The Height Of Fashion | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Photo courtesy Rogers Historical Museum Women's accessories often showed their wealth.

Jennifer Kick, collections manager at the Rogers Historical Museum, did what all good bosses do. She gave her summer interns as much free rein as she could.

"At the start of this year, I came up with a few themes for the collections gallery exhibits this year -- exhibits are rotated in the gallery quarterly -- and I knew I wanted to do an exhibit on clothing," Kick says. "So I told Alison [Fong] and Krisenda [Henderson] that they could choose whatever topic they wanted to under the theme of 'clothing,' and they were very interested in the Victorian era and all the steps women had to go through to get dressed -- and all of the rules and underlying meanings attached to women's clothing during that era."

FAQ

‘Women’s Fashion in the Victorian Era’

WHEN — 10 am.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, through Sept. 28

WHERE — Rogers Historical Museum, 313 S. Second St.

COST — Free

INFO — 621-1154 or rogershistoricalmus…

Everything featured in the new exhibit, "Women's Fashion in the Victorian Era," came from the museum's collections. And all of the items on display illustrate not just the trouble women went to to dress but also "the sensuality that women were able to show despite the way that society limited them," says Henderson, a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin. "They were able seize their own sensuality."

"On the one hand, a woman was expected to remain covered head to toe while projecting an air of dignity and grace," says Kick in the news release for the exhibit. "On the other, the numerous undergarments she wore were meant to accentuate her feminine figure.

"Shoes and hats as well were made to protect modesty yet showcase sensuality. As skirt hemlines lengthened and shortened, so too did the height of the woman's shoe so that no skin would ever be showing. For example, when hiking women wore knee length skirts to aid movement; however this left the leg visible. The solution was to make knee length hiking boots. Hats, on the other hand, were more focused on sensuality.

"I hope the exhibit inspires viewers to forge a connection to the past and find a way to humanize what is learned in books," Kick concludes. "I hope that by seeing and reading about these articles of clothing that real women from Northwest Arkansas wore about 130 years ago, visitors will find a way to relate to them."

Photo courtesy Rogers Historical Museum The length of the skirt and the occasion dictated how high one's boots needed to be and the material they were made of. These boots are cloth and about mid-range in height.

Photo courtesy Rogers Historical Museum Getting dressed required a lot of layers before the turn of the 20th century. "In the Victorian era, there was a juxtaposition between modesty and sensuality," says RHM intern Alison Fong. "I hope they pick up on the fact that the exhibit is about the sensuality that women were able to show despite the way that society limited them," adds intern Krisenda Henderson, a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin. "They were able seize their own sensuality."

Photo courtesy Rogers Historical Museum Jennifer Kick, collections manager at the Rogers Historical Museum, and intern Alison Fong, an undergraduate student at the University of Arkansas born in Singapore, chose the same piece of the new "Women's Fashion in the Victorian Era" exhibit as their favorite -- a wedding dress. "It is incredibly different from what wedding dresses are in the modern day and also a very gorgeous piece," says Kick, while Fong says it is her pick because of the color. "Wedding dresses from the Victorian era were not the traditional white dress we think of," Kick elaborates.

NAN What's Up on 07/14/2019

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