Fashioning an artful life: One woman's life history in clothes.

摘要

This research documents the life events of Margot Siegel (b. 1923), founder of the Friends of the Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota, using her clothing donations to the Goldstein from her personal wardrobe. Ms Siegel is a woman of many passions and talents. She is a journalist by education, an avid art aficionado and patron by avocation, a member of the Minneapolis/St. Paul chapter of Fashion Group International, and a major artifact donor and contributor to The Goldstein. This research examines her clothing donations to the Museum that occurred over time. Because she wore these garments during the course of several decades, they represent "moments in time" or benchmarks of her life and embody seven decades. She was often the first to donate clothes of many important designers---a significant distinction for a donor in an organization's history. Her donations serve as evidence of lived experience throughout a life course.; My qualitative research uses an interdisciplinary approach, grounded in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and history. I come from a feminist perspective since feminists have long extolled the value of oral history/personal narratives because feminist theory comes out of and responds to the lives of women.; The research relies on a threefold methodological approach beginning with recorded informal conversational interviews and the spontaneous exchange of information. Interviews are supported by contextual information from artifacts including Ms Siegel's newspaper and magazine articles, her personal and professional correspondence, photographs, and examining her many donated items of dress. These artifacts provide temporal qualities that represent specific eras and places and illustrate how dress has been at the intersection of all of them.