Change of Season, Change of Wardrobe

Artist Frank O. Salisbury painted this portrait of Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton in 1934. For the portrait she wore a silk satin ivory dress with a red silk velvet drape trimmed in white fox. / Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens.

Among the dresses displayed throughout the mansion is this afternoon dress of organza and lace created around 1903 by a French designer. Visitors will find it in the French Drawing Room which, on the day of our visit, was in a slight state of disarray while crews readied the new exhibit. / MyLittleBird photo.

Definitely not from the Eileen Fisher school of design, Post’s dresses often were lush, complicated, heavily ornamented concoctions. The studded metal beading on the gown above is a perfect example. / MyLittleBird photo.

An evening at home meant retiring to the library wearing a lounging gown of beaded blue velvet. The deft, and very clean, hands of Howard Vincent Kurtz, Hillwood’s associate curator of textiles and curator of the exhibition, and docent and collections volunteer Celia Steingold adjust the gown so it hangs perfectly on its mannequin. / Left, MyLittleBird photo, right photo courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens

Post wore this afternoon dress of taffeta, organza, lace and chiffon the night she became engaged to Edward Bennett Close. / MyLittleBird photo.

A custom traveling dress by designer Ellen Widoff of New York from around 1910 made of purple linen-backed velvet also features ivory lace, jet beading, boning and bright pink silk satin. / Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens.

Post , a fervent advocate for the women’s vote, wore this Suffragette suit as a member of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party during a visit with President Woodrow Wilson in 1917. / Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens.

For this 1921 portrait Post wore a gown similar to the evening dress at left. She often ordered multiple sets of the same style. This evening dress features a divided skirt inspired by harem pants. The most visible difference between these two dresses is the color of the netting at the sleeves and waist. / Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens.

This tubular, waistless dress typifies many of the radical changes in women’s fashions of the 1920s. The dress is slightly flared at the bottom, a feature that made it particularly well-suited to dancing. Its accessories include a matching slip, cape, purse and fan in the same striking combination of cream and cobalt blue silk velvet, embroidered with rhinestones. / Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens.

These twin evening gowns represent one of Post’s favorite styles. She had the gowns, made of satin, tulle and silk crepe, in both copper and ivory. The gowns were basically the same but featured slight differences. / MyLittleBird photo.

A gray dinner dress by Christian Dior is made of silk taffeta and decorated with cut steel and glass beads. The dress is worn with a petticoat, but not the original one. To save wear and tear on the delicate originals, Kurtz buys new petticoats and hems them to the proper length when dresses go on display. / Left photo courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, right photo MyLittleBird.

On display in Post’s closet is this black silk taffeta evening dress. The rounded shoulders and V-neckline illustrate the change to a fuller silhouette that took place at the end of the 1940s. / MyLittleBird photo.

Oldric Royce was one of Post’s favorite designers from the late 1940s through the 1960s. Intricate smocking and clear rhinestones set off this Royce evening dress from 1955. The dress was made of green silk organza and is on display in the dining room. Post also commissioned the same dress in gray. / MyLittleBird photo.

In 1968 Designer Oldric Royce created this gown of raw silk, cotton lace and beading, which Post wore to the American Red Cross Ball in Palm Beach that year. / Courtesy Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens.

Michele Hopkins, a curatorial intern with the Smithsonian’s decorative arts program, and Elizabeth Lay, a curator with the Montgomery County Historical Society, have been tasked with readying the dresses to be displayed in the Adirondack building. Here, a dress that has been on display throughout the summer is returned to its “coffin” for storage. The delicate clothing is handled with extreme care. / MyLittleBird photo.

Mannequins in the Adirondack building wait to be dressed in the clothing chosen for colder months that make up the second part of “Ingenue to Icon.” / MyLittleBird photo.

IT’S A SILLY FANTASY, but one that recurs from time to time. I become nostalgic thinking about favorite outfits I once wore. The nostalgia most likely has more to do with yearning for my younger, slimmer days, but the fun of the fantasy would be in seeing all the clothes I’ve ever worn laid out in an amusing timeline of how my tastes and style (if one could call it that) have evolved. I expect the reaction would be a mix of laughter, pleasure and horror at being reminded of the clothes I once put on my body.

This is but one of the hundred ways in which I am not like heiress, businesswoman and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post, the doyenne of Hillwood Estate, whose exquisite gowns and dresses very much deserve to be on display. Luckily, some of them are.

The exhibit “Ingenue to Icon: 70 Years of Fashion From the Collection of Marjorie Merriweather Post” opened in June. Until last week visitors could view selections from Post’s warm-weather wardrobe. Now those dresses have been gently returned to storage, where they’ll remain for at least four years before being seen again, to make way for a winter grouping of her amazing gowns. Twelve dresses are on display in the mansion, positioned in rooms (or closets) thought most fitting as a backdrop. Another 20 gowns and dresses fill the gallery-like Adirondack building. Hats, shoes, gloves and other accessories, as well as archival images, accompany many of the ensembles. The exhibit runs through December.

Post was an important woman who lived during a period in which women’s fashion underwent seismic changes. Fortunately for us, she had the foresight to save the most important examples of the apparel and accessories she acquired over the years. Born in 1887 and heir to the Postum Cereal Company, which eventually became General Foods Corporation, her range of style reaches from the Victorian Age to the Space Age. She died in 1973.

“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.”

Kurtz is keenly respectful of the garments entrusted to his care. During a behind-the-scenes visit as the previous exhibit was being taken down and the current exhibit was being put in place, he shared some of the tricks he uses to make certain the gowns not only look their best but are oh-so-carefully protected as well. Included in his bag of props are pieces of foam that can be inserted into a sleeve to ensure that it falls perfectly rather than hangs limply; “pita pockets,” actually half moons of airy batting, that can smooth out a bust line or plump up a pleat; and a ready supply of newly purchased petticoats (the originals are too fragile to use) that he can hem at will.

It takes two pairs of hands to dress a mannequin, Kurtz says, in order to minimize the amount of stress placed on the garment. Yet no one wears gloves. “That’s right,” he says. “Gloves can leave lint. We just make sure we have very, very clean hands.” Those handling the clothes aren’t allowed to wear makeup or perfume either, lest a smell or a smudge get transferred to the delicate materials. It can easily take up to two and a half hours, sometimes more, to dress one mannequin.

“Marjorie always had the best,” Kurtz says of the woman whose clothes he so often handles and whose legacy he admires. “During her life she went from a size 2 to a size 10. She had broad shoulders, a tiny waist and not much of a derriere. Her shoe size was 6½. She kept very fit—walking, golfing, she was always on the go.” Kurtz has the privilege of seeing up close the impeccable tailoring and exquisite fabrics that make up Post’s wardrobe. Her exacting eye as a collector of decorative objects also extended to her appreciation for rich fabrics and elegant design.

The collection will delight not only those who take great pleasure in fashion, but those who also enjoy stepping back in history. Post experienced great change throughout her lifetime and her wardrobe is a beautifully illustrative reflection of the historical eras through which she lived. How sad that the highlight of my lifetime’s fashion history was the mini skirt.

–Kathy Legg

Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, 4155 Linnean Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. Open Tuesday through Sunday 10am to 5pm, through December 31, 2015. Suggested entrance donation $18; $15 for seniors, $10 students.