Historic Fashion Exhibition Opens At Lockport Gallery

LOCKPORT, IL — "Fashioning Illinois, 1820-1900," a historic fashion exhibition, is now open at the Illinois State Museum's Lockport Gallery, according to a release from the museum.

The exhibit was featured earlier this year at the Springfield museum location. According to the museum, the exhibit explores the experience of weaving and caring for clothing and how fashion reflected women’s changing roles and attitudes over the first 80 years of Illinois statehood.

“After a positive reception in Springfield, we are thrilled a new audience in the Lockport area will get the chance to enjoy this exhibit,” said the exhibition’s curator, Erika Holst. “It features plenty of eye candy in the form of gorgeous, historical garments. However, Fashioning Illinois also goes much deeper. It explores the labor that went into making and caring for the textiles and clothing."

Visitors will also see examples of historical costumes, textiles, and accessories from the Illinois State Museum’s Illinois Legacy Collection, the museum said. Among the garments displayed are an 1860s homespun linsey-woolsey dress; an 1850s maternity dress worn by a woman who died in childbirth; an 1890s mourning costume; and an 1880s Native American woven beaded headband.

The exhibition also features a reproduction of a dress worn by freed slave Lucy McWorter (1771-1870), recreated from an 1850s photograph by Springfield seamstress Mary Helen Yokem in collaboration with the Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum, according to the museum.

The exhibit will be on display in Lockport until March 31, 2022. Admission is free.