Body by Design: Fashionable Silhouettes from the Ideal to the Real

Opening at the Flynt Center on May 3, Body by Design will explore the enduring interest in clothing our bodies to achieve fashionable shapes.

The exhibition will feature twenty-five ensembles from the 18^th to 21^st centuries drawn predominantly from Historic Deerfield’s renowned clothing collection. Displayed along with the historical garments will be the understructures – stays, corsets, hoops skirts, and bustles – that helped shape, exaggerate, or reduce bodies to fit fashionable ideals.

The show will follow a loose chronological organization starting with two garments from the 1760’s – a woman’s formal dress with exaggerated wide skirt supported by hooped petticoats and a man’s pink and gold brocaded suit. Fashions from the 19^th century will highlight huge sleeves, corseted torsos, and skirts that were supported by crinolines and bustles. Fashion plates from the museum’s collection will help contextualize styles within their time while select modern fashions, juxtaposed with historical garments, will offer interesting connections between the past and today.