Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1991
Abstract
Betty J. Mills, curator of costumes and textiles at the museum, Texas Tech University, has compiled a detailed and accessible study of Texas women's garments. Overcoming the obstacles of garment preservation and reconstruction, Mills uncovers information about clothing by studying photographs, museum collections, correspondence, diaries, magazines, and newspapers to determine how fabrics and garments were constructed and acquired. Often this side of history is lost, but Mills provides us with a conscientious study that presents cloth and garments as documents of the everyday kinds of lives of Texas people. Through this thoughtful research, Mills explores the symbolic role of fashion on the Texas frontier.
Comments
Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 11:4 (Fall 1991). Copyright © 1991 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.