As many of you know, Chic Chicago: Couture Treasures from the Chicago History Museum first opened in New York at the Fashion Institute of Technology in October of 2007. Many days were spent looking through hundreds and hundreds of costume items from the museum’s permanent collection for the exhibition’s object list. Since FIT is a fashion museum, many of the items were selected due to their fashion connection and less so for their connections to Chicago.

When we brought the show back to CHM, we replaced many objects with items that had a stronger connection to Chicago to show off the strengths of our collection. For instance, some of the items shown at FIT were important to fashion history but were worn by women who were born in Chicago but spent their entire life in another city. We wanted to make sure that the exhibition at CHM presented items worn by Chicago women who were Chicagoans at the time they wore the item.

Furthermore, some of the items we showed at FIT were “cut” from the CHM exhibition since they were too fragile to handle a year plus of exhibition time. We replaced those items with more stable pieces. Here are five of the objects that were excluded from the CHM exhibition, although they are included in the exhibition catalog.

Cristobal Balenciaga
Evening gown and jacket
Pink ribbed silk satin, black net, glass beads
France, 1955
Worn by donor, Mrs. Henry R. Luce, née Clare Booth
1965.616a-c

Balenciaga is said to have dressed “everybody who is somebody” – from the Duchess of Windsor to Barbara Hutton. The use of black is characteristic of Balenciaga, who drew inspiration from Spanish aristocratic fashion during the age of Velasquez. In 1955, Clare Booth Luce paid $1,700 for this Balenciaga evening gown and jacket. In 2007 dollars, that would be approximately $13,000 – much less than one would expect to pay for a comparable couture ensemble today.

Clare Booth Luce was born in Chicago but was moved to another city shortly after her birth. She is best known as a playwright (The Women) and a politician (Republican Senator). In the 1950s, she wore this Balenciaga evening gown while serving as Ambassador to Italy.

Charles Frederick Worth
Teagown
France, c. 1900
Printed white silk gauze, silk chain stitch, white lace
Worn by Mrs. Colin Powys, née Nancy Lathrop Carver Leiter
1969.134

“Every one knows that a tea-gown is a hybrid between a wrapper and a ball dress,” wrote Emily Post. “It has always a train and usually long flowing sleeves; is made of rather gorgeous materials and goes on easily.”

It caused museum staff great frustration to remove this piece from the exhibition. Unfortunately, the very light silk taffeta and chiffon was simply too fragile to stay on exhibition for over a year. When exhibiting this piece in New York, many professional photos were taken and we now have a visual record of the object for future use. It will cost anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 to conserve this piece for future exhibitions.

Callot Soeurs
Evening gown, 1921
1960.572

This stunning evening gown is one of the most beautiful creations from the House of Callot Soeurs in the museum’s permanent collection. It is one of dozens of Callot Soeurs pieces worn by Mrs. Potter Palmer II and then later donated to the Chicago History Museum. Unfortunately, the beautiful gold lame brocade fabric, micro-seed bead trim, and large brooch are so heavy that the very light and sheer shoulder straps started to disintegrate. Furthermore, the weight of the gown was so heavy on the straps that the lame started to split under its own weight. Although conservation will eventually fix these problems, staff could simply not fix it in time for the opening in Chicago.

Jeanne Lanvin
Evening gown, 1937
1981.70.7

Jeanne Lanvin was known for her playful use of embroidery and called this gown her “carp dress” due to the aquatic theme and the large sequined carp at the knee. Unfortunately, the thread used to hand-stitch each sequin is starting to wear and is simply breaking. But don’t worry! As each sequin falls from the gown, we keep it in an archival zip-lock bag so we can eventually fix the gown, stitch by stitch. Due to the fragile thread, we decided to take this piece off of exhibition and let it rest until a trained hand can re-stitch each and every sequin.

Paul Poiret
Coat, 1923
1950.259

The Chicago History Museum has one of the larger collections of items made by the French couturier, Paul Poiret. This collection is so important that museums around the world request to borrow many of our Poiret items. Although Chic Chicago is the first time this coat was ever on exhibition, we decided to not show it in Chicago since we already had a Poiret piece in the exhibition. Furthermore, we also already had another item in the exhibition that was worn by the same woman who wore this coat, Mrs. Walter Paepcke. For many items, space was the final decision maker. I would have loved to included hundred and hundreds of more objects, but the gallery can only hold so many items.

Tags: Chic Chicago, Conservation, Couture, Fashion, History, Timothy Long

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