Priceless ensemble
Some of the biggest names in the fashion world are hanging out at UCO in Edmond.
At least their clothing is. More than 800 garments, many by Oscar de la Renta, Geoffrey Beene, Pauline Trigere, Christian Dior and Irene, along with countless hats, shoes, bags and jewelry are included in the Oklahoma Fashion Museum Collection at the University of Central Oklahoma.
It’s a priceless ensemble dating from the 1890s through the 1970s that owes its start to the late Oklahoma fashion icon and designer Lillian Russell. Through the collection, she wanted to preserve fashion history and showcase significant changes in design. With the Fashion Group of Oklahoma City, she helped organize annual benefit fashion shows featuring some of the clothing. She tirelessly tagged each piece with designer name, donor and decade.
The tags read like a who’s who of women in Oklahoma City with donor names recognizable for philanthropy, business ventures and community involvement.
The collection’s growth led to its donation to UCO in 1987, and now another woman is doing her part to ensure its future. For four years, Mary Huffman has been photographing, researching and chronicling as much information about each piece that she can find.
Huffman is the coordinator of grants and contracts for the College of Education and Professional Studies at UCO and project manager for the fashion collection. She admits she’s not into fashion, but she recognizes the collection’s value not only as a teaching tool but as a visual record for Oklahoma and fashion history.
Huffman said she has devoted thousands of hours to the collection, all while tending to her other job at the university.
The clothes are on racks in a small room attached to a classroom. Purses, jewelry, hats and shoes fill every shelf and drawer. More space is badly needed.
As Huffman got more involved in the project, she became more passionate about it. She put each outfit or accessory on a mannequin or stand to photograph. She secured lights and fine tuned her camera skills. She has huge notebooks filled with images and information and an Excel spread sheet at her fingertips.
It’s not complete, but it will be one day. She can only work on the project as she has time.
“I’ve learned so much history, and it’s been the delight of my life,” Huffman said.
She said clothing by Irene Maud Lentz, a costume and fashion designer during the 1930s to ’60s, is her favorite, but she appreciates every single piece.
Like the ski outfit — a wool jacket and pants — from the 1920s. The 1960s brown corduroy shirtdress with taffeta lining by Adele Simpson, complete with matching hat and gloves. The colorful, eye-catching prints by Emilio Pucci. An orange 1940s pillbox hat by Grace Burney, Oklahoma City. Huffman was excited to see that label, but she has yet to find more information.
“Everything we have in this collection is unique in its own regard,” she said. Teaching tool The collection is the only one of its kind in the state, and while the goal is to have a permanent exhibition space, right now there’s no designated space or funds to build an exhibit, Huffman said.
Currently the collection is used as a teaching tool for students in classes such as fashion photography, fashion marketing and museum studies. Eventually, photos of each item will be available online through the Max Chambers Library at UCO.
The National Endowment for the Humanities recently awarded a $6,000 Preservation Assistance Grant for Smaller Institutions to help fund the preservation assessment of the collection.
A textile conservator assessed the collection and will hold a workshop on the care and preservation of textiles this spring. The workshop will be open to students, faculty, museum professionals and volunteers in the field.
Though the fashion collection is not open to the public, Huffman said she can be contacted for private showings. She knows nothing compares to seeing the garments up close and personal.
Van Russell, Lillian’s son, said his mother would be happy the collection is being used for teaching and learning. Even early on, she thought people could better understand and study fashion’s past by seeing the garments, he said.
That’s why the collection was so important to her, but it was also her personality and nature to tackle each task or project with all she had.
“If she was putting her name on it, she took ownership,” her son said. “She did her homework … she wanted it to be good.”
He and his wife, Melanie, recently got to view the clothing, and he said it was great to see the tags with his mother’s handwriting on each piece.
Huffman has become as passionate about the clothes and the project as Russell was. In fact, she said it was Russell’s scrapbook that made it all come together for her.
“I’m so happy to be able to work with this.”