Hello and welcome to JCCC Voices.
Today we are interviewing Joan McCrillis from the Fashion Collection.
Johnson County Community College has a closet full of clothes on campus.
Three thousand pieces of apparel and accessories dating as far back as the 1860’s occupy
an 875 square foot closet on the second floor of the Carlson Center.
Here to show us the collection and explain how it is used to educate students is Joan
McCrillis professor and chair of the Fashion Merchandizing and Design Program at JCCC.
Welcome Joan.
Thank you.
Joan, can you tell us a little bit about this collection?
I’d be happy to.
The collection itself was started by Fashion Group International.
In about 1981, by two women out of the garage it started.
And Jan Matthews was the program director and also buyer of designers with the Jone’s
Store.
So she had access to women and Ann Brownfield had access also to the industry.
So they started collecting primarily in Ann’s garage.
And what makes this collection really special is the fact that a very high percent of it
is from women of Kansas City.
So a lot of it we can track origin.
There is really long history to the collection, well it started in 1981, but it has been moved
multiple times but we can track most of it to women of Kansas City.
That adds so much to the local history for people’s interest in the community doesn’t
it?
Yes it does, it definitely does.
The Fashion Group housed it until 2003 and at that time it was in the caves with UMKC
and they decided that they no longer wanted to house this collection.
So that is when we were so fortunate that the College stepped forward and said that
they would house it and so we went to Mission Mall, the we went to Bishop Miege North, and
now we are so happy to be on second floor of the Carlson Center.
It is such an impressive area here.
I noticed walking in the beautiful sign the says The Fashion Collection and you tell us
a little bit about how that came to be with the signage out front?
Sure, when we acquired the space we were so excited in June of 2011 I can maybe tell a
little bit of the story.
At Bishop Miege North the College sent over three moving vans, small, but still moving
vans.
And so they filled eighty boxes, wardrobe boxes, plus a lot of the boxes we already
had and so moved it to second floor Carlson Center in June of 2011, and it has just been
a fabulous situation since.
And so when we came into the space I saw the architectural plans, but you know, pretty
good visualizer but it was all the sudden we hit the space and being of the fashion
program we have creative people so Joy Rhodes and Britt Benjamin, the other two full-time
faculty members and myself, got into the space and just had fun.
So the illustration that you see at the front door, Britt Benjamin illustrated and then
she and Joy filled it in so we had some fun.
And the hat boxes you see in the back and some shoe boxes.
We tried to make the most fun out of the space that we possibly could.
I think you have really maximized the space here.
It is so colorful and inviting.
And it is just beautiful.
Can you tell us how the collection is organized in this space?
Be glad to.
The space we are in right now, I know you have a very limited view of, is what we refer
to as the designer room.
So everything within this space is organized by designer from Christian Dior, Oscar de
la Renta, Paula Varsalona, we have, I should have counted, we have I think about forty
designers represented in this space.
And again primarily Kansas City women provided this.
One of the love affairs that Kansas City has is Norman Norell, we have probably about fifty
Norman Norells in the collection.
Some of the are spectacular, some of them are really ordinary, but we keep them because
we have so many.
Then the other side is what we refer to as the Decade Room.
It is organized from 1860, we have some really old, frail garments and we collected until
about the 1990s.
Pretty much the collection quits right there, but it is organized by decades so the students
can go through it by decades.
And there are no “designer” pieces over there, but there are some fabulous pieces.
That is where most of the feather are on the century side, the decade side.
I bet the students love the feathers don’t they?
They love the feathers, they love the lace, they love the petticoats.
Oh I bet.
Can you tell us how the students use these in their classes?
We use them pretty much in every single class.
We have two programs.
We have the Fashion Mechanizing Program and we have the Fashion Design Program.
The Merchandizing students use it a lot in visual merchandizing.
So their last display of the semester we promote basically the collection.
So they have to research the garment that they choose, it has to be approved by the
faculty member because a lot of them are too delicate to display, and so then they create
a display around that.
Merchandizing students also use it for some trend tracking, things like that.
Design students just eat it up, just like it is fabulous.
One, a lot of inspiration.
They are very dedicated to it, they respect what is here.
Both sides do but the design students in particular they use it a lot for inspiration.
Annually, we have a fashion show that represents student designers and at least one of their
designs that is in their collection has to be inspired from something in this room.
So Joan when is the fashion show?
The fashion show is an annual celebration of student work.
All done by student designers.
It will be during in the Spring semester, it varies exactly what time because of the
availability of space at Johnson County Community college.
We have been doing it in the Polsky Center, we do two shows.
We do a noon and 7:00 p.m. show.
It is on a Friday, attendance has been fabulous.
Student, particularly the noon show, is primarily high school students.
Wichita, Kansas has been coming for multiple years.
They bring one or two buses up, so it is an opportunity for lots of people to see Johnson
County Community College as well as enjoying the talents that our students will display.
Within each collection of the students that are going to be graduating, at least one of
their designs needed to come from an inspiration that they acquired from one of the designs
they were able to choose here the collection.
And I hear is sells out.
It often does.
We do sell the tickets through the box office and would welcome everyone in attendance.
Sounds like fun.
And are there some favorites that you have in the collection that you particularly like?
There are tons of favorites, but I have pulled a few that I thought maybe I would share with
you and so we will do that if you are ready to.
Okay I’d love to see them.
(music) Wow, what do you have here?
Isn’t this fun?
Oh my gosh.
This is a Pierre Cardin.
It looks so playful.
It’s referred to as “the cage dress”.
It is about the mid-60s.
Oh my gosh.
I will let you feel how heavy this is.
Oh my Lord what is the fabric on that?
Well, it is a wool and we often don’t give credit to the 60’s for some of the quality
of the work but the designer workmanship is absolutely fabulous but this one is just fun.
And I might make a point, because yes I do have my gloves on.
We do not treat this collection as a museum because otherwise the students wouldn’t
really have access to it.
But we try to preserve absolutely as much as we can.
But this is a Pierre Cardin, so as I say, from the 60s, a very fun, just fun, and it
is in great shape so we have modeled it before.
Oh wow.
We feel fortunate to be able to do that.
That would be fun to dance in.
Ah, yes absolutely fabulous.
You asked about how students use the collection.
One of the things certainly is for construction techniques.
This is an Irene.
Irene designed for Hollywood during the 40s and the 50s.
But if they can see the mitering here of the fabrics.
This is extremely high quality construction and something that would be hard pressed to
find.
Yes.
You would definitely be paying for it to find this kind of workmanship.
And also try to see the back where again you can see the matching of all the lines.
Everything matches, everything mitering together.
So a student in a more advance apparel construction class would certainly see this as wow!
Inspirational huh?
Yes, inspirational and just very, very high quality.
It is a suit so it goes, we have the skirting.
Again, very fortunate to have it in such great condition.
What would the age be on that one again do you think?
This is probably; this is a mid-40s, late probably.
Yeah.
That is lovely.
She did some beautiful work for Hollywood and the like.
And then definitely one of our very favorites.
This is a Christian Dior, Paris.
How it got to Kansas City the story is still unknown.
But it is a fabulous piece from 1947.
When I started working with the collection I kept look at it and thinking oh my gosh,
that has to be the new look, Dior’s new look.
Well they hide labels and so when I happened to get into the skirt…and this skirt would
have been worn with a crinoline or a petticoat underneath it with some fullness to it, we
finally got lucky one day, and got underneath, let’s see if we can find it.
It is like a treasure hunt.
It is like a treasure hunt because the labels, we typically think about our labels always
being around the neck, and easy to see and easy to get to.
Well as you cans see they don’t make it quite that easy for me.
But you also see all the fabric used to do this design.
There you go.
Finally we had validation that this is a 1947 Christian Dior new look.
That is so neat.
A fabulous piece, so this is certainly one of the favorites in the collection.
Also heavy I would guess in weight.
Very heavy.
Oh yes, oh my gosh.
And of course a lot of fabric there too.
That is beautiful.
I love the tailored look of it with the jacket especially.
Yes it is absolutely fabulous.
Gorgeous.
(music) Oh my gosh, what is this?
Isn’t this just a treasure?
Oh yes.
This would be probably a turn of the century, it is harder to date accessories, but it is
a parasol that women would have carried to shade themselves from the sun.
It has some damage to it but it is in incredible shape and it actually was these different
layers on purpose it just kind of added to the design of it.
The first time I opened it I thought oh no something is broken, but then when you study
it, it’s very consciously done that way and the handle is absolutely fabulous also.
That’s beautiful.
And this was added as kind of a garnish here?
Probably, just kind of an extra little touch here.
We do have a lot of accessories also within the collection.
So when students are trying to really do an authentic look we have opportunity to accessorize
as well.
We are very pleased to have quite a few of the parasols in our possession.
Then also going to something that is really quite old.
Oh my gosh.
This is a turn of the century, this would be between 1890 and 1910.
And the reason I feel comfortable dating that is because it is what was referred to as a
monobosom.
The women were to look like their chest was a one part instead of two parts.
I see.
So it was a monobosom and in the construction of it, which is too difficult to show you,
there is literally an inner-structure that has a fabric that is in a ruffle that would
add fullness to the chest.
So I guess original thinking, I don’t know.
Yes.
Wow!
An original touch to add a little fullness.
And we are fortunate that we also do have the skirt from this particular piece.
The waistline is incredibly, incredibly small.
Very, very small.
And the workmanship is gorgeous in the bodice as well as the fabulous workmanship in the
skirt.
It is wool so unfortunately we do have some moth damage.
Considering the moves and all the perils you might say this collection has gone through
we are fortunate to have some things in such beautiful shape.
That has done well through time.
I am very happy to be able to show this piece to you too.
Is this handmade lace?
Do you know?
It probably would have been machine made.
It is really, it is difficult to tell because when things were handmade, they were still
handmade so well that is was difficult, it is really kind of difficult to tell.
So we were literally studying this today to make sure that we thought it was authentic
and not just a costume.
Because every once in a while you have some people make some beautiful costumes, but we
are very confident that this is authentic.
Then just to make people cringe I thought I would bring in a swimsuit from the 1920s.
Oh my Lord.
That is wool isn’t it?
It certainly is.
One you should probably recognize the brand.
This is Janzen.
They are definitely wool.
We have several actually in the collection of these.
And women weren’t really swimming because of course as soon as this got wet it got longer
and heavier.
Incredibly itchy too.
We are fortunate to have some of those.
And I figured some of the viewers might remember this look.
Of course, hot pants.
With the suede hot pants and when the erogenous zone was definitely the thigh.
Yes, that is cool.
Very small.
Oh yes, I remember those.
So we are so fortunate as a program to have this collection as a true asset to the educational
process.
Well it is such an incredible collection.
You think about all the stories these clothes could tell.
If they could talk I would love to know what happened in that one.
That must have been a fun time.
(music) Joan how can people in the community learn
more about this collection?
We are so fortunate that the College has developed some digital libraries and one of those digital
libraries is around the collection.
It is still an on-going feat, but a lot of it is posted out there.
Most of the designer clothing is available by going to web site and searching for the
digital library.
Oh how wonderful.
Well, thank you so much for your time today Joan.
Thank you it was fun.
And thank you for watching JCCC voices.
(music)