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Cooperative Extension Service Communications and Technology Department 3354 1000 E. University Ave. Laramie, WY 82071 (307) 766-6342 • fax (307) 766-3998 • www.uwyo.edu |
For Immediate Release
Story contact:
Sonya Meyer (307) 766-5152
Contact: Steven L. Miller, Senior Editor
Phone: (307) 766-6342
E-mail: slmiller@uwyo.edu
Archived News Site www.uwyo.edu/agadmin/news/news.htm
Date: April 24, 2007
Students’
final exam is summer exhibits at Laramie Plains Museum
A final exam will last all summer for students in a Department of Family and Consumer Sciences class at the University of Wyoming.
Students in a historic clothing class in the College of Agriculture have identified and researched selected areas in Victorian fashion and will install their exhibits May 3 at the Laramie Plains Museum. Those exhibits, ranging from era undergarments to flapper dresses, will stay in place throughout the museum’s summer season.
Associate Professor Sonya Meyer’s class separated into teams of two to develop exhibits. Kristin Schneider and Jessica Jensen, both of Cheyenne, were drawn by the changing of women’s lives in the flapper era. “It’s an interesting time period,” said Jensen, majoring in FCS textiles and merchandising.
“It was a time when women were starting to come out, be more independent. It’s interesting to see the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries,” said Schneider, majoring in history.
The flapper was a symbol of coming of age for women. They threw off the chains of a Victorian era and, it seems, several layers of clothing.
Aniis Hopkins, Winter Springs, Florida, and Hannah Stayner, Jackson, both FCS majors with a textiles and merchandising option, Angie Woods, Cheyenne, majoring in art, and Nicole Canete, Custer, S.D., a theater and dance major, are preparing a display of undergarments and men’s and women’s wear.
A properly clad Victorian woman wore a lot of clothes in public. The first layer, said Canete, was a chemise (like a slip), then a corset, a corset cover, drawers, several layers of petticoats and then a dress. When not in public and at home, she may have worn a simple frock.
A Victorian woman was a status symbol, said Alli Boomgaarden of Burns. “The attitude was display yourself to the best of your ability.”
Boomgaarden and her project partner, Katie Champlin, Cheyenne, both FCS majors, will outfit a display of children’s wear. Young boys might wear sailor outfits and girls something frilly.
The exhibit will be in a kitchen, and adult working class fashion will also be highlighted. The head of the household may be a status symbol but the governess, butler and maid were not. “It was definitely simple,” Boomgaarden said of the clothing. “It was a lot looser fitting and black or white with some sort of design.”
Boomgaarden, with an option in interior design, and Champlin, with an option in textiles and merchandising, will use garments from the museum and also from the FCS department’s Elinor Hitchcock Mullens Historical Clothing Collection.
Deisy Vaske of Laramie, an FCS major with an option in textiles and merchandising, said young children weren’t considered part of the Victorian family. They were “guests” until about age 6 and then were considered adults. “I have always been interested in the history of how children evolved and the role they played in that time period,” said Vaske, originally of Guatemala.
Boys were wearing skeleton suits to play in and girls were wearing looser clothing. Skeleton suits consisted of a tight short- or long-sleeved coat or jacket buttoned to a pair of high-waisted trousers. They are one of the earliest fashions tailored for children rather than being adult fashions sized down, she said.
Some students weren’t sure if women 100 years ago wondered if what they were wearing, especially their undergarments, would be subject of future speculation.
“They probably wouldn’t have thought about it,” said Woods. “Thinking about the undergarments would be so improper.”
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