Dr Jane Hegland (with Marilyn R. DeLong)
Jane is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Apparel Merchandising and Interior Design. Her research, publications, and teaching focus is on how dress and appearance function as non-verbal communication; the social construction of gender; and issues of power. Specifically, her scholarship examines topics concerning rape and dress, cross-dressing, dressing for the ritual of the high school prom, the use of dress in film, and aesthetic issues related to dress and identity.
Fashion, Consumption, and Museology: A Tale of Two Collections
In this presentation, we will examine and critique two costume collections. Historically university collections have originated for use in teaching history and design. But they may also reveal fashion and consumption patterns of a geographic region. Fashion, dress, and appearance are key ways through which any culture communicates an identity - for the benefit of its members and for those individuals outside its margins. Therefore, an exploration of the holdings of a costume collection exposes dynamic information about the social, political, and aesthetic ideals and expectations of a culture within a given time and location. We will present a comparative analysis of two costume collections - the "Goldstein Costume Collection" at the University of Minnesota and the "Snellman Hsia Costume Collection" at South Dakota State University. This contrast of collections provides abundant information about two distinct geographic regions within the Midwestern USA, as the Goldstein Collection resides in a metropolitan area and the Snellman Hsia Collection is situated in a rural setting. Though the two collections span roughly the same time period - with artifacts dating back to the 18th century - the stories each collection conveys about the people, fashion, identity, and consumption patterns of the two geographic regions are vastly diverse.
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