This past January, faculty from the Art Institute of Colorado contacted History Colorado to arrange research visits for two of their Fashion Design & Marketing classes to view items in our collections pertaining to Margaret “Molly” Brown. The students were specifically interested in seeing photographs and clothing owned by Mrs. Brown. We were thrilled to host these talented students and instructors as they examined these items and talked with curators and librarians about our collections.

The students’ assignment was to research the life and history of Molly Brown in order to design and create a garment inspired by her style. The process included demonstrating a sequence of assembly involved in designing, developing patterns and constructing an entire garment involving couture sewing techniques that are needed in the fashion industry.

That process meant doing a bit of research ourselves and looking at our collections to make a selection of photographs showing Molly Brown wearing different examples of dresses over time and finding garments that she actually wore. This involved the work of several people at History Colorado, including our Collections Manager, Natalie Elder; Collections & Library Assistant, Kalyani Fernando; Reference and Outreach Librarian, Sarah Gilmor; and me, the Curator of Culture and Community. Since I had only been working at History Colorado for a few months when AIC contacted us, I was happy to see these dresses for the first time!

While we have only a small selection of garments that Molly Brown owned, History Colorado has a pretty good representation of styles she wore, starting from the Belle Epoque of 1895 to 1899 when she was a young woman in her twenties and still corseted, to the late 1920s when she embraced the flapper style as a mature woman, until her early 60s near the time of her death. As an independent, wealthy woman, Molly Brown stayed on the cutting edge of fashion, buying many of her haute couture dresses in Paris. One of those trips brought her home on the Titanic…but we all know that story.

Pictured here are some of the dresses we viewed and discussed with the AIC students, who were all very enthusiastic and made great observations about the fabric, cut, design and time period of each dress. It was a great learning experience for us all!

A few months after the visit, History Colorado staff were invited to AIC to see the end results of the project. Each student had created a dress from start to finish, along with a poster showing drawings and fabric samples and explaining the concepts and influences that inspired these beautifully sewn fashions. It was a marvel, and I’m sure Molly Brown couldn’t have been happier with the results!