Ensemble courtesy of Stephen Porterfield

 

February 26 – May 14, 2010

at Fashion on Main

            Fashion exhibitions of historic children’s wear are almost never featured on their own merit. Often children’s wear is just shown as a supplemental outfit alongside another topic, yet children’s wear so directly relates to a significant social and historical period in the emergence of childhood. This exhibition will bring children’s design into its own spotlight. There will be a range of decades of dress for boys and girls from the 19^th and 20^th century. Most of the surviving garments are examples of “dressing your best” since those are the most likely to have been preserved for sentimental reasons. Also, these special garments were worn less frequently and do not show wear from everyday use.

Selections from the Texas Fashion Collection are from the 20^th Century and will include a chiffon dress recognizable by most as a “Shirley Temple” style dress and other examples of dress for boys and girls of various ages. To supplement this exhibition, there will be loan items from the Stephen Porterfield collection of 19^th century children’s wear.  This exhibition will be the first of its kind to focus exclusively on the world of children’s clothing and how it has changed through time. There will be 20-30 dressed figures in the exhibition. Dawn Figueroa, TFC Collection Manager will be the curator. Visitors will respond to the variety and immutable style presented in Child’s Play: Back in Time.