“PASSION FOR FASHION” CONTINUES AT MANSION
Seven Sundays Lecture Looks at Fashion Accessories of the Past & Present

WHEELING, W.Va. (September 15, 2009) - - Oglebay Institute’s Seven Sundays to Remember Lecture Series continues its “passion for fashion” with a program on the historical and cultural significance of fashion accessories.

Clare Sauro, curator of the Drexel Historic Costume Collection (DHCC) in Philadelphia, will present “Concentrated Style: Fashion Accessories of the Past and Present” at 1 p.m. Sunday, September 27 at the Mansion Museum in Oglebay.

“From ‘it bags’ to designer stilettos, fashion accessories have risen to the forefront of contemporary fashion. While fashion journalists would have us believe that this is a new phenomenon, accessories have always been closely related to fashion,” Sauro said. “They were essential to the achievement of the fashionable silhouette and reflected both the aesthetic and social ideals of a period. While the accessories worn were not always practical or functional, they played a vital part in the ‘performance of fashion.’”

Sauro’s presentation will explore the importance of accessories throughout the history of fashion and will place special emphasis on surviving examples found in museum collections.

In addition to serving as curator of the 5,000-object DHCC, Sauro teaches courses in the history of fashion. Prior to this position, she supervised the Accessories Collection and worked as assistant curator in the Costume Collection at the Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology.) She has contributed to several exhibitions including The Tailor’s Art and Arbiters of Style: Women at the Forefront of Fashion. In 2005 she co-curated the exhibition Dutch at the Edge of Design: Fashion and Textiles from the Netherlands. Sauro is a frequent lecturer on the history of fashion and has contributed essays to the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion and Ralph Rucci: The Art of Weightlessness.

Titled “Passion for Fashion” the 2009 Seven Sundays series celebrates historic and contemporary fashion and serves as a companion program to the Victorian fashion exhibit Dressing Wheeling From the Inside Out: 1840-1910, which is on display through October 11.

The final Seven Sundays lecture takes place October 11 and is titled “Petticoats, Pantaloons and Painters: Costumes in Art,” presented by Nancy Huth, Curator of Education, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH.

The admission fee is $10 per person, which includes admission to both the Mansion and Glass Museums. All guests are invited to continue on and browse through either or both of the museums after the lecture. Members of Oglebay Institute receive a discount.

Registration may be made by calling the Mansion Museum staff at 304.242.7272. Each talk begins at 1 p.m. in the Waddington Room of the Mansion Museum and lasts about one hour.