Fashion and Museums Theory and Practice

Why is fashion "in fashion" in museums today? This timely volume brings together expert scholars and curators to examine the reasons behind fashion's popularity in the twenty-first century museum and the impact this has had on wider museum practice.

Chapters explore the role of fashion in the museum across a range of international case studies including the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Fashion Museum at Bath, ModeMuseum in Antwerp and many more. Contributions look at topics such as how fashion has made museums accessible to diverse audiences and how curators present broader themes and issues such as gender, class and technology innovatively through exhibiting fashion.

Drawing on approaches from dress history, fashion studies, museum studies and curatorship, this engaging book will be key reading for students and scholars across a range of disciplines.

Marie Riegels Melchior is Assistant Curator at Designmuseum, Denmark.

Birgitta Svensson is Professor and holder of the Hallwyl chair in European Ethnology at Nordiska museet and Stockholm University, Sweden.

Introduction
Section I: The Power of Fashion: When Museums Enter New Territory
1. The Power of Fashion in the Museum: The Costume Institute, Harold Koda, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA, & Jessica Glasscock, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA
2. The Museum as an Ideal Platform for Understanding Fashion, José Teunissen, Arnhem Design School, The Netherlands
3. Contemporary Fashion History in Fashion Museums: MoMu, The Fashion Museum of the Province of Antwerp, Marco Pecorari, Centre for Fashion Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden
4. Fashion Photography in the Swedish Museum: Appraised, Displayed and Concealed, Anna Dahlgren, Stockholm University, Sweden

Section II: Dress Controversies: Museums and the Public
5. Are Museum Collections of Dress Public Wardrobes? Gender and Economic Considerations, Julia Petrov, School of Museum Studies, Leicester University, UK
6. Dress, Fashion or Textiles: Three Aspects of the Same Issue, Kirsten Toftegaard, Designmuseum Danmark, Denmark
7. Exhibiting the Body, Dress and Time, Anne-Sophie Hjemdahl, Oslo University, Norway

Section III: In Practice: Collecting, Researching and Exhibiting Dress and Fashion in Museums
8. Fashioning the Museum in Bath, Rosemary Harden, Fashion Museum in Bath, UK
9. Female Skier Outfits in the Early 20th Century. Dress and Fashion in Nordiska Museet, Marianne Larsson, Nordiska museet, Sweden
10. Displaying Fashion and Identity from Peasant Dress to Uniforms: The 'Dressed!' Exhibition at the Amagermuseet in Denmark, Ingeborg Phillipsen, Amagermuseet, Denmark
11. Fashion Autobiography: Embedding the Personal in the Creation of an Exhibition, Jeff Horsley, London College of Fashion, UK
12. Learning through Fashion: The Norwegian Museum of Science, Technology and Medicine, Tone Rasch & Ingebjørg Eidhammer, The Norwegian Museum of Science, Technology and Medicine, Norway

Conclusion: Contemporary Fashion Museology and the Public Wardrobe
Learning through the Public Wardrobe, Birgitta Svensson, Nordiska museet and Stockholm University, Sweden

Bibliography
Index