A Labyrinth of Dreams

Dr. Colleen Hill, senior curator of costume at the Museum at FIT, has outdone herself once again. Her latest exhibition for MFIT, Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities, is a thrill for the senses, and a chance to expand knowledge and appreciation for history and craftsmanship—a notion further strengthened by The Wondrous Objects Symposium.

“The items on view are meant to spark curiosity in their rarity, beauty and originality,” Fashion Institute of Technology president Dr. Joyce F. Brown tells attendees. “Each of us will find a connection to them.”

Cabinets of curiosities date back to 16th-century Europe, according to Mark Dion, a conceptual artist who hosted the “Wonder Rooms” talk at the symposium. The cabinets were rooms of valued and often rare art, furniture and other special trinkets. Etchings of Renaissance-era cabinets depict large spaces messily filled from floor to ceiling. However, there was a method to the madness, as Dion describes in the beginning of his presentation. 

The cabinets were “organized around very complex cosmologies and allegories,” he explains. The placement of objects in the cabinets of curiosities served the very purpose of their name: to spark interest and fascination in the visitor, to make a sensory impact on them and to expose them to a story of adventure and wonder. 

Dr. Hill used these elements when curating and designing Fashioning Wonder. Driven to push herself creatively and by the images and history of the cabinets that she researched for five years while accomplishing her doctorate at the London College of Fashion, Dr. Hill became compelled to curate a fashion version of the cabinets of curiosities using items in MFIT’s permanent collection.

“I was basically making my own interpretation of these cabinets,” she explains.

Stressing the word curiosity, Dr. Hill hired a psychologist to help give “a labyrinthian feel to the space” that goes hand-in-hand with the brain’s exploratory drive. She executed this psychological vision within a series of defined categories: observation, attention, novelty and interest. 

The observation category of Fashioning Wonder encourages visitors to take a finer look at the objects within the cabinets. Dr. Hill explains that they “also have a psychology behind them. Even if we understand what one of these objects is or is meant to be, we tend to be more curious about them and look more closely.” 

She adds that when designing the exhibition space and curating for it, she heavily considered how others would look at and interpret the objects.

Artisanship played a role in this, and Dr. Hill had an entire cabinet dedicated to this ideal. She hopes viewers will ponder the tools and labor that went into creating the objects in the artisanship cabinet—the unique and personal touches that went into the miniatures that perhaps take a few extra glances to really notice and appreciate.

The symposium offered fellow researchers and collectors the opportunity to showcase their passion projects. Like the pieces in the Fashioning Wonder exhibition, historical information serves as another segue into curiosity.

Following Dr. Hill’s speech, historian, author, and FIT associate professor Hilary Davidson spoke about the material, artistic, and cultural legacies of the iconic ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. She discusses their “magical, wondrous allure,” and how they’re a “recognizable symbol distinct from the film’s context.”

Next, author and historian Mei Mei Rado hosts “A Lady’s Fan: Accessorizing Modern Femininity in Republican China.” Rado presents fans’ symbolism for women, who during the 1920s gained more rights, as China’s culture became westernized.

During “Draping Innovation: Cristóbal Balenciaga and the Sari,” curator and fashion cultures and histories lecturer Jason Cyrus discusses the fashion house’s numerous interpretations of the sari. 

Peabody Essex Museum fashion curator Petra Slinkard chronicles designer Iris Apfel’s “compulsion to collect,” and how it inspired Slinkard’s curation of Apfel and her husband’s clothing for an exhibition. Then, antiques collector and dealer Evan Michelson discusses “Ephemeral Beauties: Wax Women and the Dawn of Consumer Culture.”

An emphasis on craftsmanship is abundant throughout the symposium. Specifically, Mohawk jewelry designer Niio Perkins and jewelry and home decor designer Ted Muehling are interviewed by Dr. Hill on the nature of their respective works. Both Perkins and Muehling have creations featured in Fashioning Wonder. 

When asked about which of their designs he considers a “signature” of his work, Muehling references a rice earring, citing that “it’s nothing, but yet for me it’s everything. You can get power out of the small.” Similar to how Dr. Hill motivates museum guests to engage with the small objects in the exhibition, Muehling enjoys the intimacy that comes with his jewelry, the ability to “draw someone closer.”

Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities was on display at the Museum at FIT from February 19 to April 20.