We just celebrated Thanksgiving, midterm is just about here, the United Way campaign has been launched and Study Week begins next week which all spell out that we are well and truly in the midst of the fall term. This means that things are getting busier for students, faculty, support staff and administration. And yet, once again I find myself marveling at the incredible dedication and stamina in our college.
Over the past few weeks we have welcomed a news team to the Centre to talk about the Politics of Fashion, our friends from the Fashion History Museum have paid their semi-annual visit, an installation celebrating Women’s History Month has been installed (one location across from the library and the other in the D building, fourth floor window) and faculty and students alike have accessed the Fashion Resource Centre collection to study not only history of fashion but the details of skirts from a pattern making and clothing construction perspective. A long time donor and supporter of the collection also dropped off some new items just last week. And all of these events led me to this posting of our blog.
Visitors to our incredible collection of fashion (after having gasped at the size of the collection) invariably ask where everything comes from. Initially they think the fashion items must have been made by students from our Fashion programs, and, although we do have items our alumni have left in our care this is a very small part of our collection.
I always answer this query with a certain amount of personal awe as our collection has been donated over only the past 25 years by more than 650 donors who have loved fashion and wanted to find a home for a cherished piece of fashion apparel where it would be valued, studied and possibly become a source of inspiration.
That old commercial of “you tell two friends, and they tell two friends and they tell two friends” is the reality of the collection. From industry leaders like Claire Haddad, Marilyn Brooks, Vivienne Poy, Sonya Bata to fashion faculty (many retired but to whom I am most grateful!) – Claire Becker, Caroline Routh, Bev Newburg to museum colleagues like Jonathan Walford, Kenn Norman, Alexandra Palmer, and friends of the collection like Charlotte Graham, Mary Ham, Penny Potter and Jim Payne have ensured the growth of the collection through their communication of its importance. All of these people have been such staunch supporters of the importance fashion plays not only from a design perspective but from the social contribution that the art of fashion and costume has played. And, to the faculty, support staff and administrators of Seneca College who have not only provided their support through projects like our Digital Fashion Photography project (Tanis Fink, Rhonda Roth, Ewan Gibson, Lydia Tsai) to so many other members of the Seneca Community for their donations. There are so many who have donated personal items and who have told their friends about the collection that it is impossible to list everyone.
And, the group of constituents who play a huge part in this operation include so many students who not only accessed the collection in their learning but became integral members of the Resource Centre team. They have dragged bustforms, packed and unpacked boxes of garments, sewn buttons and hooks, photographed shoes and hats, mounted displays and staffed the Centre so that if could be made available to as many people as we can manage in a year. Anne Chan, Calvin Butts, Stacey Yoo, Jennifer Fulton, Jennifer Hord, Lianne Brickell, Janelle Newbold, Alicia Mitha, Malvika Rana, Joanna Rajarathnam, Shawna Wittenberg, Nina Pimental, Amaryn Boyd, Alex Burke, Shelly Dilouya, Irina Bikeeva, Dayna Stevens, Anne-Marie Di Iullio, Alex Backa, Kelsey Mills, Nicole Knight and Emma MacArthur are just a few who have contributed time and energy, and in some cases have also become donors. My thanks and gratitude to all!
So, my thanks go to all of the people who have given their time, their fashion and their dedication to our incredible Centre.
