On Sunday, July 16, 2017, 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Avenue in Norwalk, CT, legendary Textile Conservator and FIT Professor June Burns Bové will present, What to wear? How the Bride Decides, a talk on the fashion and social history of the wedding dress.
“Museum catalogers are usually happy to be assigned a wedding dress; the date is very certain,” Ms. Bové said, “But that is the only certainty, for the very act of saving the dress is proof of its value to the woman who wore it. It tells about her sense of style, her economic circumstances, and her social environment.”
There may be great differences between the attire of two brides married on the same day; one may wear French couture and the other, her best day dress, but the fashion lines are discernible. During the times between two great wars, American women looked to a number of sources for fashion news, starting with the colored engraving and then the photograph. Magazines directed to women were important, but so were newspapers with pictures of actresses and the social elite. Not all dresses were saved, nor are all dresses saved today. Brides often wore their dresses as reception dresses after the wedding or made children’s clothing from the fabric. Nowadays, dresses may be resold on eBay and Craigslist. We have the ones that were kept to tell us about that “one special day” and the world of the woman who wore it.
June Burns Bové earned a BA from Bucknell University in English and French Literature and an MA from New York University in Costume Studies. For twenty years a contract employee of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June is Textile Conservator for Yeshiva University Museum and has been an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Graduate Studies of Fashion Institute of Technology since 1991 where her specialty is costume exhibition.
She has consulted for many museums and institutions including The Newark Museum, The New-York Historical Society, The New Jersey Historical Society, The Jewish Museum, the Morse Museum of Winter Park, Florida, The Merchant’s House of New York City, and the Art Department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In 2011 The Costume Society of America named her a Fellow of the Society.
This Salon includes a talk, refreshments, and a tour of the first floor of the Mansion; $15 for members, $20 for non-members per session. Refreshments are courtesy of Best in Gourmet. Please RSVP by Thurs, July 13, 2017. The chair of the Lecture Committee is Mimi Findlay of New Canaan.
Connecticut Travel 
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