the weight of fashion
On Friday our director gave a floor talk on the 19th century collection. As an aside he said something like ‘because we don’t collect what’s in fashion, we collect what we deem to be outstanding.’ He was talking about fashions in collecting art and he did not use the word fashion in a positive context. This got me thinking, why did we choose the word fashion when we gave up the term costume?? There are fashions in just about everything, fashions in decorative arts, painting, text, not just clothing. Was that a mistake? When every other department takes their medium, ie photography, painting etc. and chooses what is best for the collection within that, why did we choose such a loaded term? In-ter-esting…
