the Industrial Division a success. Crawford, who had worked with Blum to make the Design Lab possible, passed away the following year. His wife, Elizabeth Goan Crawford, a member of the Board of Governors of the Brooklyn Museum, was named Honorary Advisor to the Design Lab. After the opening of the Design Lab, the Industrial Division was defined by the Museum as a “Service Department” which involved a commitment to educational programming.

The first major exhibition in conjunction with the laboratory program was A Decade of Design for Millicient Rogers by Charles James. The collection, given to the Museum in the 1930s by Rogers, (heiress to the Standard Oil fortune), documents a series of completed garments, each accompanied by technical studies in muslin and paper emphasizing the experimental, 3-D approach to the design of clothes. The collection continued to grow in large part through gifts to the department. In 1950, the Isidor Roth Collection of American corsets was presented to the Museum.

On 13 September 1951, Murphy won the prestigious Neiman-Marcus Award “for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion.” Neiman-Marcus credited Murphy with having established “the greatest fashion laboratory in the Western Hemisphere.”⁶ After a long illness, Michelle Murphy died on 21 August 1954. The following year, the Industrial Division title was dropped. The Edward C. Blum Design Laboratory continued to flourish under the new Research Consultant, Robert Riley, formerly of the Will Nemerov Coat and Suit Firm. Riley was already familiar with the services and collection of the Design Lab from his days as a designer for retail, and had worked closely with both Michelle Murphy and M.D.C. Crawford.

Riley set out to expand the collection by documenting the work of contemporary designers. He brought in many examples from Elizabeth Hawes, Claire McCardell, Christian Dior, Norman Norell, and James Galanos. He had also made numerous acquisitions of 19th century material, including the Russell and Westerfield collections. In 1955 the Museum acquired the M.D.C. Crawford collection of textiles, embroideries, books and garments, including embroideries of Mme. Lipska from 1920.

Beginning in the mid 1950s outside enterprises began to use costume collections for promotional purposes. Advertisers turned to the Design Laboratory to sell their products, and the Brooklyn Museum’s costumes and textiles collection appeared in both print and television advertisements for Cadillac, Nabisco, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and many others.

The Museum lent costumes for fashion shows and window displays beginning in the 1940s. Under Riley, fashion show fundraising activities increased. Riley often gave lectures and lent the Museum’s couture and period dress pieces to organizations as diverse as the New York Tuberculosis Seal Drive, and Playboy magazine.

In order to fulfill the Design Laboratory’s purpose of “serving education,” a series of educational seminars was developed by Charles James in cooperation with Robert Riley in 1960. Held at Pratt Institute, and the Rhode Island School of Design, “The Calculus of Fashion” seminars dealt with the scientific aspect of design as well as with technique. Riley also lectured for industry professionals including Associated Merchandising Corporation, and the Ohrbach’s Training Group. The Design Lab furnished loans or entire exhibitions to museums and historical societies, provided displays, lent objects for television, and assisted outside researchers including costume designers for theater and opera.

In the early 1960s, parts of the collection began to be displayed on the 4th floor of the Museum to give the costume collection more exposure. However, space issues had already begun to affect the Design Lab by this time. In 1959 Riley assisted William G. Lord, a textile executive for Galey & Lord, and a trustee to the Design Lab, with feasibility studies to explore options for a branch in Manhattan. To develop and expand the Design Lab, Lord approached the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) with the suggestion that a branch of the Design Lab be incorporated into their newly planned complex. The proposal was received with enthusiasm because it would provide fashion and design students at F.I.T. and other metropolitan schools with research and study material. The plan was set in motion with the approval of the Brooklyn Museum’s governing committee.

By 1962 the Edward C. Blum Design Lab and the Decorative Arts Department merged. Marvin D. Schwartz became Curator of Decorative Arts and the Industrial Design Lab and Riley stayed on as Consultant to the Industrial Design Lab. Other staff members included Dassah Saulpaugh (Preparator, Department of Decorative Arts), and Dorothy Tricarico, (Assistant Curator, Department of Decorative Arts). With a donation from Parfums Worth, Dassah Saulpaugh and Professor Blanche Payne, of the University of Washington, traveled to Europe in 1961 to research and collect material for the House of Worth exhibition, which opened in May, 1962. The “Worth Ball,” an exhibition preview, was held in the Museum’s Sculpture Court, and featured 40 original Worth gowns worn in a runway fashion show. The sponsoring committee for this gala event included the designers Bonnie Cashin and Norman Norell.

From 1963-64 the Design Lab team of Riley, Saulpaugh and Tricarico organized several clothing exhibitions from the Museum collections including men’s wear for the presentation of the Caswell-Massey award in New York. As a service to Design Lab members, the department produced “color direction cards” (swatch samples) twice a year for designers in fashion and home furnishings.

In 1965 Riley surveyed the costumes and textiles holdings, and recommended materials from the collection for transfer to F.I.T. on a long-term loan. The following year, Robert Riley left the Museum and became the first director of F.I.T.’s newly established Design Laboratory. The transfer of the material took place over a period of several years, with the first transfer in 1968.

Following Riley’s departure from the Museum, the consolidated Decorative Arts Department and the Edward C. Blum Design Laboratory was renamed the Department of Decorative Arts and Costumes and Textiles, with the care of the permanent collection of Western European and North American textile materials. Dassah Saulpaugh was named Associate Curator of Decorative Arts, in charge of costumes and textiles, and Dorothy Tricarico became the Fashion & Textile Coordinator.

In 1967 John Lee Newton began a one-year assignment as Manager of the Edward C. Blum Design Lab. During this time Newton arranged to have the Museum sponsor the Lincoln Mercury Sports Fashion Awards. On 1 April 1968, Marvin Schwartz resigned from his post as Curator of the Decorative Arts department. At Schwartz’s departure, J. Stewart Johnson became the Curator of Decorative Arts, and Elizabeth Ann Coleman joined the staff as Assistant Curator. When Dassah Saulpaugh resigned from her position of Associate Curator on the 5th of June, her title and responsibilities were assumed by Coleman.

The early 1970s was a period of innovation and expansion for the costume collection. In February 1972, the Costumes and Textiles collections were formally separated from the Department of Decorative Arts. Elizabeth Ann Coleman, formerly Associate Curator, became Curator of the new Department of Costumes and Textiles. Dorothy Tricarico was then appointed Curator/Director of the Edward C. Blum Design Laboratory. Expanded use of the Museum’s costume collection required new space. Planning and preparation for new Costume Galleries began in the mid-1960s, and officially opened on 26 April 1972. Designed by architect Paul Heyer,⁷ the new facilities included an introductory gallery for rotating displays; a double-tiered live-storage area, which housed several thousand period costumes from the Museum’s extensive collection; and a “Costume Theater,” where mannequins appeared on a continuously moving mechanical belt. Above the stage a multi-media presentation depicted fashion plates, portraits, and architecture, which related to the costumes below. The multi-media component provided a context for the viewer to visualize the costumes in the world in which they were worn. The inaugural exhibition of the Costume Galleries was Changing Fashion: 1800-1970, with 47 mannequins in a theatrical setting accompanied by images and sounds. The Governing Committee and the Community Committee of The Brooklyn Museum held “The Fashion Theater Ball” on 22 April to celebrate the opening of the new Costume Galleries.

In 1973, the long-awaited merger with F.I.T. became a reality. In preparation for the transfer of materials, the Museum staff sorted, researched, and documented over 900 objects. Among the items on long-term loan were dresses by Charles James, muslins, and patterns. In June of 1975, Dorothy Tricarico left the Brooklyn Museum to work for F.I.T.

Under Coleman’s direction, the long-term administrative plans for the Costumes and Textiles department included the reorganization and division of the collections for better utilization by scholars and industry; and the conservation and restoration of materials. Helene Von Rosensteil, Preparator for the Department of Decorative Arts, was transferred to the Costumes and Textiles department in 1973 as an Assistant for Restoration. Exhibitions reflected the range and richness of the Costumes and Textiles department’s holdings. A major exhibition, Of Men Only: 300+ Items of American and European Male Attire, 1750-1975, opened in 1975. Coleman conducted a mini-lecture series in conjunction with the exhibit, and also gave major lectures on topics such as quilts, samplers, and the history of American Costume. The show Quilts (1976) featured 12 examples from the departments’ collection ranging from an 18th century Irish quilt to 20th century American work. With the aid of volunteers, the lace collection was organized, and exhibited in Lace: An Ornamental Art (1977).

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Museum continued to lend costumes from its collection to other institutions. Coleman traveled to Paris in 1977 to install Brooklyn Museum pieces in a Dior retrospective at the Musee de Arts de la Mode, a costume branch of the Louvre.

Starting in 1979, many of the objects that had been on long-term loan to F.I.T. were returned to the Brooklyn Museum. An acquisitions fund was established in the 1980s, and the Museum enhanced its collection with the purchase of evening dresses by Balenciaga, Dior, Norell, and many others. A large donation of couture garments from the Estate of Elinor S. Gimbel became the foundation for an exhibition on the American designer Elizabeth Hawes. Other donations to the collection included designs by a Paul Poiret, Yves Saint Laurent, Arnold Scassi, and James Galanos.

In October of 1982, the Museum opened Genius of Charles James, a major exhibition of the designs of the late Anglo-American couturier. The show was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Hearst Foundation. A gala benefit hosted by Halston and chaired by Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jr. was held in conjunction with the well-attended exhibition. The Brooklyn Museum publication that accompanied the exhibition received a 1983 Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS) award.

A master plan to renovate the 2nd through 5th floors of the Museum’s West Wing was introduced in 1988 in order to provide proper access to the renovated West Wing. Designs for the entry to sections of the fourth floor required the demolition of the Costumes and Textiles exhibition gallery, and the closing of the Costume Theater. In February of 1990, both Elizabeth Ann Coleman and Carol Krute left the staff. The Department of Costumes and Textiles returned to being a division of the Decorative Arts Department, and the gallery for Costumes and Textiles closed. The collection became the responsibility of the Decorative Arts Department, under Kevin Stayton, Curator of the Department of Decorative Arts.

In 1991 Patricia Mears was hired as a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) intern in the Department of Decorative Arts in order to help manage the care of the costumes and textiles collections. In 1993, Mears was hired as a Research Associate; and was named Assistant Curator of Costumes and Textiles in the spring of 1995. Small-scale exhibitions were revived in the mid-1990s. In 1998 Mears helped organize Japonism in Fashion, the first large-scale exhibition since 1989. Hip Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes & Rage opened in the fall of 2000. Co-curated by Mears and Stayton, the show explored the roots of Hip-Hop music through fashion, politics, and popular culture.

Patricia Mears left the Museum in 2004. At that time, administration decided to reevaluate the place of the costume collection within its programs and priorities. In 2005 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded the Brooklyn Museum a multi-million dollar grant to survey, digitize and catalog the approximately 70,000 costumes, and accessories. For this project the objects were moved to a climate-controlled off-site location. The goals of this three-year project are to assess and document the collection, and ultimately provide electronic access to scholars, students, and a broader public.