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Marjorie Merriweather Post, ca. 1935, Photographer: John Alfred Piver
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Ingenue to Icon 70 years of fashion from the collection of Marjorie Merriweather Post

6/6/2015-31/12/2015
 
Exhibition of Post’s carefully selected gowns, dresses, outfits, and accessories presents the evolution of 20th-century fashion through the lens of one of America’s most prominent women
 
More than 70 gowns, dresses, and ensembles spanning the first seven decades of the 20th century are presented in the exhibition Ingenue to Icon: 70 Years of Fashion from the Collection of Marjorie Merriweather Post, on view at Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens from June 6 to December 31, 2015. 

Posted 25 July 2015

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The first exhibition at Hillwood to present Marjorie Post’s full range of style, Ingenue to Icon will examine how Post’s lifelong passion for objects that were exceptionally beautiful and impeccably constructed extended to her taste for clothing. Even before she became a celebrated connoisseur and assembled a renowned decorative arts collection, Post developed a keen interest in clothing and a great appreciation for the richness of fabrics, expert tailoring, and elegant design. From a confection in tulle and taffeta made for her 16th birthday to the flapper silhouettes of the 1920s and sophisticated gowns of the 1950s, Post's changing styles are consistently characterized by fine craftsmanship, beautiful materials, and impeccable styles. 

Marjorie in her New York home, 1934, Marjorie is wearing Evening dress, Maker Unknown, American, 1934, Grey and white fern pattern silk taffeta, red taffeta
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Post was born in 1887 and came of age during some of the most transformative times for American women in the 20th century. "Marjorie Post lived an extraordinary life, throughout which she played many roles," explained Hillwood executive director Kate Markert. "From a young Edwardian bride, to a high-profile business and society figure, to independent grande dame, she was always aware that how she presented herself, particularly through her dress, not only reflected her personality, but also projected her role to society." The seven decades of apparel represented in the exhibition and the accompanying archival materials and portraiture also offer insights into the progress of American society from the early 1900s to the

1970s and a new perspective on an emblematic woman whose life, sense of self, and wardrobe reflect the rapidly changing times. 

Evening Dress, Maker Unknown, American, ca. 1933, Cream silk crêpe, cream organza 
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Dinner Dress detail, Bonwit Teller, New York City, ca. 1948, Grey silk taffeta, cut steel, glass beads 
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens. 

Evening Dress, Maker Unknown, American, 1934, Grey and white fern pattern silk taffeta, red taffeta
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Post's Apparel Collection at Hillwood
With its renowned collection of Russian imperial art and French decorative art, Hillwood has long served as a testament to Post's influence as an art collector and connoisseur. With great insight, Post also left to Hillwood the most important examples of apparel and accessories she acquired over the years and today they serve as added perspective into her life of exceptional purpose, elegance, and style. "Throughout her life, Marjorie treated her clothing in much the same manner as her art collection," explained Hillwood's associate curator of textiles and curator of the exhibition, Howard Vincent Kurtz. "She knew that her clothing represented not just her own style, but a record of women's fashion. Thanks to that vision, today Hillwood has a singularly complete collection of costumes and accessories that is a resource for the study of American style and the changing role of women in the 20th century." Ingenue to Icon draws from Hillwood's collection of more than 175 dresses and over 300 accessories, including shoes, hats, gloves, and purses. 

Sweet Sixteen Evening Dress, Baker, Washington D.C., 1903, White spotted tulle, ivory silk taffeta, cream silk velvet, coral beads, clear rhinestones
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Parrot Feather Clouche, Jay Thorpe, New York, 1935, Parrot wings, silk
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Post's Apparel Collection at Hillwood
With its renowned collection of Russian imperial art and French decorative art, Hillwood has long served as a testament to Post's influence as an art collector and connoisseur. With great insight, Post also left to Hillwood the most important examples of apparel and accessories she acquired over the years and today they serve as added perspective into her life of exceptional purpose, elegance, and style. "Throughout her life, Marjorie treated her clothing in much the same manner as her art collection," explained Hillwood's associate curator of textiles and curator of the exhibition, Howard Vincent Kurtz. "She knew that her clothing represented not just her own style, but a record of women's fashion. Thanks to that vision, today Hillwood has a singularly complete collection of costumes and accessories that is a resource for the study of American style and the changing role of women in the 20th century." Ingenue to Icon draws from Hillwood's collection of more than 175 dresses and over 300 accessories, including shoes, hats, gloves, and purses. 

Exhibition Highlights: June through September
The presentation of designer and couture outfits, cocktail dresses, and gowns in Ingenue to Icon will be presented in two segments. The first, from June through September, will feature Post’s summer and spring attire. The second, running through December, will display looks from fall and winter.
The exhibition opens with the fashionable young Post embracing the new feminine ideal of the "Gibson Girl." With her upswept hairstyle and high fashion gowns coupled with confidence, worldliness, education, and independence, Post epitomized this late 19th and early 20th-century trend. As an adolescent, she had an insatiable appetite for stylish clothes. An example of her extravagant taste is the Edwardian two-piece evening dress created for the occasion of her 16th birthday by the Baker sisters, who had a small dress shop in northwest Washington, D.C., where Post was attending finishing school at the Mt. Vernon Seminary. Post's entry into East Coast society that accompanied her marriage to Edward Bennett Close in 1905 provided a new outlet for her passion. To fulfill her new role hosting and attending formal dinners, parties, and fundraising and cultural events, Post acquired a full wardrobe from Parisian couturiers, fine department stores, and New York custom fashion houses. A high-waisted evening dress of 1907-08 from the Parisian house Callot Soeurs, whom Post first encountered as a young teenager visiting the grand 1900 Paris Exposition, is an example of the elegance of the time and place. 

Evening Dress, Callot Soeurs, Paris, ca. 1907, Turquoise silk moiré, turquoise cotton moiré, orange/gold silk crêpe, orange tulle, turquoise/gold silk cotton floss, turquoise/gold silk ribbon cord, beading
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Evening Dress, Unknown, France (possibly), ca. 1918-22 Silk velvet, tulle, faux pearls, rhinestones
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Evening Dress, Mme. Frances, Inc., New York, ca. 1925, Silk velvet, rhinestones
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Afternoon Dress, Bergdorf Goodman, New York, 1933-35, Printed chiffon
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

The progress, prosperity, and liberation that characterized the 1920s had a significant effect on the fashion of what came to be known as the "Roaring Twenties." Voluptuous Edwardian curves gave way to a new silhouette that hung away from the body and allowed more movement and ease. Hemlines became shorter than any other time in the history of women's fashion. With her second husband, E.F. Hutton, Post embodied the spirt of the era. An evening ensemble she commissioned from Thurn (shown right), an American dressmaker, with its flapper-style silhouette, bold geometric patterns and bright, saturated colors, captures the Art Deco flair that characterized many dresses of the 1920s. 

Afternoon Dress, Unknown maker, United States, 1910-14, Silk, lace
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Portrait of Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton, Frank o. Salisbury (1874-1962) New York City, 1934, Oil on Canvas Marjorie is wearing Evening dress, Maker Unknown, American, ca. 1933 
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

As Post began a new lifestyle with her third husband and ambassador-to-be, Joseph E. Davies, she incorporated the glamorous style of 1930s Hollywood that was the trend with women in high society. Clothing was designed to drape more closely to the body than in the 1920s, skimming women's figures in sensuous fabrics. In 1934, Post sat for a portrait painted by renowned English society portraitist Frank Salisbury wearing a striking white, bias-cut, satin, sleeveless dress with a low-cut V-back fastened with a ruby and diamond brooch. Accented by a velvet and fur drape and long two-strand pearl necklace, the dress exudes the allure of Hollywood. The dress opens the exhibition alongside the glamorous Salisbury portrait. 

Post's role as an ambassador's wife also prompted a turning point in her approach to fashion. After their return stateside and throughout the 1940s, the Davies continued to entertain in grand style, and the hostess to diplomats, Supreme Court justices, senators, and high society required a wardrobe that portrayed elegance and confidence. Post, along with other prominent Americans, was influenced by Christian Dior’s “New Look,” and a gray, ankle-length dinner dress with a cinched waist, full skirt, and broad, padded shoulders, exemplified the look and was well-suited to her corseted figure, narrow waist, and slim hips. For a sitting with another notable English portrait painter, Douglas Chandor, Post wore a beautiful gray silk faille evening gown attributed to African American designer Ann Lowe, who was known for the swirl-like motifs as seen on this dress. A year after this dress was immortalized in the Chandor portrait, Jacqueline Bouvier popularized Lowe's fashions when she chose a wedding gown by the designer. 

Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton, New York City, 1921
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Evening Gown, Ann Lowe, New York City, 1952, Silver waffle weave silk faille
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Post was divorced from Davies in 1955 and her full life culminated in a style that displayed confidence and independence. With a deep knowledge of who she was and what she liked, her fashions from this point on reflected a taste in the classic and a continued commitment to exquisite design and expert tailoring. By the late 1940s, she had grown fond of the Czechoslovakian designer Oldric Royce, who by then was working in New York. Feeling that he translated her mature, elegant style into dresses and gowns that suited her to perfection, Post commissioned dresses from him for the rest of her life. Sometimes, if she especially liked a certain style, she would order the same design in different colors with slight variations. One such example is a day dress made between 1957 and 1960. This short dress of bright yellow and green is nearly identical in form and material to the wedding dress Post had made by Royce for her marriage to Herbert May, her fourth husband, in 1958. It is typical of the mature and elegant designs she wore during her time at Hillwood, hosting garden parties, lavish dinners, and some of Washington's most memorable affairs among the objects of beauty that were her life's passion.

With over 30 dresses on view for each rotation, the selection of spring and summer dresses will be replaced for styles made for fall and winter on October 1, to provide a broad look at Post's evolution while protecting the valuable garments from long-term exposure to light.
 

Publication
A full-color, 168-page companion publication also titled Ingenue to Icon: 70 Years of Fashion from the Collection of Marjorie Merriweather Post has been published in conjunction with the exhibition. The lavishly illustrated book, authored by Howard Vincent Kurtz and Trish Donnally, with an introduction by Nancy Rubin-Stuart, is divided into sections that highlight Post’s evolving fashion sense, her personal identity, and historical context for the dresses being discussed. The fashions illustrated in this volume are complemented by numerous images of accessories, as well as archival materials, sketches, newspaper clippings, and personal notes.
Programs and Events

Ingenue to Icon will be the inspiration for an array of programs and events throughout the presentation of the exhibition.
 

Evening Dress, Ann Lowe (attr.), New York, 1952, Waffle weave silk faille
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Negligee, Unknown maker, United States, 1918-21, Silk organza, tulle, silk satin
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Afternoon Dress, Lucile, New York, ca. 1917, white silk lawn, white tulle, pink silk ribbon
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Evening Ensemble, Thurn, New York City, ca. 1927, red silk crêpe, melon silk charmeuse, organza, lace 
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

An opening celebration will be held on Tuesday, June 2. Inspired by Post's grand affairs at Hilwood, the evening will include cocktails and a glamorous dinner on the Lunar Lawn in honor of Post's singular style and in support of Hillwood's mission to share her cultural treasure with the public.
 
The three-part lecture series, 20th-Century Transformations of Women and Fashion, will be presented in October, including speakers Howard Vincent Kurtz, exhibition curator and associate curator of costumes and textiles at Hillwood; Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology; and Robin Givhan, Pulitzer Prize-winning style and culture critic.
 
Sponsors
Sponsored by
The exhibition is supported by: The Marjorie Merriweather Post Foundation, Ellen MacNeille Charles, Dina Merrill Hartley, Joan & Dan Mulcahy, Janice & Ralph Shrader, and an anonymous donor. All exhibitions and programs are funded in part by the U.S. Commission on the Fine Arts through the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs program. 

Hillwood Background
When art collector, businesswoman, social figure, and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post left to the public her northwest Washington, D.C. estate, she endowed the country with the most comprehensive collection of Russian Imperial art outside of Russia, an exquisite18th-century French decorative art collection, and 25 acres of serene landscaped gardens and natural woodlands. Opened as a public institution in 1977, today Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens offers a gracious and immersive experience unlike any other. Highlights of the collection include Fabergé eggs, Russian porcelain, Russian orthodox icons, Beauvais tapestries, and Sèvres porcelain, and Post’s personal collection of apparel, accessories, and jewelry. Thirteen acres of enchanting formal gardens include the Japanese-style Garden, Rose Garden, French Parterre, and a greenhouse full of orchids. 

Editors Please note change in hours: Hillwood is now open every Sunday (previously only select Sundays)
Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays, most holidays, and for several weeks in January. 

See the Agenda>

HILLWOOD MUSEUM AND GARDENS
4155 Linnean Ave NW
Washington, DC 20008
United States
+1 202-686-8500
hillwoodmuseum.org

Evening Dress detail, Unknown, France (possibly), ca. 1918-22 Silk velvet, tulle, faux pearls, rhinestones
Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

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