Links
Slate September 2011 article “Permanent Record: Entry 1: How I Found the Report Cards, and How They Changed My Life”
WNYC June 2010 article “The Garment District: So Last-Century, or the Perfect Fit for New York?” by Ilya Marritz
http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/155840
New York Times April 2010 article “Needle and Thread Still Have a Home,” by Guy Trebay
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/fashion/29GimletEye.html?emc=eta1
Benjamin Feldman’s essay on the Fur District of New York City from his blog New York Wanderer
http://new-york-wanderer.blogspot.com/2009/12/cold-storage.html
Scandal Sandals & Lady Slippers: A History of Delman Shoes, exhibit at FIT from 9 March-3 April 2010
Mike’s NYC Tours
Licensed tour guide Mike Kaback offers both scheduled and custom tours of the Garment Center, as well as other New York City neighborhoods.
http://www.mikesnyctours.com/index.php
HBO’s Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/schmatta/index.html
International Ladies Garment Workers Union: Social Unionism in Action
Web Exhibit:
http://www.laborarts.org/exhibits/ilgwu/
A Perfect Fit: The Garment Industry and American Jewry: Yeshiva University Museum
An exhibition held in 2005:
http://www.yumuseum.org/APerfectFit/index.html
Fashion Institute of Technology Museum
New York Public Library Fashion Blog
http://www.nypl.org/blogs/subject/fashion
Leon Bibel Paintings
Leon Bibel (1913-1995) is best known for his WPA prints and paintings when he worked as an artist on the New York City Federal Art Project in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Living in such volatile times, the Depression was a major concern and war a topic of great debate. This backdrop gave rise to his passion for issues of poverty, peace and justice, racism, and industrial safety. His iconic images of workers included miners and stevedores. The images here were inspired by Leon’s visits to the Palnel Factory in the Garment Center, which was owned by his wife’s family. Leon loved the machines, the tools, the patterns and the dress forms, and he used many aspects of the iconography of the factory in his art throughout his life.
Images provided by courtesy of Phyllis Wrynn, Park Slope Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
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- Dress Factory Study; pencil/watercolor; 1940
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- Palnel Shop; brush/ink drawing; 1941
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- The Union Makes Us Strong; oil/canvas; 1938
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- Garment Center; gouache; c.1939
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- Dress Forms; charcoal; c.1938
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- Dress Forms
Truth Plus
Jessica Gold’s blog Truth Plus looks at the evolution of the fashion industry in the U.S. Jessica, who has been in the fashion industry for the past decade, was the longtime Director of Marketing at Liz Lange Maternity. Since the company was acquired by a Private Equity fund in 2007, she has run a consulting firm, JG & Co. (www.jgandconyc.com), working primarily with contemporary women’s brands (like Lauren Moffatt, Anna Sheffield, Lucy Sykes, Hayden Harnett, Rachel Antonoff, and Wren), and helping them grow strategically, with an eye towards the bottom line. She is very interested in the history of the Garment District, having worked there for many years. Her blog shows that fashion is a business, not just an art. It discusses a variety of fashion-related topics, speaking with pattern and sample makers, economists, authors, and many others involved on the industry.
For Jessica’s account of the Tuesday, March 22, 2011 Garment Center Town Hall, click here.
Anne Elizabeth Moore
Garment Work is a collaborative performance project and ongoing research investigation into the relationship between Cambodian textile manufacturers and international consumers. Garment Work is a meditation on capitalism, integrity, loss, and perseverance. The project has been exhibited at the Spinnerei in Leipzig, Germany; Meta House in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; DoVA Temporary, Chicago; and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The video was screened at the 2011 College Art Association conference in New York City. This fall, the Garment Work video will be screened at the Artisterium in Tbilisi, Georgia, in a special exhibition at the State Silk Museum.
