Fashion at the museum: successful experiences with student curators

This paper describes the development of two fashion-centered exhibitions organized by non-museum studies college students in collaboration with a university museum and a community arts center and historic house. The work was the result of a new course, ‘Museum Issues in Historic Clothing and Textiles,’ offered in the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors at the University of Georgia. The department holds a large historic clothing and textiles collection, but has limited exhibition space. This paper describes the steps involved in the collaborative project, the active learning process in the classroom, the exact nature and process of the collaboration, and provides information on the final product – the two exhibitions created by the class. The paper aims to encourage similar collaborations between museum and fashion design, or fashion merchandizing programs housing historic clothing and textiles collections.