Hemlines have risen and fallen since the West Vancouver chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women started 60 years ago.
And to celebrate its anniversary, the CFUW will take a look back at the duds through the decades through a fashion retrospective at West Vancouver United Church Feb. 24.
Hosting the fashion flashback is Ivan Sayers, a Vancouver fashion historian who specializes in the study of women’s, men’s, and children’s clothing from 1650 to the present.
Sayers, a one-time Vancouver Museum curator of history, has one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of historic clothing in private hands in Canada.
He commonly jokes that his collection is so vast, he sleeps in the dining room of his three-bedroom home.
Sayers will showcase some vintage pieces from his collection during the Feb. 24 fashion show that will have attendees incredulously reaching for their rib cages when the corset comes out.
Divided into two parts, the program starts with a live demonstration of a model going through an early 1900s-era dressing sequence involving a corset, bustle, three petticoats and various layers right through to the finished silhouette. The look is completed with a hat, gloves and handbag.
“That’s to examine the way things used to be in the olden days,” says Sayers.
The most time-consuming part, of course, is adjusting the corset and lacing it up “so it’s as small as it should go.”
The second part of the fashion retrospective intentionally starts in 1957 to pay homage to the West Vancouver CFUW’s inception.
“The rest of (the show) is the evolution of modern fashion and the emancipation of truly restrictive clothing,” says Sayers. “We’ll cover basically the principle looks over the last 50, 60 years.”
Sayers will show the clothes on dressmaker dummies, accompanied by slides that explain changes in women’s fashion over the decades and the influences of politics, economics and social attitude.
“We’ll talk about the ‘50s and the exaggeration of femininity. The image of movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor,” says Sayers of the fashion that was on trend when the CFUW started in West Vancouver.
That womanly look, explains Sayers, evolved gradually into a more youthful style, after the birth of the Barbie doll. Later comes the miniskirt and the model of the day is Twiggy.
“So gradually the look becomes even more youthful until it gets to the point where it’s almost childish because Twiggy had such an undeveloped figure,” says Sayers.
Throughout the ‘70s, clothing became a bit more modest and the hemlines longer. Lady Diana and her fashion style becomes iconic towards the end of the decade. Moving into the ‘80s, shoulder pads and power suits – “consequences of the women’s movement” – ruled the runway.
“You were expected to look powerful and be powerful,” explains Sayers.
The ‘90s saw more experimenting – theatrical fashions, Japanese designers and the modern punk and new wave fashions of Vivienne Westwood, along with the introduction of goth.
Sayers will cap off the show discussing the current preoccupation with bright colours, sparkle and “sequins in the middle of the day.”
“So we’ve got lots to talk about,” he says. “Every period has successes and failures, that’s the truth. At any given moment there are designers doing wonderful things and there are designers doing things which I think are ugly. Everybody likes something different.”
Sayers sources historical clothing items from around the world including France, Germany, England, the U.S., Japan and even closer to home. The corset Sayers will be using he got from a Salvation Army thrift store in Vancouver in 1965.
“I do try to get the histories attached to the garments because it means more,” he says. “My real focus is history and I use clothing to examine history.”
Sayers looks at the broader history of the day as well as the personal history of the garment’s owner. Clothing is often saved from special occasions or milestone moments in people’s lives.
“The obvious thing is a wedding dress,” he says. “A lot of the clothes are saved because they are reminiscent of a particular moment in a women’s life.”
Among the treasured fashion items Sayers has inherited and learned the backstory of over the years are a first evening dress; a first pair of shoes – costing a fortune – that a woman purchased for her first job; a pantsuit, because it was the first time she could wear pants to work.
The West Van fashion event is intended to raise funds for the CFUW’s 60th anniversary scholarship. The CFUW’s main goals are to benefit the community and advance human rights and improve the status of women through education.
“One of the things that we do is try to give scholarships to women in fields where women aren’t represented,” says CFUW past president Ieva Cornford, who is chair of the 60th anniversary committee.
As for why the CFUW decided to host a fashion retrospective, Cornford says the committee thought it would be fun.
“So it’s our 60th anniversary and we thought it would be interesting for Ivan to show fashion from ’57 to now because in a way fashion and architecture and music kind of goes with the times. And it will be interesting to see how it changed,” says Cornford.
The CFUW anniversary event will include refreshments and door prizes, along with the fashion show.
More information is available by calling 604-925-8445 or emailing cfuw.westvan@gmail.com.
