Monica D. Murgia

 

There comes a moment in your teaching career when you are assigned a new course.  It may be your very first time leading a classroom, or you may be a seasoned professional tackling a special topics class.

Please read my post, On Teaching Fashion: Do They Hear What I Hear? for Worn Through.  I share some of my hard-earned tips for gauging what your students are retaining from your lectures.  Teaching a course for the first time is challenging, but not impossible.  Learn how to balance everything and still get the students to remember the course content.

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Fashion is such an integral part of my life that I find my outfit selections reflect whatever is happening to me.  A few weeks ago, I went to an art gallery.  Since I was somewhere “artsy”, I decided to dress that way.  My pick was this cotton sheath dress in a conversational print, with a matching chiffon peplum.

 

 

Conversational prints are simply fabrics with designs that can start a conversation.  While the idea is as old as designing fabrics, there was a surge in popularity during the 1950s.  The fabric used for this dress also mirrors the trend in art for Abstract Expressionism, which appears after WWII.  Abstract Expressionism is non-representational (ie: it doesn’t look like anything) and emphasizes a subconscious, spontaneous application of paint.  Abstract Expressionist work is quite varied, but generally the focus is on color.  (For more on the issue of color, you might want to read my previous posts, Synesthesia in Art and Fashion and Color Semiotics.)

My outfit did spark a conversation, and the gallery owner told me all about an artist named Leonard Nelson.  He showed me this painting, Les Competiteurs by Nelson, which uses colors very similar to my dress.

 

Leonard Nelson (1912-1993) was exhibiting work with famous American Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.  He has been obscured from art history because of his choice to work in Philadelphia, and not New York.  Les Competiteurs is one of Nelson’s earlier works, and a bit derivative of Picasso.   After a bit of research, I’m admittedly a fanatic of his later works – fields of color.

 

I found it a bit funny that Nelson is classified as an Abstract Expressionist.  To me, his work seems so realistic.  The fields of color look like framed views of nature.  Colorfield (N9A) looks a lot like dandelions in a meadow.

 

 

Nelson was inspired by nature and its beauty.  His ability to capture the natural landscape in an abstract form was poetic.  Even when he spoke about the act of creating, it sounds transcendental:

My paintings must be exciting, and they must be beautiful.  I am very, very definitely involved in the creation of beauty.  I like to think I work in isolation, but I don’t.   I don’t take my easel and go out and paint the scene . . . the scene gets inside of me.

So by painting landscapes, the landscapes become part of the soul.  I feel that way when I look at his paintings, anyway.  Alma Night certainly looks like water during sunset:

 

 

The most interesting thing happened to me after I learned about Leonard Nelson.  While I was walking my dog, I looked down into the stream.  The pebbles in the water looked a lot like one of his paintings.  Isn’t it interesting that looking at art can change the way you perceive the world?

 

 

 

But the real hedonist in me became apparent after I saw this painting.  I immediately saw it and thought:

This would make the perfect dress!

 

Who could blame me?  What I wear reflects what interests me at the time.  And often, it starts a conversation.

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Today, you may have some difficulty getting on sites like Wikkipedia.  Why?  Congress is trying to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the Senate follows suit with it’s own bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

These bills are intended to assist in protecting copyrighted material and intellectual property.   But what does that really mean?  It means that the internet will be policed by government administrators that will shut down the platforms you use.  Unauthorized content on WordPress or Tumblr would cause the company to go under.  So, some sites are participating in an internet blackout to protest the bills.

CBS News explained that these bills also give the Justice Department jurisdiction to force other companies to stop doing business with rogue sites, even if they are off shores:

The bills would give the Justice Department the power to go after foreign websites willfully committing or facilitating intellectual property theft — “rogue” sites like The Pirate Bay.  The government would be able to force U.S.-based companies, like Internet service providers, credit card companies and online advertisers, to cut off ties with those sites. (Full article)

These bills just seem preposterous.  Society advances because we take an existing idea and expand upon it.  How to Steal Like an Artistby Austin Kleon illustrates this point perfectly.  (Please take a look!)

So don’t be angry with sites that have gone off the grid today.  They’re actually trying to help keep the internet the place we know and love – the place where pirates still roam free.

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A few days ago, I saw a new show called Abandoned on the History Channel.   It’s so new, that there is no information on their website about it.  The hosts of the show explore abandoned buildings throughout America, salvaging goods and educating viewers on local history.  Much to my delight, the pilot episode explores the Scranton Lace Factory.

 

Last week, I reflected on the old silk factory in Easton, PA.  So I was very curious to learn about a lace factory in Scranton.  After a little sleuthing, I found an excellent website called Abandoned America.  Here is what the author said about the factory:

Established in 1890 and incorporated in 1897, the Scranton Lace Factory was once one of the premier producers of a variety of textiles ranging from tablecloths, napkins, yarn, lace, laminates, and many others.  During World War II they provided parachutes, tarpaulins, and camouflage netting to the Allies.  Marigold Mills is an enormous complex that once employed 1,400 people and boasted its own gym, barbershop, theater, four lane bowling alley, and an infirmary for its employees.  Risky investments and advances in technology led to a slow decline in the textile mill’s prominence.  In their final days the staff had dwindled to fifty (given the size of the buildings, one wonders how often they even crossed paths) and had average annual sales of about six million.  In 2002 they finally shut their doors, and thus an era of prosperity and pride for many of their employees ended as well.

The old mill still houses the enormous looms needed to make commercial lace.  Standing three stories high, and 50 feet long, these looms were made in Nottingham, England  and shipped via boat in the late 1880s.  The lace factory hired several English workers, as they needed staff that understood how to operate the massive equipment.

 

Most of the looms still have threads strung, with the unfinished lace exposed.  The factory also contains thousands of punch cards.  Punch cards are perforated, stiff paper patterns that control the design of a textile while it’s woven.

 

The bowling alley is still fully-operational, and the hosts of the show tested it out.  Imagine how much the employees could enjoy themselves during their breaks.  What a perk to have at the office!

 

 

 

It seems that a developer is interested in turning the mill into an apartment building.  With a cash fee, you can enter the building and carry out whatever catches your eye.  Road trip, anyone?

 

For more great photos of the abandoned Scranton Lace Factory, please visit:

A.D. Wheeler’s Flickr page

Matthew Christopher’s Abandoned America

The Digital Mirage

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A new year calls for new things.  So I’m very happy to announce that this year I am a contributor to Worn Through.  If you’ve never visited the site, I highly recommend it!

Worn Through focuses on dress and fashion news, events, commentary, and critique from an academic perspective.  This is the perfect site to consult if you are teaching a fashion course, involved with a historic costume collection, or just like fashion history.

On Teaching Fashion is a column that I will be contributing to, bi-weekly.  I’ll be exploring issues I experience in the class room, like how to engage student, creating new projects, and teaching resources.

Please check out my first post, On Teaching Fashion: Monastic Dress.  You’ll learn a little more about my teaching philosophy, and  some tips for teaching students about religious garb.

 

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No matter how restless and adventurous my soul is, there is no place like home.  Sometimes I find this ironic, because for many years I couldn’t wait to escape the seemingly mundane Lehigh Valley.  Yet several years ago, I became very curious about the former textile industry of Easton, PA (my hometown).

While a textile historian would be familiar with the Onondaga Silk Company, the origins of Easton’s textile manufacturing are much older.  Herman Simon (1850-1913), a German emigre, was the man that brought silk to Easton.  Simon had an early appreciation for textiles, and attended school at both the Hassell’s Institute and Royal Weaving School from 1862-1867.

At the age of 18, Simon moves to New York, and started working at A.T. Stewart & Company, a wholesale silk department.  After learning the trade, Simon decided to stat his own operation.  In 1874, along with his brother Robert, Herman Simon built a silk mill in Union Hill, NJ – establishing the R. & H. Simon Company.  The mill was three stories high, and contained 165 handlooms, as well as looms Robert invented himself to produce grosgrain silk.   R. & H. Simon Company became so successful that a 9 acre plant is built in Easton in 1883.

During it’s heyday, the Easton mill operated 24 hours a day, 6 days a week.  It’s daily output was 12,000 yards of broad silk, and variable amounts of silk ribbon and velvet.  The company also employed 1200 workers.

Herman had run the company as sole proprietor since the death of his brother in 1901.  In 1913, Herman died.  He willed $3,000,000 to his employees and ensured the continuance of the company.  The company remained in business, thanks to the vogue for silk velvets.  Yet to keep a positive cash flow, the company leased parts of the factory to other manufacturers.  In 1933, the R&H Simon Company mill in Easton was purchased by the Onondaga Silk Company.

 

The Onondaga Silk Company was extremely active in creating fashionable textiles.  However, they are best known for their American Artists prints in the late 1940s.  The silk company collaborated with six American artists  to style unique fabrics.  The collaboration was described in the New York Times:

Onondaga’s aim . . . was not to turn the painter into a textile designer, but rather to make intelligent and expert use for fashion of the motifs, coloring and style expressed by his special talents . . . to catch the spirit of the fine painter’s work on fabric is a real contribution to modern American fashion. (New York Times, December 17, 1946.  Page 41.)

The artists participating were: Gladys Rockmor Davis, Dong Kingman, Waldo Pierce, Doris Rosenthal, Julien Bindord, and William C. Palmer.  Their works were exhibited at the Midtown Galleries.  The exhibition was entitled The American Artists Print Series.  A fashion show was also included, and designers such as Sophie of Saks and Nettie Rosenstein participated.

 

The Onondaga Silk Company created stunning prints that were used by many fashionable couturiers and designers.  Ultimately, the mill had difficulty competing with the quality and price of synthetic fabrics, like rayon.  It operated throughout the 1970s with difficulty.  The mill was closed in 1981.

 

 

Today, the city of Easton is seeking to revitalize the old mill.  Potential uses for the building include a community arts center or an artist-in-residence space.  The coolest part of this renaissance? Movies at the Mill, an annual outdoor film festival, where the movies are projected onto the facade of the old mill.  It’s good to be home!

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One of my favorite fashion models of all time is Veruschka.  You may have read my previous article on her body paint photography series called Oxydationen.  It’s a topic that fascinates me, and worthy of taking a second look.  (If you’re new to the site, please check it out.)  You can imagine my delight when I found this Life Magazine from 1967 with Veruschka herself on the cover.  What a lucky find!

The article resembles a scrapbook rather than a traditional interview, with 9 pages of photographs interspersed with quotations.  An additional 2-page article is included afterward.  The 6-foot-4 amazonian beauty offers candid insights into the life of being a supermodel:

I want to fly.  I want to be free.  But I feel I know only half of myself.  I must know more – then when I stand in front of that little box, each time – click! – it gives me an answer.  That’s my whole life right then.  There’s nothing else.  Funny, the camera’s my friend.

Although she was the most sought-after supermodel, Veruschka was very down to earth.  She explained that between jobs she wandered around in old clothes, and lived in a furnitureless apartment in Rome.

Yet, like a true supermodel, Veruschka knew her role well.  Her private life may have been simple, but she was careful to keep up appearances.

It’s like being in a zoo.  It’s like a charge of wild animals.  But you can’t afford not to look good or people will say, ‘Oh, look how terrible Veruschka looks.’  You must keep playing a part.

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The holiday season always makes me count my blessings.  And this year, I realized that a lot of the things I’m grateful for revolve around my blog.  Aside from being a creative outlet that I so desperately need, I’ve actually made quite a few friends from the experience.

One of my dearest friendships is with Lizzie Bramlett, creator of The Vintage Traveler.  She is one of the most interesting people I know!  Her blog is fantastic.  Being able to read about her travels and participate in her vintage treasure hunting and musing on fashion history is totally engrossing.  I always look forward to receiving her posts emailed right to my inbox.  As our friendship grew, we have been able to collaborate on many things.

One of our latest collaborations involved Dilys Blum’s talk on surrealist hats.  Her talk was part of the public programming to celebrate Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones, a current exhibition at Bard Graduate Center.  Thanks to Lizzie, I was able to attend the talk.  To show my gratitude for her information, I wrote a guest post for her.  The article, A Light-hearted Look at the Surrealist Hat, was posted a few days ago.  Won’t you take a look?  I think you’ll love her site as much as I do.  You’ll also see the surrealist influence on fashion, past and present.

 

 

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Holiday gift-giving can be stressful.  Those special people in our lives can be impossible to shop for.  What do you give to the person that has everything?  Or the family member that “doesn’t want anything“?  The rapidly approaching deadline is leaving your head and wallet hurting.  My advice?  Give the gift of tea.  It is unique, relaxing, and economic.  And Spices and Tease in Manhattan has the perfect variety.

 

A few weeks ago, I went to the Upper West Side location.  The abundance of exotic, brightly hued teas rivaled a painters palette.  I was dazzled by the lush colors.  Each selection had a delicious scent, and I enjoyed deliberating which tea to try first.  It was such a fun experience, and I hadn’t even tasted it yet!

 

Loose tea aside, Spices and Tease offer all of tea accoutrements needed.  They are displayed quite artfully, and give the store a zen atmosphere.  This atmosphere just reinforces the fact that drinking tea is a great way to unwind.  And I suspect everyone on your gift list could use more relaxation.  Why not treat them to what they really need this year?

 

As the name suggests, spices are also available for purchase.  But my favorite surprise were the handmade soaps from Marseille.  There were a dozen available scents, each deliciously fragrant.

Gift sets are available, allowing you to sample  6 different teas.  Make sure to get yours before the holiday.

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Antwerp is usually known as the Diamond Capital of the world.  But a unique exhibition is changing the focal point in town.  Katoen Natie, a logistics company, is hosting a textile exhibition featuring rare 3500 year old pieces.

 

Scattered over six different spaces, the collection has brought together more than six hundred objects.  Most pieces are from Egyptian antiquity, and beautifully preserved.  The exhibit is divides the textiles into halls, each of which has a theme of influence: Coptic, Roman, Islamic, and Fabrics of Trade.  The highlight of the exhibition is the largest collection of complete tunica’s in the world

 

The exhibition is also interactive, featuring touchscreen didactics and, my favorite, a video showing conservators restoring the textiles!  Please watch this video, which showcases the exhibition and interviews curator Caroline Dekyndt (in Dutch): 3500 year old textiles 

Stills from the video are below, along with links for more information about the exhibition.  This article was made possible by Eric Nieuwenhuis.  Please follow him on Twitter for great information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conservators are truly our unsung museum heroes.  I’m thankful for all of them, especially the team that worked on this exhibition!

Links:

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The fall season always ushers in grey, rainy days.  Baring a tempest, I enjoy these days quite a bit.  The reason rainy days are so interesting to me is observing the change in my environment.  Everyday, I pass by the HSBC tower and look at a painting called Hefer Valley by Yadid Rubin.

It’s a massive canvas depicting the sun shining down on a field being plowed.  I always enjoy walking by this painting.  The bold colors are rhythmically applied, and almost seem to vibrate off the canvas, out of the lobby, and onto the street.  Undoubtedly, Hefer Valley is an impressive piece.  Yet it seemed absolutely transcendental as I passed by in the rain.

The absence of natural sunlight allowed me to see the luminosity of the colors in the painting in a different way.  Luminosity is the measurement of brightness and radiance.  When ambient lighting changes, our eyes adjust and perceive luminosity differently.

Most days, I will look and smile as I walk by.  But yesterday, I just had to cross the street and enter the building to take a closer look.

 

 

The way that Rubin applies paint to the canvas reminds me of the way textiles are woven together.  He doesn’t just use one color, but layers bold, impasto hues next to one another to create depth and harmony.  From a distance, the eye can blend these areas together to create an image.  Up-close, the experience of viewing the work is much different.  Woven textiles are similar in this way.  Many different color threads and yarns can create a rich combination.  A great example of this is Harris Tweed.  The Vintage Traveler recently discussed the richness of Harris Tweed- it uses four yarns for a single color.  It’s this blending of these that creates a beautiful textile

 

 

Viewing Hefer Valley made me curious.  I’d never heard of Yadid Rubin before.  After a little research, I learned that Rubin (1938) is a prominent Israeli landscape artist that paints in his closed, windowless studio.  Now this fact resonated with me.  Rubin controls the amount of ambient light while he paints.  This must be why my reaction to the painting was so different in the rain– this was the way Rubin observed his canvas while creating.

 

Rubin explained why he works in a closed, windowless studio:

 I paint the landscape of the kibutz [a collective farm or settlement owned by its members in Isreal], but in fact these are the landscapes of the soul.  I don’t paint out of plain observation, but out of the accumulation of sensations and reactions to different conditions of nature.[1]

 

 

 

So it is possible to have sunshine on a cloudy day.

 

For more of Rubin’s work, please visit chelouchgallery.com

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A few weeks ago, Brenna Barks took us on a lovely virtual tour of the 2011 Nordic Fashion Biennale at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, Washington.  Ever since, I’ve been dreaming of the gorgeous knitwear and researching contemporary Nordic designers.  This has been easy since the Nordic Fashion Biennale has a Facebook page, and “likes” many designers.

The museum and Biennale wanted to generate interest in Nordic fashion, but also to engage emerging designers on the West Coast.  To do this, they held The North by Northwest (Nx NW) design competition.  The challenge was to be inspired by Nordic design, and create a wearable garment or accessory.

The winners were announced today.  Sarah Borruso, a native of San Francisco, won the juried section of the competition.  Borruso studied fashion at Parsons School of Design. She currently lives and works in San Francisco, where she launched her own women’s clothing line, Stars + Ravens.

 

Each contestant was asked to describe how their entry was inspired by Nordic design. Borruso wrote, “This three-layered silk dress was inspired by a textile design called Play of Lines by the Finnish designer Dora Jung. Her textile—which won the Grand Prix at the 11th Trienniale in Milan in 1957—literally inspired me to “play with lines.” While Jung’s piece played with black and white lines on the warp and weft of her loom, my piece involved cutting lines free from cloth. The ultimate effect is a bit of an optical illusion—razor-cut transparent black lines overlap and intersect to create various shades of grey, grey-green, black and turquoise on the surface of the dress.”

 

 

The winner of the People’s Choice Award was Meg Lord.  She created the Felt Jacket of un-dyed merino wool, which she hand-felted. Lord, who is based in Portland, Oregon, is a senior studying Apparel Design at the Art Institute of Portland. Lord wrote, “This garment was inspired by the Oseberg and Gokstad Viking ships. The craftsmanship is inspiring not only for the wood carvings on the front keel but for the beautiful overlapping oak shell that curves around the frame and comes to a point at the stern and bow. I incorporated the strips of felt to curve around the body and arms in the same fashion. The use of wool and felting has a very strong history in Nordic culture and with wool being a renewable resource; it is immensely versatile and sustainable.”

 

 

 

Borruso and Lord each won an all-expense-paid trip to Reykjavik, Iceland for the 2012 Reykjavik Fashion Week.  For more information on the contest, please visit www.nordicfashionbiennale.com

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