The Bonnie Cashin archival collection is a personal collection of illustrations, concept art, writings, etc about her work in fashion and design throughout her lifetime. It covers her work in fashion, theater, and film costume design, while also including press releases about her collections. There is 440 pieces in the collection, that includes 318 boxes and 4 garment racks, gifted from Bonnie Cashin’s estate in 2003. However, there is also a limited number of examples of her fashion and accessory designs that had been anonymously gifted to UCLA in 2005.
If one were to solely look at this archive, the historical narrative that emerges would be one of her personal development as an artist practicing her craft, beginning from her youth and initial interest in fashion, to the rest of her adult life and career in the industry. A timeline emerges from this vast collection due to the variability the collection has, and it paints the narrative of a young, Fresno native whose dreams of working in the fashion industry eventually became a reality. It also shows a period of time in which she was working almost exclusively in the film industry, providing costume designs for different studios in Hollywood (1943-1949), which occurred after leaving her jobs designing for ballet and theater.
Another part of the archive, aside from her illustrations, photographs, and actual pieces, are the writings. There are personal letters and essays pinned by Cashin, as well as press releases from her/her studio, which gives an idea of how her personal ideology on fashion and the fashion world changed over time. The press releases indicate more about how she presented herself and her collections to the world (similar to the photos of her that are in the archive), while the essays, letters, and personal photos let us see Cashin on a more personal, intimate level, although it is still largely about her professional life and involvement in fashion.
On the other hand, there are things that the archive most notably lacks: pieces on Cashin’s private life, away from her position as a notable designer (especially for Coach). While the archive contains pictures and letters of Cashin from a personal setting (not taken professionally), the majority were still of her in her professional environment, or talking about work. The archived correspondence was mostly about her designs and the general state of the fashion world, but leaves much to be desired when you start wondering about her personal life.
Great job, and I definitely agree with you that a collection like this would be lacking if it didn’t include any personal letters, photos, etc. It would feel, as it were, impersonal. I have an anthology of work by Dorothy Parker that includes all of her personal letters, and though it has all of the essays and poems that made her famous, I find the letters much more interesting because it shows you who Parker really was as a human being, not just as a poet. I think that inclusion would be even more essential for a collection of Cashin’s work because, as an illustrator and fashion designer, her professional work doesn’t tell you much about who she actually was as a person.
Cool collection! I agree, I feel like if they included more personal content in the collection, it could give a more accurate picture of her growth as both a human and an artist overtime. One of the problems I see arising from this though is it might be hard to secure the rights to her personal items/letters, considering it might be a breach of her privacy. It seems to be a common theme in digital humanities research (thinking about what Professor Caswell said about securing personal photos for SAADA).
Good point, Maggie! I hope they digitize the collection someday, since I bet a lot of people would like to see it!