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The "Immortal Beauty" exhibit isn't just a history of fashion conveyed through the wardrobes of some of Philadelphia's most well-to-do women.
The 78-piece display at Drexel University's Leonard Pearlstein Gallery through Dec. 12 - featuring work by some of the industry's most revered designers, such as Hubert de Givenchy, Halston, Coco Chanel, and Ralph Rucci - is also a brilliant account of the university's historic costume collection.
"This is what I've been working on since I arrived," said Clare Sauro, the collection's curator. She has spent the last seven years diligently combing through Drexel's 14,000 garments - the oldest, an 18th-century man's waistcoat; the newest, an Alexander Wang dress from the designer's 2012 collection.
"I wanted to come up with a narrative that was as much of a chronology of fashion as it was a history of Drexel."
"Immortal Beauty" is the formal debut of the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection, named after the Meadowbrook couple who in 2013 donated $1 million to Drexel's more than 120-year-old collection.
Funding for the exhibit came from a $220,000 grant from the Richard C. Von Hess Foundation, which paid for such bells and whistles as the touchscreen platforms that allow visitors to gaze closely at the items' amazing details - the pieces are too delicate to touch. Each of the 47 dresses on display was placed on a foam dress form, most of which Sauro and her team had to carve by hand.
"The fashionable silhouette changed so much through history," Sauro said. "Women wore corsets, girdles, and waist-cinchers. Breasts were in different places in each century. Everything had to be modified, even though we were buying the smallest forms."
There is also an app visitors can download to listen to the history of each garment. And an 82-page book, Immortal Beauty, describes many of the pieces and includes a forward written by Ken Downing, executive vice president and fashion director of Neiman Marcus.
Glass cases are dispersed throughout the 3,500-square-foot space, showcasing pointy shoes from Manolo Blahnik and pumps from Roger Vivier (not to mention absolute shoe perfection à la Salvatore Ferragamo). And you can't miss the wall of cocktail hats in hues of black, gray, and deep purple, because, Sauro says, "a well-dressed woman was never really dressed without a proper hat."
The extras help showgoers really appreciate - and marvel at - the breadth of the apparels' history on display.
Sauro built "Immortal Beauty" around the color scheme of three of the exhibit's major showstoppers.
The first is a coral evening gown worn in 1964 by Princess Grace of Monaco, designed by Givenchy and executed by Marie Therese Nice.
The second - a teal, floral-print, figure-flattering gown designed by Philadelphia-born James Galanos in 1959 - arrived at Drexel's collection via the designer's sister, Catherine Burpulis.
IMAGE coral bridesmaid dress
The third is a Charles James evening dress of New York socialite Barbara "Babe" Paley with a black sweetheart neckline connected to a mustard-yellow ruched skirt. Paley's mother-in-law, Goldie, lived in Philadelphia and donated the dress from James' 1948 collection.
The rest of the gowns in the show reflect or complement this color palette, with lots of creams, grays, and vibrant pops of Schiaparelli pink. (A gold gown from Schiaparelli's Zodiac collection with a pink sunburst button is also part of the collection.)
"These were the standout gowns," Sauro said. "I wanted everything to be harmonious. There is such the potential for chaos when there are so many different silhouettes and colors."
Drexel's historic costume collection was started in 1891, the same year the university opened. Founder A.J. Drexel gave $1 million, the equivalent of $26 million today, to what he hoped would become the university's art museum: paintings, precious metals, and, of course, textiles.
Among the first pieces on display in "Immortal Beauty" is a corseted velvet gown with 3/4-length sleeves and a bustle by Parisian couturier Charles Frederick Worth. The dress belonged to Drexel's daughter.
"These pieces," Sauro said, "represent the high-quality fashion that were donated by the extended Drexel family in the early days of the collection."
In 1954, Mary Brenneman Carter took over as the collection's curator. Carter, who worked at Drexel from 1954 to the early 1970s, worked with Anne Lincoln, founder of the Nan Duskin store, who was able to persuade some of the city's top socialities, such as Leonore Annenberg, to donate gowns they might have worn to the Academy Ball.
"She knew everyone," Sauro said of Lincoln. "It was amazing."
During those years, Drexel's collection topped 7,000 pieces. Sauro said the university received a collection of lush, early-20th-century flapper dresses from the French design sisters Callot Soeurs. That was also the period when Drexel acquired the Givenchy, Galanos, Worth, and Halston gowns.
At the end of the exhibit are the recently acquired pieces: the Wang dress, the all-black Rucci gown, a pair of animal-print Giuseppe Zanotti shoes, and a seamless, 3D tunic by Japanese designer Shima Seiki.
"That platform is here to say this is who we are," Sauro said. "This is what we've established, and this is where we want to go."
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