For Our Students

All of today’s fashion is recycled, nothing is new.” 
- Student Cydney Griggs in 1987 interview for Copacetic Magazine

Creating a student resource has always been the driving purpose for establishing and growing a historic clothing and textiles collection at Colorado State University. Over the decades, thousands of students across several degree programs have studied the collection. Most students interact with it during their classes, while others have worked with curators and collections managers to help research, preserve, and exhibit objects. 

The access that the students have to this collection is really wonderful. This is used as a teaching collection, which at a land grant university is as it should be.”
- Faculty member Dr. Jennifer Ogle in 2019 oral interview

The collection and the museum have also provided opportunities for students to engage with visiting designers. Since the first original designs by Richard Blackwell were donated in 1988, his legacy continues to support the collection and the department. In 1996, Mr. Blackwell visited CSU and worked with students in design courses. Four years later, curator Linda Carlson and faculty member Dr. Eulanda Sanders used the historic Blackwell garments, patterns, and archives as the basis of a summer course project. Students worked with clients from the community to create a new design inspired by an original Blackwell. They then modeled their new garments in a fashion show. Likewise, Designer Ali Rahimi visited campus in 2010 to talk to students about his design business and the role of Blackwell as his mentor. And in 2019, designer Orlando Dugi was a guest in several classes speaking about his sustainable business and the inspiration behind his pieces featured in an Avenir museum exhibition.

As the collection grew from a few scattered items kept in closets to several thousand objects housed in secured storage rooms, museum staff worked to maintain museum preservation standards for the collection while ensuring it remained active as a teaching tool.

It's always a dilemma to create a paradigm or a construct about what the collection is, what's it for? And in all cases, you have to balance the potential damage that can happen through handling against the desire to save stuff. If it is too much on the side of preservation, if they become too precious to take out of the box, then all is lost. It's not a teaching collection anymore.”
- Faculty member Dr. Diane Sparks in 2019 oral interview

Any student can make an appointment and come in and work with objects one on one. You can come here and actually touch and feel and see the object. Most other institutions, and particularly textile collections because textiles are so fragile, don't have that level or don't provide that level of access. We also make ourselves available for researchers. I think the level of access that we can provide as a land grant institution is so valuable to a number of different constituents.
- Assistant Curator and Collections Manager Megan Osborne in 2019 oral interview

Understanding the unique needs of a university museum and collection requires a passion for using objects to foster a shared appreciation of the people who have already created things with students who will define the future of design. For over 20 years, Curator Linda Carlson grew a small study collection into a museum facility that is designed to engage all people interested in learning about and understanding the world through clothing and textile history.

It goes back to the fact that it is a teaching collection. I still maintain that one of the best ways to learn history, to learn economics, to learn textile science, to learn all kinds of things is to access the artifacts that were created and existed as part of those different times and developments. It allows us to understand. I still think it's magical.”
- Curator Emerita Linda Carlson in 2019 oral interview

Though she retired in 2011, Linda’s commitment to the study of historic clothing and textiles as an integral part of Colorado State University is still influencing those who work with the collection. Megan Osborne, current Assistant Curator and Collections Manager, took courses from Linda while earning her bachelor’s degree in merchandising at CSU. Kevin Kissell, a faculty member in the apparel design and production concentration, is also an alum of the department. He regularly brings his classes to the museum to study the collection.

I really think what solidified my interest in the collection was Linda because she was always so passionate about the collection and she always wanted us to be involved in it some way. So I think she really forged those connections with students really, really early on.”
- Faculty member Kevin Kissell in 2019 oral interview