Grand Rapids Public Museum staff curates exhibit focused on fashion and nature

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Fans of fashion are in for a visual feast with Grand Rapids Public Museum’s latest exhibit.

The exhibit, called “Fashion and Nature,” explores the relationship between the fashion industry and nature. Nature often serves as an inspiration for fashion, from colors to shapes to textures. But the creation of garments, especially in the modern era, can often cause harm to the natural world.

That dichotomy is on display at the GRPM’s exhibit, which opened earlier this year. The exhibit was created by Andrea Melvin, GRPM’s collections curator, and Cory Redman, science curator at the museum.

Melvin has a background in fashion and went through the museum’s collection of 10,000 fashion items to select pieces for “Fashion and Nature.” The pieces range from wedding dresses to fur coats to feathered hats. Some highlights include a dress with embellishments made from beetle wings and a pair of high heels made out of apple leather.

“We have a lot of unique fashion items,” said Kate Kocienski, GRPM’s vice president of public relations. “We have an incredible collection of fashion, most of which was donated by people right here in West Michigan. A lot of it is uniforms, wedding dresses, things from special occasions that people wanted to save.”

Most of the GRPM’s earliest collections, as with most museums, are natural history and science items, so pairing those two collections was where the “Fashion and Nature” exhibit was born.

Along with showcasing how nature inspires fashion, the museum displays the negative ways fashion can interact with the natural world.

From over farming materials for clothing to using bugs or plants to dye fabric, the exploitation of nature for fashion is old hat.

“Hats were a fundamental part of fashion for so long, people wore hats every day, and for a period of time, women’s hats incorporated feathers from birds,” Redman said. “The more exotic, the better. That had a really negative impact on the bird population.”

Along with the flamboyant hats, the museum pairs those with several birds of paradise on display.

While most of the GRPM’s fashion collection is already local, the museum reached out to local designers to create one-of-a-kind garments for the exhibit.

One of those pieces was created by an area high school student.

“I think one of my favorite pieces is a new piece we worked with local designer Riley Diehlman for,” Melvin said. “She’s a local youth artist and creates wearable indigenous art and fashion with Anishinaabe practices. She created a beautiful dress for us, it just shows the beauty of fashion.”

Though fashion can be beautiful, its toll on nature can also be cruel. The exhibit shows just how many pieces of clothing are thrown away each year with piles of clothes displayed in front of infinity mirrors. Even doing laundry can have an impact on nature, when considering the water usage needed to run a washing machine.

The exhibit’s curators hope museum visitors get hands-on with the displays, with touchable swatches of fabric and a high-tech mirror that allows visitors to virtually try on pieces of the museum’s fashion collection.

“My goal is that when people walk out, they walk away knowing there are simple things anybody can do that reduces the negative impact their fashion choices make on the natural world,” Redman said. “Reduce the amount of clothing items you purchase and focus on stuff that is made through sustainable methods or will last for a very long time. Wear the items you have for as long as possible and then once you can’t use it anymore, recycle or donate. There really are simple steps.”

The “Fashion and Nature” exhibit will be on display through at least the end of 2023. The museum’s full digitized fashion collection can be viewed at grpmcollections.org.

Tickets for the Grand Rapids Public Museum are $12 for adults ($10 for Kent County residents), $10 ($8) and $5 (free) for children 17 and under. The museum, at 272 Pearl St. NW, is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. on weekends.

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