Galleries and Exhibitions
The Textiles and Clothing Museum has three different gallery spaces for students and faculty to curate exhibitions: the Mary Alice Gallery, the LeBaron Gallery, and the Donna Gallery. Student and faculty curate exhibitions in our galleries utilizing objects from the permanent collection and also loaned or newly acquired objects depending upon the exhibition topic. If you have an idea for an exhibition, you can pitch it here!
Visiting the Galleries
All the galleries are free to attend. The Mary Alice Gallery and Donna Gallery are open all year round during Morrill Hall building hours. The LeBaron Gallery is open year round during LeBaron Hall building hours.
Mary Alice Gallery
The Mary Alice Anderson Reinhardt Gallery is located in 1015 Morrill Hall. It has a total of 504 square feet, with a dramatically curved wall of glass forming a large display area. Mary Alice was an alumna of the Textiles and Clothing program (1949), and her family funded the gallery in her honor.
LeBaron Gallery
The LeBaron Gallery is located outside the 1009 LeBaron Hall Conference Room. It includes two moveable cases made of plexi-glass with a wood base. It also features a modular text railing consisting of weighted bases and posts and easily changeable graphics panels.
Donna Gallery
The Donna Gallery is located inside the Danielson Conservation Laboratory in 0017 Morrill Hall. Visitors can visit the Donna gallery from the Peterson Gallery on the lower level Morrill Hall 003 hallway. The gallery objects are mounted inside the conservation laboratory and are visible through four large windows. The gallery features a modular text railing in hallway 003 consisting of weighted bases and posts and easily changeable graphics panels.
Current and Upcoming Exhibitions
Women Didn’t Always Wear Pants! – Freedom Through Fashion
Open Starting May 2023 / Donna Gallery
Pants are common in women’s wardrobes in the 21st century, yet this was not always the case! In this exhibition, we explore North American women’s fashions, specifically when they began wearing pants, in connection with their societal roles in the 19th and 20th centuries. Through five looks, representing different decades from the 1890s to the 1980s, we highlight how clothing, accessories, and shoes reflect shifting views and expectations of women with a focus on form, function, space, and movement of the body.
Undergraduate student curators
Elena Escalada, Architecture
Hamelynn Harzman, Biology
Quinn Kelly, Public Relations
Olivia Ovrom, Interior Design
Katie Scheflen, Animal Science
Joslyn Sperry, Anthropology
Ella Townsend, Genetics
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Apparel, Merchandising, and Design
Fashion / Existence / Myth – Narratives About Health, The Body, And The Fashion System
Open Starting January 2023 / Mary Alice Gallery
Fashion intersects with the wellness and existence of our bodies and the surrounding environment in various ways. For example, fashion helps support the physical health of our bodies. It influences how we feel about and perceive ourselves. It can also help facilitate finding deeper spiritual meanings in life. How we spend and save money and consume fashion products is an integral part of our overall financial health. Additionally, fashion plays a role in helping us feel connected and interact with others and fashion product production impacts the livelihood of the environment, climate, and surrounding communities.
In this exhibition, we examine how fashions around the globe inform the condition of our individual and collective existence and reflects our lived realities and known myths. Through six themes, physicality, introspection, metaphysical, economies, interactionism, and environmental, we highlight the complicated histories, current realties, and potential future impacts that fashion consumption, distribution, production, and regulation have on the well-being of our bodies, communities, and surrounding natural environment.
Curated by Zahra Falsafi, Amanda Ortiz-Pellot, and Dr. Kelly L. Reddy-Best. Amanda and Zahra are graduate students in the Apparel, Merchandising, and Design program and the recipients of the Agatha Huepenbecker Burnet endowed graduate research and teaching assistantship in the Textiles and Clothing Museum. Dr. Reddy-Best is an associate professor in Apparel, Merchandising, and Design and the director and curator of the Textiles and Clothing Museum.
Childrenswear: Identity & Culture Around the Globe
Opening starting May 2023 / Mary Alice Gallery
This exhibition examines how children from cultural backgrounds around the globe express their identity through dress.
Undergraduate student curators
Dorothy Vernon and Ivy Miller
Apparel, Merchandising, and Design
Recipients of the Louise Rosenfeld Undergraduate Research Internship
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Apparel, Merchandising, and Design
Shoes and Bags: 1890s to the present
Open starting May 2023 / LeBaron Gallery
This exhibition features an assort of shoes, purses, bags, and other accessories from the 1890s until the present
Undergraduate student curators
Sophia Strathearn and Michelle Beaudet
Apparel, Merchandising, and Design
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Apparel, Merchandising, and Design
The Fashion Show 2023: The Suite Escape
Open starting May 2023 / LeBaron Gallery
This exhibition features many of the winning garments and accessories from The Fashion Show 2023, which was held April 15, 2023 in Stephens Auditorium in Ames, IA.
The Fashion Show Management team that helped organize and mount the exhibition
- Owen Abrahamsen, director
- Brindy Arredondo, director
- Eden Olvera, director
- Allie Bienash, committee member
- Joslyn Cameron, committee member
- Autumn Graybill, committee member
- Kylie Greenwood, committee member
- Eden Knudson, committee member
- Dr. Reddy-Best, exhibition faculty advisor and director and curator of ISU’s Textiles and Clothing Museum