By Dale Peers

If you were not able to attend our exhibition of 50 Years of Fashion (I know a week is not nearly enough time for everyone to make it to our Newnham campus!) I hope you will enjoy some of the exhibit’s highlights in this month’s blog.

As our country gets ready to celebrate 150 years of confederation our college is celebrating 50 years of providing post-secondary education. From our initial location at the original Sheppard campus (a converted shirt factory) to the current expansions of our King and Newnham campuses the college has grown throughout the past five decades in terms of courses, programs, students, faculty and staff.

The exhibit I designed this year allowed us to explore, through some of the photo archives of the college and garments from our Fashion Resource Centre, how fashion has contributed to the story of our growth. Fashion also has a long history of being used as a language to communicate the signs of the times. From the youth-quake of the 1960s which embraced the mini-skirt, op art and bright colours to the minimalism in style, pattern and colour palette of the 2000s we trace five decades of fashion.

Photos from exhibit:

(All photography of the exhibit courtesy of Ken Peers)

1960s:

Left: Photo of first Seneca President, Dr. William T. Newnham, with students. Right: Photo from exhibit — Left: Photo of first Seneca President, Dr. William T. Newnham, with students; Right: Photo from exhibit

Left: Photo of students at Seneca in the 1960s. Right: Photo from exhbit — Left: Photo of students at Seneca in the 1960s; Right: Photo from exhbit

1970s

Both men and women graced our halls and so a selection of menswear reflecting those serious business marketing students as well as the creative minds of new computer technologies in the 1970s were included.

Seneca Fashion Shows:

The first graduating class at the college came from the Fashion Certificate program and early in the college history the production of a “Fashion Show” presenting the original designs of our students became an annual event.

Left: Photo of student; Right: Photo from exhibit

1990s and 2000s:

Support for the opening ceremony was supplied by our department of Alumni and Advancement and we thank Barry Naymark for this and his attendance at the event. We were also happy to welcome Ana White, Seneca VP External to assist one of our soon-to-graduate Fashion Business Management students and part-time employee of the Fashion Resource Centre, Emma MacArthur in cutting the ribbon to welcome all visitors to the exhibit.

And now, on to our next project – More information about that to come in the next few months!