U of A Fashion Exhibition shows the meaning of clothes

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Fashion choices are more than just looking good. It can be identity, protest and expression.

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A new clothing exhibition at the University of Alberta explores the ways in which fashion creates more than meets the eye. Adjusted series of clothes in one An American junior high school student’s first-day-of-school fashion choice has sparked district-wide calls to overhaul outdated dress codes.

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(d) Coded: Unraveling the Dialectic of Dress features garments from the University’s own Ann Lambert Costume and Textile Collection. The Lambert Collection, named for professor and 35-year curator of the collection, Anne Lambert; It is one of the largest clothing collections in Canada. It focuses not only on dress or formal wear but also on everyday wear items.

The exhibition at Dr. Ann Bissonnette, professor of material culture and literacy at the U of A, with some of her current and former graduate students. Bissonnette’s long education in science, fashion design and art history has led her to serve as curator of the university’s Anne Lambert Collection for the past 12 years.

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“Whether we like it or not, the clothes we wear communicate something to the people around us,” says Bissonnette. “When we look at people and their environment, clothing is the first layer of our environment. It means a lot and has different meanings to people, so we can talk about all kinds of issues; gender, age, race. There is no end to the way we use clothes to describe the world we live in.

Bissonnette was inspired by a New York Times article about Sophia Trevino, an American eighth-grader whose protest against the dress code drew worldwide attention.

Trevino was inspired to challenge her school district’s dress code after she was caught violating the dress code by wearing ripped jeans. The problem is not that the jeans are torn, but that the place where they are torn is thought to be too high on the leg.

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Dress codes have been criticized for targeting girls and women, ethnic minorities and people in lower income brackets.

This led Trevino to adopt the slogan: Dress Codes are Sexist, Racist, Classist, which was seen splashed across the front of the sun and yellow T-shirts students wore every Friday to protest the policies. A version of this shirt is included in the exhibit.

“Clothes are something that devalues ​​people in our society. Then authorities like school boards can use clothes to eliminate this kind of oppression, but they can’t get away with something like banning books. Banning books always leads to an outcry. But people make fashion into a fool.” Because they do things, they feel more comfortable controlling the bodies that wear these things.

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On display is a red and black ribbon dress made by Janet Delorme of the Kainai Nation of southern Alberta. The dress was created as a gender-inclusive design for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). Sitting next to it is the most familiar emblem of Canadian identity: the “red serge” of the RCMP uniform.

“We’re trying to create a visual difference between what people see and the uniforms they see here. However, (the RCMP) have also been used as agents of the government to remove children from certain communities and bring them into residential schools. So looking at the uniforms can be traumatic for some.”

Beyond dress or implied meaning, some clothes are designed to communicate something specific. An example of this in the exhibit is the St. Lucia Tete Case Headpiece. Typically, the way a colorful cloth is draped over the head indicates the relationship status of the dresser.

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Another point of interest is the Pearly Kings and Queens, a charity founded in the 1870s by working-class orphan Henry Croft, who wore clothes decorated with mother-of-pearl buttons to raise money for charity. Croft’s work stems from a tradition of street vendors called costermongers, who often wore the lowest-priced buttons on their pants and believed it was our duty to help those in need, even if they had little to give themselves.

“This is a very unique garment,” says Bissonnette. “It shows the sense of place of people who have moved from the UK to Edmonton to continue this tradition of fundraising.”

The organization started in London and quickly spread throughout England and abroad. Edmonton had its own branch of the club, who appeared around town dressed in black clothing adorned with decorative designs in support of the charities they raised money for. In the year An example from the 1970s collection is a black women’s dress shirt emblazoned with the name of cancer activist and marathon runner Terry Fox.

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In addition to a variety of traditional and modern clothing, a green 1950s cocktail dress is paired with a charming feathered hat and 1960s menswear matching shoes. Both items were chosen to showcase their gender-normative design, but the use of bright teal fabric in a conservative menswear design begs the question of what the color choice conveys and how this changes over time.

Departing from mid-century societal norms, the 1970s embraced androgynous styles worn by many. A number of items in the exhibition are used to depict this era, including the funky, yellow platform boots he wore when he was young, bought by a local.

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For Bissonnette, people often struggle to understand why she is so passionate about the study of clothing and textiles.

“I remember many conversations I had with people saying that fashion is not that important. And I say: ‘Yes? Come on [trade] Clothes. And you come out looking so different and tell me what you feel and how you feel.”

[De]Coded: Unraveling the Dialectics of Dress runs now through March 1 at the Human Ecology Gallery at 116th Street and 89th Street on the Alberta campus.

(d) Coded: Unraveling the Dialectic of Dress

where U of A Human Ecology Gallery ((corner of 116th Street and 89th Street)

When Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m., until March 1

Tickets Admission is free.

yegarts@postmedia.com