Spring Fashion & Textile Symposium

Today, I attended the Spring Fashion & Textile Symposium ay the Genesee Country Village and Museum. This was the third bi-annual fashion symposium.

Curator Brandon Brooks offered a captivating story of Hawaiian Kapa cloth, inspired by a dress in the RMSC collection. Brandon’s talks are always enjoyable. This time, I was so intrigued by how the fibers from a tree were pounded into cloth that I stopped taking notes.

The second speakers was Nellie Ludemann from the Seneca Falls Historical Society. (Nellie was one of the speakers at the Story of Fashion Symposium last Fall.) She spoke about the knitting mill in Seneca Falls, the longest running textile mill in New York. As an employer that hired predominantly women through most of the 20th century, I plan to follow future research. (The mill is now the home of the National Women’s Rights Hall of Fame.)

Lunch brought one of my favorite parts of these symposia: meeting new people. (Psst, I have a particular table I sit at, and see who sits down.) This lunch evolved into a fascinating discussion of math in fiber arts. I suspect if one of us didn’t check the time, we could have carried on exploring the discussion for another hour.

The first speaker after lunch was Angela from Burnley and Trowbridge. She presented part of her ongoing research based on a token book, a log of children that included swatches of their (or their parent’s) clothing for identification purposes. This hour was packed with so much information.

The final presentation of the day was from Rabbit Goody of Thistle Hill Weavers. She took us on a journey through some of her experiences producing and reproducing textiles for sites, cinema, and theater.