Regarding this quote, "[On a side note, history of costume would be of little help to a fashion design major - unless it covers the history of modern fashion or period fashion is become a mainstream revival without my knowledge.]"
I disagree completely and must say so. Inspiration for new fashion designs comes from more than just the last century, from much more than just modern fashion. Designers look everywhere for their inspiration. Historic costume is one of the most valuable resources that any modern fashion designer can have. Fashion design majors need to study historic costume, both for inspiration and to understand where fashion came from. That 'history of costume would be of little help to a fashion design major' is just not right. I'm really, truly not out to start a fight here. I teach History of Costume. I also teach or have taught almost every class in one of those Fashion Design programs. I'm working to get more costume-oriented classes into our overall curriculum, to build up our Costume Construction certificate and to help open up job options for students in an area where there are several theater costume shops, but almost no apparel production. I'd like to suggest that taking some Costume History courses might surprise you. One of my major assignments, which happens every week of the course, has my students looking at modern fashion for details and elements that have their roots in historic apparel, all the way from ancient Egypt to the 20th century. It's truly wonderful to see how their perspective on fashion and the whole industry changes and grows. It seems like this is turning into a battle between the Fashion Design program people and the Historic Costume people. It shouldn't. We're all very much part of the same wonderful world of apparel and textiles...old and new. Don't you just love it? Laurie T. Phoenix _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
