The dresses were decidedly not for the common woman. Whether African American or white, she could never in her lifetime wear the beautifully tailored 1890s wedding gown handmade by Mrs. G.W. Wright or the couture Paris fashions from two to three decades later.
But that was not the aim of a new fashion exhibit at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. It was a limited exhibit with about three dozen articles of clothing and accoutrements to tell the story of how Philadelphia impacted fashion for more than a century.
When a friend sent me an email about a preview of the exhibit, I called on fashion expert and stylist Cheryl Wadlington to come along. Cheryl attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and has an extensive background in fashion history. She’s a style consultant with her own firm, Evoluer Image Consultants, and founder of a program for inner-city girls that teaches them to love themselves while preparing them for careers.
I was particularly interested in getting her take on the show, because I know very little about the world of fashion except clothing myself.
The exhibit bore a long title: “Philadelphia in Style: A Century of Fashion from the Robert & Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection, Drexel University.” It presented mostly high-fashion garments that were “made, worn or sold in Philadelphia,” and runs through June 26. The earliest garment in the exhibit was from 1896 and the latest, 1993.
The Drexel collection itself contains 14,000 garments and other fashion accessories spanning four centuries, according to exhibit materials. They were donated by top designers, members of Philadelphia’s wealthy and were from the international best-dressed list. The selections for the exhibit were chosen by several curators.
What Cheryl and I found missing was a mention of African American designers, especially since the 1970s were “the glory days” of black designers, she noted.
“When you asked me to come I looked at the materials, and my concerns were whether they were going to speak about the authenticity of fashion and the truth in terms of diversity,” she said. “The ‘70s were the glory days. I didn’t see that. It was a heyday for people of color (designers, illustrators).”
“I would’ve loved to have seen more authenticity as it applied to the real world of fashion as it applied to Philadelphia.”
All of those 1970s designers were not from Philadelphia, except for Willi Smith, who was born and grew up here before moving to New York (he designed the groom and groomsmen attire at Caroline Kennedy’s wedding). Perhaps, of the 14,000 garments in the collection, no one donated a Willi Smith outfit. Or perhaps no one thought to include him in the show.
The exhibit began with an 1896 wedding gown by a prominent Philadelphia dressmaker named Mrs. G.W. Wright for a woman who wore it for a “very pink and pretty” affair.
Philadelphia had its share of dressmakers and seamstresses way before Mrs. Wright made this dress. Among African Americans, female slaves made clothes for both plantation families and their own (theirs were made from harsh fabrics). Textile production and weaving had long been a tradition among African peoples, dating back to the 11th century.
George Washington’s slave, Oney Judge, was a seamstress to the president’s wife Martha. As were the free black women Letitia George, wife of abolitionist William Still, and Hetty Burr, a 19th-century abolitionist, both living in Philadelphia. Latter day, Rosa Parks was also a seamstress.
“Those were the skills they utilized since slavery,” Cheryl said in answer to a question about seamstresses who worked from home. “They had the sharpest skills imaginable that they brought with them from Africa. That was passed down from generation to generation. So when you talk about tailoring and couture, you have to put African American slaves among the best. Without question.”
One of the most famous seamstresses during slavery was Elizabeth Kechley, who learned the trade so well that she was able to make money by hiring herself outside the plantation. She eventually bought her freedom, and moved to Washington, DC, where she became the dressmaker for President Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.
Another was Allie P. White of Philadelphia. “I used to go to her house in North Philly,” said Cheryl, who was a teenager at the time. “I modeled for her. She could sew!” White made clothes for the black elite in the city, she added.
During the late 19th century and beyond, African American seamstresses seemed to abound, because dressmaking was one of the few independent businesses open to them. They could work from home; some built their business around their husband’s establishments.
In 1859 Philadelphia, dressmaking was the No. 1 occupation of free black women of middle-class status who were not domestics. Although the city had many clothing manufacturing plants, seamstresses were denied jobs in them. Dressmaking at home carried over into the first half of the 20th century.
Later, large department stores in Philadelphia, such as John Wanamaker and Strawbridge & Clothier, offered dressmaking services in their main stores. Eventually, dressmaker garments made way for ready-to-wear clothing.
Cheryl could see the African influence in some of the clothing in the exhibit, and wondered about the connection of African American seamstresses to others:
The 1896 wedding gown:
“That’s very elaborate,” she said. “A lot of times the details are according to your place in society. That dress has the same aesthetics as the dresses that Elizabeth Keckley wore (in a photo we had seen of Mary Todd Lincoln’s dressmaker).”
Day dress, Henri Bendel, circa 1915:
It resembles “the dresses that (homemakers) would wear, if you look at the bodice. Seamstresses can draw inspiration from their everyday life. That clearly looks like a knockoff from a utility style of (homemaker dress).”
Day Ensemble, Irene Leitz Gibbons, 1952-53:
“This is not so much an American aesthetic when you see that zigzag print. You still see a lot of those patterns in African culture. That’s a good example of African-inspired American fashion in terms of the textile and zigzag print.”
Day Dress, Albert Nipon, 1980:
He was based in Philadelphia, and had black designers working for him.
Here’s more of what Cheryl had to say:
“What’s your take on the exhibit?
I would love to see more richness and diversity. In the American perspective, the real diversity of fashion is never told. I don’t see a lot of the seamstresses and the craftsmen that I know. … You had Willi Smith (who designed “street couture” as well as clothes for the wealthy), Stephen Burrows (born in Newark, NJ) who hit the landscape with color.”
“But even before that, you had Ann Lowe (a New York designer who made Jackie Kennedy’s wedding gown and clothing for the duPonts, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts). Her clothes were in Bergdorf’s. She was known for making dresses for some of the wealthiest women in America.”
“When it comes to fashion, there’s a lot lost particularly when it relates to people of color.”
Maybe black women who owned these designer clothes did not gift them, I noted, and that’s why there’s no African American presence.
“I’m sure some of them did. Black Americans have so many other issues that they don’t have the luxury to be thinking about who I’m going to give my stuff to. (But) that is something to consider.”
Cheryl noted that Eunice Johnson of the Ebony magazine empire put together a million-dollar collection of some of the top designers in the world for her Ebony Fashion Fair shows. An exhibition featuring 100 outfits are on tour.
