Annette Becker has a lot of willpower. As director of the Texas Fashion Collection, she works closely with nearly 20,000 vintage gowns, suits, jackets, accessories and shoes — and has never once locked the doors and had herself an epic day of trying on Gucci, Balmain or Lacroix.
Stewards of the past
“There’s an interesting balance between falling in love and having a scientific attachment to the materials,” Becker says. “We constantly think about keeping a careful balance between appreciation and the need for preservation. We’re temporary stewards of these pieces. Centuries from now, people will have access to the collection, and we need to make sure these things are safe.”
The collection includes pieces dating from the 1700s and beyond — sunbonnets from the early 1800s, 1930s satin evening slippers, 1950s ball gowns complete with Chantilly lace, disco-worthy ’70s dresses, gold lamé cropped jackets from the ’80s and much more.
The Texas Fashion Collection is not open to the general public but does serve an array of people who are gifted with a knack for design: Students, makers, fashion designers and adolescents thinking about future careers in fashion can schedule visits.
“We’re a small research space,” says Becker. “We don’t have dedicated exhibition spaces where the public can see us. People who visit are students and researchers. Education is at the heart of what they’re doing.”
Birth of the collection
Tucked away on the University of North Texas’ campus, the Texas Fashion Collection has become part of the school’s College of Visual Arts and Design. The idea for the collection began in 1938 with brothers Stanley and Edward Marcus. They wanted to honor their aunt, Carrie Marcus Neiman, co-founder of luxury department store Neiman Marcus, with an assembly of designs that showcased quality craftsmanship and creativity.
To recognize prolific fashion designers and style icons, the brothers launched the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion and added garments from the winners’ lines and wardrobes to the collection. Oscar de la Renta, Elizabeth Arden, Salvatore Ferragamo, Grace Kelly, Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Chanel were among those recognized for their contributions to the fashion world. When Christian Dior won in 1947, his acceptance of the award marked the legendary French designer’s first trip to the United States.
The collection grew in 1969 when it combined forces with the Dallas Museum of Fashion. Three years later, a budding fashion design program, coupled with intentions to offer the preserved clothing and accessories for research and education, brought the ensemble to UNT, where it still lives today under Becker’s care.
An eye for style
Determining pieces that will be historically relevant takes ingenuity, insight and luck. Becker applauds the Marcus brothers for their deft abilities to select garments that, decades later, are still proving to be significant.
“The Marcus brothers were so innovative at recognizing important things from their time period,” Becker says. “As early as 1938, they were thinking about preserving fashion through contemporary artifacts.”
One of the director’s favorite pieces from the collection is an ensemble created by Claire McCardell in the 1950s. “It’s a playsuit with a forward-thinking design, kind of like sweatpants with this stretchy knit fabric,” describes Becker. “Claire McCardell created it for watching television, which was a new leisure activity. Now we’re in this age of Netflix. … It’s exciting that Neiman Marcus recognized it was significant.”
Reflecting society
Today, it’s Becker’s responsibility to discern what should be added to the Texas Fashion Collection. She’s committed to pursuing garments that are representative of all body types and wants to include designers from as many cultures as possible. Becker considers the current impact gender fluidity is having on fashion and how the collection can reflect nonbinary designs.
“It’s important for our collection to be in touch with what’s going on,” Becker says. “There’s a culture of well-off white women in the [Dallas-Fort Worth] area, and it’s incredible that they provide us access to their clothes, but students who are not from privileged backgrounds come into our collection, and they don’t see themselves represented.”
Becker looks beyond the names typically synonymous with haute couture. She’s seeking relatively unknown designers and those who don’t pigeonhole their consumers.
Becker is singlehandedly expanding and challenging the way we think about fashion. Progress was made when she was curating a cowboys and Indians exhibit.
“I realized in researching that we had no pieces of native designers, so we added some. We see quite a few native students here. One came to a research appointment and wanted to see French designers because he didn’t feel his Chickasaw heritage could be included in his designs.”
Becker constantly encourages students to incorporate their lives into their work even though there may not be any examples that represent them.
“They develop their own direction and shouldn’t feel like they have to say ‘no’ to something just because they haven’t seen it before,” says Becker. “Fashion can be something beautiful, but also something that makes you feel excited about yourself.”
Growing the TFC
TFC is a nonprofit that relies on clothing donations. The popularity of consignment stores and sites like eBay have resulted in fewer contributions, as people choose to resell their pieces rather than donate them.
The revival of styles can also impede donations. “Ten years ago, people were donating items from the ’80s,” Becker says. “The big shoulder pad aesthetic was not fashionable, and secondhand shops weren’t able to sell the clothes.”
Because of this, the fashion collection had the opportunity to accept outrageous garments that people coveted during the decade of permed hair and power suits. After House of Balenciaga resurrected the appeal of ’80s fashion, connoisseurs weren’t as willing to give away their vintage pieces. Becker says donations of clothes from that era have “slowed to a trickle.”
The director looks forward to adding more contemporary pieces to the collection with things like unisex clothing and custom-made apparel. If you are willing to part with an exceptional garment, Becker encourages you to email photos and an explanation of why the piece is important to tfc@unt.edu.
There is, however, one item people can stop donating: “We don’t need anymore 19th-century crotchless bloomers,” says Becker, laughing. “Everyone has saved them, and no one knows what to do with them, so they bring them here.”
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