Program Profile: MA Costume Studies at NYU
Editor's Note: FSJ’s profile series on programs and institutions that prioritize and foster fashion studies education aims to highlight and bring attention to the multi-disciplinary approaches to the field globally.
Fashion Studies Journal: Thank you for this interview! Please tell us about your work and research interests and your trajectory in Fashion Studies.
Nancy Deihl: As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in what people wear and wore. It's really always been a bit of an obsession — reading a book and picturing the wardrobes of the characters, looking at any old magazine I could find, everything fed my interest. And even now that I have the chance to indulge this obsession every day, it has not gone stale! My particular research interests are in what I would term "modern" fashion. There are obviously many ways to define "modern," but I think the advent of industrial input into the fabrication of clothes is one marker of the dawn of modernity as it concerns fashion. So that puts us at the mid-19th century and leads to our current moment. And because in this field we are — rightly — taking into consideration many fashion systems, I also want to qualify that my research centers on the diffusion out from Europe and North America during that time period. It is the most significant fashion vector between the 1850s and the mid-20th century. To be more specific, I'm interested in the American fashion industry and the system that is particular to this country.
I came into fashion studies via more than fifteen years of work in the art world. I was a research assistant at the Whitney Museum right out of college, worked at Christie's in contemporary art, several downtown galleries, and later as a corporate curator and independent art consultant. I always had a "side" interest in fashion and in fact took professional education classes at Parsons, I think in pattern making and knitwear. But I knew that I wasn't going to be a designer and found the research much more interesting. So when it was time for graduate school, and I found the Costume Studies program at NYU, I realized that could be my field. I was fortunate to study with Richard Martin when he was at NYU and the Costume Institute; his breadth of knowledge and commitment to scholarship and exhibitions were inspiring. In fact, the first class I ever taught was as a last-minute substitute for him when he had a schedule conflict. Very short notice, but worth the effort!
Please tell us about your role as Director of the Costume Studies Program at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at NYU, and about the program.
Directing a graduate program involves a combination of teaching, administration, and research, all of which are important. The program was founded over 40 years ago, so there is a heritage. In the early years, Costume Studies was really only intended to train museum professionals and had a limited student intake and admitted students only every two years. Since I've been at NYU (and I've been there since 2003, and have been the program director since 2011) we have widened the focus. The core of the curriculum is still courses in history and analysis of dress and textiles, but because we are in a large research university, we're able to enhance the program with a variety of classes that range from film costume (from a theoretical viewpoint) to contemporary dress and decorative arts. The original research that goes into each master's thesis also represents an opportunity for an individualized approach for each student. I feel my role as a program director is about encouraging and supporting student work. But I also think I have a responsibility to stand up for the study of fashion as a serious topic. That's part of my mission.
As an educator, how do you foresee the future of fashion studies education?
One of the key developments in this field is recognition of different fashion systems that have been influential globally in various times and places. For example, looking at court systems in Asia as crucibles of fashion, rather than as unchanging monoliths. This exploration has sparked a lot of revisiting of assumptions and reworking curricula. It puts pressure on existing "survey" courses but it's very exciting. I think another area of focus is strengthening the connections among history, theory, and practice. It's important for scholars, researchers, writers, curators to also have knowledge of fashion practices. I have had alarming conversations with people who dismiss the fashion industry as irrelevant to their work, but really it's the foundation of what we study.
You recently published the edited volume “The Hidden History of American Fashion,” published by Bloomsbury Academic Press. How did the project come about, and what are some of your observations about American Fashion Studies?
The book grew out of a conversation I had with a Bloomsbury editor, in which I suggested they publish more about American fashion. The conversation took place at a symposium (of the Costume Society of America) where I happened to have attended several really strong presentations on American designers who had enjoyed busy, successful careers but were now all but unknown. So, I proposed to pull together a collection of these stories, reached out to the presenters, and was thrilled that everyone agreed to contribute! After the symposium, I approached a couple more writers and the project really filled out. It's a great group of contributors and the chapters represent many facets of the American fashion industry. It turned out that all the designers profiled were women, so that added another dimension to the book. I'm very pleased that the book has been received with enthusiasm, reviewed favorably, and most of all, that we have been able to present such outstanding scholarship to the public. There are many, many more aspects of American fashion that need to be examined. Whenever possible, I nudge students to take on an American topic.
What are some of your goals for the field moving forward?
It's very encouraging that there is a growing sense of professionalism in fashion studies. It used to be a prevalent notion that if you were a stylish person that qualified you as a fashion historian. There are still pockets of that attitude, but I have found -- even over the years that I have been involved in teaching and research -- that more people take the field more seriously. For example, I wrote an undergrad fashion history course for NYU (at the request of the school) that counts for core credits, meaning that it can be taken to fulfill a general liberal arts distribution requirement. It has turned out to be a popular course, and quite a strong endorsement of fashion as a "legit" field of inquiry.
Nancy Deihl, Clinical Assistant Professor and Program Director, has been with NYU Costume Studies since 2003. Deihl specializes in the history of fashion from 1850 to the present and teaches Literature and Methodology of Costume Studies, Research Methods, and courses in fashion and textile history. Formerly a curator and consultant in contemporary art, she was also adjunct faculty at Fashion Institute of Technology, where she taught fashion and textile history and exhibition practice. Deihl is the editor of The Hidden History of American Fashion: Rediscovering 20th-Century Women Designers (Bloomsbury, 2018) and co-author of The History of Modern Fashion (Laurence King, 2015). Other recent writing and editorial projects include fashion history content for Oxford Art Online/Grove Art Online; an entry on the American costume and fashion designer Zelda Wynn Valdes for Oxford’s African American Studies Center; and “A Seventh Avenue Saga: On Failure as Texture in American Fashion” for Vestoj. Her chapter “’Decidedly Modern’ Fashion in the 1920s” was included in the catalogue for Charles Sheeler: Fashion, Photography, and Sculptural Form (James A. Michener Art Museum, 2017). Deihl lectures widely on fashion history topics. She received her BA from Rutgers University, and her MA from New York University.
