Fashion Reimagined: Themes and Variations 1700-Now by Anna Carlano

A fascinating look at the unexpected juxtapositions between twenty-first-century fashion design and historical garments.

Fashion Reimagined features fifty outstanding examples of fashionable dress drawn entirely from the superb collection of the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. Organised to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Mint's costume collection in 1972, the checklist includes men's and women's fashions from 1760 to 2022. The book is divided into three sections that reflect three aspects of historicism: Minimalism, Pattern and Decoration, and The Body Reimagined. Each catalogue entry addresses a theme and provides information and insights about the individual designers, fabric and construction details, and globalisation that is embedded in both the textiles and fashions 1760 to the present.

The Mint's fashion collection features a wide range of historical garments, together with significant pieces by major contemporary designers, including Oscar de la Renta, Gianni Versace, and Miuccia Prada. Ranging from court suits to street wear, highlights include an English eighteenth-century sack back dress, two English men's court suits, early nineteenth-century printed cotton dresses, wedding dresses from the mid and last quarter of the nineteenth century, as well as a rare 1920s wedding ensemble by Roman fashion artist Maria Monaci Gallenga, a very rare early twentieth-century Ispahan mantle by Paul Poiret, an unusual mid twentieth century Black Narcissus dress by American designer James Galanos, several examples of 1960s and 70s mod and hippie chic style, and innovative contemporary fashions by Giorgio Armani, Romeo Gigli, Zandra Rhodes, Anna Sui, Yoji Yamamoto, Walé Oyéjidé for Ikiré Jones, Anamika Khanna, and Iris van Herpen, among others. 

AUTHORS:

Annie Carlano is senior curator of Craft, Design& Fashion at The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Anna Sui is a fashion designer and perfumer, who is much celebrated in the history of fashion. She is known for her enduring designs and her skill for developing collections with cultural and historical references.

Lauren D. Whitley is senior curator emerita at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). During her twenty-eight years in the David and Roberta Logie Department of Textile and Fashion Arts at the MFA, she helped oversee a global collection of 55,000 textiles, costumes, and fashion accessories and curated more than fourteen exhibitions including #techstyle, Hippie Chic, Ed Rossbach Fiber Art, Threads on the Edge: Fiber Art from the Daphne Farago Collection.

Ellen C. Walker Show is director of Library & Archives, The Mint Museum.