MOHAI Fashion Lecture: Style and Spectacle in Seattle

LECTURE

Sep 19

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For those of you who believe Seattle has forever been behind the fashion curve, you would have been sorely mistaken if you attended the MOHAI Fashion Lecture: Style and Spectacle in Seattle. Since the turn of the century, Seattle has had a pulse on the fashion scene. Clara Berg, MOHAI‘s Textile Collections Specialist, led a highly informative lecture on the history of fashion in Seattle. Beginning at the Exhibition of 1851 with the birth of department stores, we learned that Seattle was born into a retail culture that included the democratization of fashion.

Shops like Toklas & Singerman (Seattle’s first department store) and Stone, Fisher & Lane paved the way for fashion in the Pacific Northwest with their newspaper advertisements. Stone, Fisher & Lane was also the first to mention the phrase “fashion show” in print. The early visions of Seattle Fashion Week included retailers collaborating to encourage customers to shop at their stores. In the 1970s – 80s, some people were concerned with the “lack of Seattle fashion”, but fashion shows were thriving at this time.

But with the collapse in fashion in the 1990s, many department stores closed leaving only Nordstrom. This collapse also led to a decline in full-time charity socialites who normally planned fashion events further leading to a shift in how fashion shows looked. Seattle tried to keep up with cities like New York, especially around the time New York Fashion Week made a home for itself at Bryant Park in 1992. The disconnect evolved as fashion became more about the spectacle and less about ready-to-wear.

However, with the revamp of technology including the use of social media, the city has become home to major fashion brands including Zulily and Amazon, museum exhibits like Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair, Counter-Culture and Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style and high-end fashion events such as Fashion First Seattle and Fashion Week at The Bellevue Collection, Seattle is steadily moving onward and upward.