Mennos in the City

This week I got some unexpected news. I was offered a room at Menno House to live for the next year. Menno House is a brownstone in Gramercy that houses people who are doing Mennonite Voluntary Service (sort of like the Mennonite version of Americorps), other volunteers and low-income do-gooders, and a couple of lucky people who aren’t saving the world but sneak in anyway. The place is nice and the rent is ridiculously cheap for Manhattan. It will be community living--shared kitchen, living room, and bathrooms--but that appeals to me. John and I have been getting along great, but I do feel sort of isolated in Park Slope. If I want to go out or spend time with people it has to be a planned event and requires a 40 minute ride into the city. Living with a bunch of people certainly has downsides, but I lived in a 10 person house in college, and it was a blast (Yeah Foster House!!). Plus, I’m excited to live in Manhattan and have the serious city living experience.

Once I decided to accept the room, I spent some time exploring the Menno House website. It was awesome. Specifically, it has surprisingly in-depth information about the house’s history. The building itself was built in 1851, which is fun because that year has another cool historical association (gold star to any non-MOHAI person who knows). Then, there is this picture:

The Mennonites apparently moved in during the 1950s. The house was used as a lodging place for conscientious objectors (and their wives) who were coming to the city to fulfill their alternate service requirement. Sadly, plain dress and bonnets are no longer required. I sort of wish they were. My life could turn into some straight-to-DVD movie. Clara is a good Mennonite at home BUT on the walk to work she pulls off her cotton sack dress to reveal sassy, modern clothing! Instead of spending her days picking lice off of orphans, she is studying fashion! Hilarity ensues when she forgets to take off her bonnet before class and her housemates get suspicious when they catch a glimpse of pink under her hem!

Farther down on the history page is an article about the house from a 1966 Mennonite magazine. It starts like this:

New York City--center of world trade, skyscrapers, riots, United Nations and eight million people--was virtually unknown to Mennonites in the past. It was a huge city that was far enough away from our Mennonite communities that it did not pose a great threat to us. It was a place where we occasionally went to see missionaries off to some foreign land, a place we passed through en route to the New England States, or a place where a few daring tourists "saw the town."

Wow. ...pose a great threat...a few daring tourists... Where else would someone list the top 5 New York identifiers and include “riots”?

But sadly, things have changed. The Menno House I will be living in will be tragically in step with the times. It will probably look more like this:

Tsk tsk.

(Move in date is September 1st)

So...hot...can barely...type

One of my fears about this summer was how I would handle the heat in New York. I have done my fair share of traveling in my life, but I have never spent the summer somewhere other than Seattle. Yesterday, instead of the traditional overcast-with-a-chance-of-rain July 4th, it was 97 degrees and humid. I went to Long Island for a cookout, and spent most of the day in my classmate's parents' yard, trying to pretend that it was cool in the shade. Once I got some potato salad and sangria in me, I was done. I asked my host if it would be weird if I went inside and took a nap. What could she say? I crawled onto an available soft surface and passed out. I woke up in time to consume some pie, ice cream, and sangria.

The other thing I have been discovering is that I really do not own enough warm weather clothes. It seems like every day I open my closet hoping to put on a light, flowy dress, only to find that the majority of my wardrobe consists of pants, heavy skirts, and tops with sleeves. But even if my closet was packed with sleeveless cotton dresses, I would still struggle with my summer clothing concept. Both places I work are very air conditioned. The problem is particularly bad for the Met. In order to get there I have to take my regular train as far north into Manhattan as it will go, get out at a stop that must be the deepest underground stop in the whole metro system, walk up four long escalators (standing is for tourists), walk above ground for four blocks, enter another subway station (most subway cars are air conditioned but the stations are ovens), get on a train, get out, and then walk several blocks to the Met. No matter what I am wearing or how cool it is that day I am inevitably sweaty when I get there. But within an hour I'm reaching for my sweater and wondering why I didn't think to wear tights. We are not required to wear lab coats but I usually appreciate the extra layer it provides.

There is one perk of the hot weather. Because cold and drizzly reminds me of home, hot and humid makes me think I'm on vacation. It doesn't happen when I am sweating in the subway station or trying to fall asleep, but sometimes when I go from a cool building into the heat, some pleasure center in my brain activates. It says "Mmm! Feel that? That is not was Seattle feels like! You must be far away, having some exciting summer adventure!"

“I don’t know anyone who wears pants anymore”

During the last few weeks of my 20^th century fashion history course, we got into some pretty heavy discussions about fashion theory and postmodernism. Besides the fact that that sentence is totally proof that grad students are the WORST, I’m sure a lot of you are trying to imagine what on earth constitutes “heavy fashion theory” and what postmodernism means in this context (or any context…really).

Well, before the 1960s each fashion era had a distinct set of rules. In Marie Antoinette’s day you dressed with various levels of formality for different settings. In the 19th century there were rules about what you wore for different times of day. In the first half of the 20th century, designers created head-to-toe looks where nothing was superfluous and everything went together. But in the postmodern era all the rules have been thrown out the window or turned upside-down. In the 1950s you wanted everything to match—your bag, shoes, gloves, and sometimes your dress and hat would all be the same color. But today, it is wrong if everything goes together too well. One of the favorite put-downs of the Project Runway judges is that an outfit is too “matchy-matchy.” Fashion magazines offer advice like “balance a soft, flowy dress with an edgy leather jacket.” Fashion today is all about putting things together that don’t belong and putting things with specific meaning into a different context.

Ok, so where am I going with this? Well kids, now we are going to talk about pantlessness. That’s right, postmodern fashion theory provides an intellectual context in which discuss the fact that an increasing number of women seem to be under the impression that leggings, tights—and in severe cases—pantyhose, can be substituted for pants. The trend has been around for a while, but it is going strong and has a pretty firm grip on the FIT undergrad population. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, Go Fug Yourself has a helpful tag called Look Into Pants.

The fancy grad school explanation is this: before the postmodern era each piece of clothing had a function. You had undergarments and outer-garments. You wore a dress or separates. If you wore separates, you would choose a skirt or pants. But in our upside-down postmodern fashion world you have underwear as outerwear (corset tops, slip dresses, shirts designed to look inside-out), too many layers (dress over pants), or too few (no pants). Everything is taken out of its original context and repurposed and re-imagined. This also explains why we seem to be stuck in an endless cycle of retro revivals. Postmodern fashion loves plucking things out of the past and using them again in a slightly different way. The result is an intentional discordant jumble.

My fashion history professor clearly hates postmodernism. You should have heard the way she coldly referred to dresses over pants as a “violation of genres.” But if you hate it too, there is hope. We’ve been in the clutches of postmodernism for a long time—over 40 years at this point. Chances are, something very different is just around the corner.

New Acquisitions

The Clara Collection has just acquired some exciting new objects. Join us for this special tour.

This piece actually entered the collection in April, but it is still exciting. The object is remarkably similar to a student ID already in the collection, with the chief difference being the color choices and the word "staff."

This piece is rumored to possess magical powers. Sources claim that display of this artifact will grant the owner free admission into any New York City museum, and 25% off in the Met gift shop.

This beautiful book was a gift from the Berg parents on the occasion of their daughter's 26th birthday. Scientists are still baffled by the mood-enhancing powers of embroidered sleeves.

This book was Clara's gift to herself on the occasion of her birthday. In 2009 the Brooklyn Museum transferred its entire costume collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The finest pieces from the transfer are included in this book and are also featured in two summer exhibitions (one at each institution). The remaining thousands are still being processed by the Met--an undertaking that requires the involvement of extra summer interns.

This object represents a departure for the Clara Collection, as it is not the type of object we usually collect. Clara's roommate was out of town for several days, during which period Clara took care of the cats. Upon returning from his journey (which apparently involved a visit to Graceland), John presented this mug as a reward for her labors. Clara immediately put it to use as storage for her retainer.

Your Anachronisms Enrage Me

This week a woman came in to do some costume research for a Hollywood movie. The film is set in the 1860s and 70s, and she was trying to find pictures of women in pants because the director wanted the young female lead to be a rebellious “tomboy.” The researcher understood that women didn’t really wear pants then, but the director was adamant, so she was trying to find some exceptions that would work. Hours later I found myself still grumbling about this, and tried to figure out why it annoyed me so much.

In our 21^st century worldview we have certain ideas about what makes a person strong, interesting, or powerful. We also tend to have biased views about people in the past, particularly women who lived before various waves of feminism. We act as if historical men and women had all the same options and ideas available to them, but that only a few were wise enough to think like us. Certainly, there have always been progressive forward-thinking people, but the picture gets warped if we try to fit our worldview into the past. One example of this is our contemporary idea that corsets = oppression and pants = liberation. When a movie shows a historical woman shunning her corset or wearing pants (recent example—Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland), the message to the audience is that this character is different than all the air-headed women around her! This woman is liberated and thinks for herself! You go girl!

Gag. This line of thinking offends me on so many levels. First of all, it implies that nearly all our female predecessors were vapid conformists simply because they existed in their own time. How close-minded of them not to think like people from hundreds of years later! It also completely misunderstands the clothing conventions of the day. The director for this unnamed film wants the female lead to be a “tomboy.” He or she probably imagines that a woman wearing pants would ruffle a few feathers, but that ultimately her plucky personality and free-thinking nature will win over whatever other characters we are supposed to root for. But think about this: In the early 20^th century a woman could be arrested for indecency if she was wearing pants in public. As bizarre as it sounds now, pants on women weren’t just surprising, to most eyes they probably looked downright vulgar.

This might be painful, but imagine the most inappropriate outfit you have ever seen. Something that wasn’t just ugly, but really over the line of good taste. Now imagine that in 50 years, that kind of clothing is pretty much standard attire, perhaps even considered demure. Now setting aside your urge to rant about culture going down the toilet and kids these days, just resign yourself to this theoretical possibility. Now imagine that in 100 years, someone is planning a film set in 2010 with a rebellious, liberated female character. To show how modern this character is, the director really wants her to be wearing pasties. Like, in public. She wears them at work, with friends, and out at restaurants. The costume designer tries to explain that, while pasties did have a place in strip shows and events organized by MTV, no woman in 2010 would walk around in daily life with exposed breasts and decorative nipple covers. “But this woman isn’t like other women!” the director explains, “she is edgy and ahead of her time!”

You see what I am getting at. Maybe in 2110 every strong, confident woman will wear pasties in public, but that doesn’t mean that without pasties a woman can’t be assertive or powerful. We might still be living under the yoke of breast-covering oppression, but we aren’t all conformist robots. Yes, women in the 19^th century (and 18^th…and 17^th…) lived under restrictive conditions, but they still found ways to be strong and shape the world around them. And they did it all while wearing long skirts and corsets. Deal with it.

Early Summer Report

I’ve had a few people ask me recently “What is your internship like? How’s the new job? Do the cats still love you?”

Well, first off, my internship hasn’t started, but that will change on Wednesday of this week. Stay tuned for juicy details about sewing labels to dresses.

I have, however, been at my new job for just over a month. Since I had been working in the department already as a work-study student, there wasn’t an immediate shift in my duties. My two coworkers seemed to expect that I already knew what I was doing, which meant that I spent quite bit of time sitting around nervously and trying to look busy. It didn’t help that other library employees would come by to congratulate me on getting the job and ask if I knew that 97 people had applied. Yeah. Thanks. No pressure. But I’ve been getting more assignments and projects and now feel like I have a list of things to do when I come in to work. Some recent highlights:

• When my boss was sick I was asked to go to an important meeting in her place. I met with archivists from the New York Public Library and Parson’s to discuss collaborating on a grant project.
• A woman introduced as “the most important designer in China” came by to get a tour of our collection and donate some gorgeous books. I had the honor of standing by and smiling like an idiot.
• I made time for a last-minute researcher who was doing work for a film. She spent about 2 hours hurriedly looking through some 1870s periodicals and then rushed out to meet with her assistant. Fifteen minutes later (after I had re-shelved all the material) she came back in and announced she had just gotten a call saying they had changed the time period for the film. She said she wanted to die and wondered if there was any chance that I could pull another set of things. I was scheduled to be off work soon, so I said no.
• My boss and I took a trip to a rare book dealer to spend some of our acquisition budget. We fell in love with a hilarious a cartoon book by Yves Saint Laurent about a little girl named Lulu who runs around Paris being terrible to people.
• One of my projects is to improve the department’s online presence. If you have facebook you can check out our page here, and you can also see images from the collection on flickr. For better or worse, twitter might be next.

Now for a cat update. I wasn’t able to convince Coco sleep on my bed for long. She forgave my roommate for being out of town and moved back in with him. But now he is out of town again—this time for 10 days—so I’m working on my evil plan to steal the cats’ affections. The only problem is that the summer heat has arrived and both are shunning anything that retains heat and spend all day splayed out on the floor looking dead.*

*They aren’t dead. I poke them occasionally to check. They don't really appreciate it.

Imaginary Scenarios of Superiority

You know how there are some stores that seem intimidating to walk into? Places where you assume the staff will size you up and then proceed to glare at you until you leave? Have you ever though to yourself "what would happen if I sauntered into to the Versace section of Nordstrom and just started trying things on?"

While I haven't yet mustered the audacity to shop in a high-end designer store, I've found myself fantasizing about doing so, and stunning people with my fashion history knowledge if anyone gives me a hard time. I mean, I might wear sweaters covered in cat hair, but I'm a fashion librarian.

Here is how I imagine it playing out:

Snobby Shopper: Ugh. I guess they let anyone in the store these days. I bet that girl, like, doesn't even know who Dior is.

Me: Hi. Actually I do. Probably more than you do.

Snobby Shopper: I am like, so sure.

Me: So I suppose you know who he worked for before opening his couture house in 1947?

Snobby Shopper: ...

Me: The answer you are looking for is Robert Piguet and then Lucien Lelong.

Bystanders: Wow. Amazing.

Sales Staff: Let's give her free things.