Think that fall formal dress was expensive?
How about a $15,000 green silk Mariano Fortuny dress from the 1930s?
Unfortunately, it’s not for sale. The exquisite handmade Delphos dress from the famed Italian designer is one of eight costumes featured in the new “Gems from the costume collection of the Evanston Historical Society” exhibit. Northwestern Theatre Department Chairman Prof. Virgil Johnson told the stories behind the costumes Thursday night to about 35 people at the Charles Gates Dawes House, 225 Greenwood St.
For example, forget the dry-cleaning bill on that knee-length Fortuny dress. When it was damaged, it had to be shipped to Venice so Fortuny could re-pleat the dress by hand, a process the designer reportedly conducted underwater.
Fortuny also is famous for medieval dresses, each tailored with hand-drawn designs. The society owns one, a ruby-red dress with 24-karat gold stencil, but it is not displayed in the exhibit.
Both Fortuny dresses were donated by the late Evanston caterer Vera Megowen. Costumes curator Janet Messmer said 99 percent of the society’s costumes were donated, often before costume collecting was valued. Only recently have museums taken such collections seriously, she said.
That’s lucky for Messmer, who had more than 10,000 garments to choose from. She spent four months preparing this exhibit choosing dresses that highlighted a range of eras, some of which have left few remaining objects of private life.
“The 1830s dress … where are you going to see 1830s things?” Messmer said.
Messmer was referring to the oldest costume in the exhibit, which dates from 1838-1840. It is a light gray floral jacquard, a fabric with an elaborately woven pattern produced on a special loom. The dress, like all the costumes in the exhibit, exemplifies a historical fashion trend. This particular dress features puffy sleeves and a large skirt, made just as those trends were gaining popularity.
Other costumes included a deep raspberry-velvet silk day dress from the 1850s and a gray shadow-plaid wool outfit from 1903.
“You have a sense of the different kinds of history reflected in these costumes,” Evanston resident Patricia Widmayer said. “I think it’s particularly interesting to take a look at different eras and what women valued.”
One of the values was the ideal body shape, be it the high skirt in the rear or simply thin waistlines. Often, these shapings were accomplished using corsets, Johnson said, which sometimes pushed women’s lungs up into their chests.
“You think of grace on one side,” Widmayer said, referring to the women who wore the dresses. “On the other side you think (the women) were ornaments … the limitations of motion in the name of beauty.”
These fashions can now be enjoyed painlessly through the end of April at the Dawes House.
