Curatorial Exhibition Scholarship

Sounding Fashion

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Abstract

Sounding Fashion was an exhibition curated by a team of graduate students at Cornell University and sourced objects primarily from the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection (CF+TC). The exhibition brought attention to the often overlooked, or overheard, audible element of fashion. With a focus on collaboration, balancing education and entertainment, and decolonization, Sounding Fashion displayed garments and accessories representing production, protest, performance, and embodied presence in garments, shoes, and jewellery. The objects’ voices were presented visually within the cases and on promotional materials and digitally through recordings of the objects in motion. Sounding Fashion was a final outcome of the course FSAD 6451 Curating Fashion Exhibitions, developed and taught by Professor Denise N. Green. The exhibition was displayed physically from December 12, 2022 - February 2, 2023. The digital version, which includes a Matterport 3D tour of the physical space, is on display in perpetuity on Cornell’s blog platform.  

Keywords: fashion exhibition, fashion curation, sound, collaborative curation, decolonizing exhibitions, education and entertainment

How to Cite:

Ottmann, S., Pandey, A., Liu, Z. & Green, D. N., (2025) “Sounding Fashion”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 82(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.22048