Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

Last updated

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History is a non-profit organization located in Palm Beach County, Florida. Currently the museum is seeking a permanent location.

Contents

Since year 2004, the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History has been conducting narrated bus tours of historic Delray Beach, Florida. In October 2011, the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History launched the first culinary tours in Palm Beach County.

History

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History was founded in 1999. Its mission is to showcase "lifestyle, cultures, people, places, fashion trends, clothes, architecture, furnishings, decorative arts, interior designs, locomotives and toys, and information about popular uses of artifacts by people/events of various periods of time".

From 2003 to 2005 the museum located in the Pineapple Grove Plaza in the City of Delray Beach. In year 2005, the plaza was sold and demolished and the museum was homeless. From 2009 to 2012 the museum was located at the Boynton Beach Mall in the City of Boynton Beach, Florida. There were two permanent history exhibits: the Fashion Treasures exhibit showcasing fashions from the 1800s to present, and the Barbie Museum gallery chronicling the anthropological impact of this world famous doll.

Barbie Museum

The Barbie Museum display at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History included hundreds of vintage, original and collector edition Barbie dolls, her family members and friends, and clothes and accessories dating from the doll's beginning in 1959 to the present.

Efforts were started in 1999 to raise monies to establish the non-profit Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History to feature a permanent gallery for the Barbie doll and the doll's popular culture history. [1] [2] Additionally, to complement the Barbie Museum, the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History featured a permanent rotating small-format exhibit about fashion history from the late 1880s to present.

In 1999 the idea developed for this unique museum devoted to Barbie doll history began when then 27-year-old Lori J. Durante conceived, organized and curated an exhibit entitled: "40 Years of the Barbie Doll: In Celebration of Women's History Month". [1] [2] Durante had worked as a fashion stylist for Boca Raton Magazine and Worth Avenue Magazine and also as a fashion writer for other publications. In 1998, Durante came up with a fashion news story idea about Barbie's 39th birthday for a news article she wrote for Jezebel Magazine. The research about the Barbie and the subsequent news story that Durante wrote inspired Durante to create an exhibit display about the doll for her 40th anniversary in 1999 to be located in Delray Beach,Florida.

For this exhibit display, Mattel loaned to Lori J. Durante multi-cultural and collector edition Barbie dolls that came from the Mattel archives in California. This small-format exhibit included a showcase of dolls from both Mattel and private collectors. The Barbie doll show became a blockbuster exhibit with more than 20,000 attendees from all over the State of Florida, the U.S. and from abroad. The exhibit became the number one exhibit in all of Palm Beach County, Florida and that attendance record for a locally created exhibit has not been broken yet. [1] [2]

Permanent archival and artifact collections

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History's permanent archival and artifact collection consists of more than 300 fashion items, clothes, accessories, household products, furnishings, decorative arts, toys and dolls, including ninety couture dresses designed by Arnold Scaasi that were given to the museum from a local historical society. The fashion collection includes clothing by Chester Weinberg, Bill Blass, Hattie Carnegie, Stetson, Lilly Pulitzer and Iris Apfel.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palm Beach County, Florida</span> County in Florida, United States

Palm Beach County is a county in the southeastern part of Florida, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's third-most populous county after Miami-Dade County and Broward County and the 26th-most populous in the United States, with 1,492,191 residents as of the 2020 census. Its county seat and largest city is West Palm Beach, which had a population of 117,415 as of 2020. Named after one of its oldest settlements, Palm Beach, the county was established in 1909, after being split from Miami-Dade County. The county's modern-day boundaries were established in 1963.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbie</span> Fashion doll brand by Mattel

Barbie is a fashion doll created by American businesswoman Ruth Handler, manufactured by American toy and entertainment company Mattel and introduced on March 9, 1959. The toy was based on the German Bild Lilli doll which Handler had purchased while in Europe. The figurehead of an eponymous brand that includes a range of fashion dolls and accessories, Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for over six decades. Mattel has sold over a billion Barbie dolls, making it the company's largest and most profitable line. The brand has expanded into a multimedia franchise since 1984, including video games, animated films, television/web series, and a live-action film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken (doll)</span> Male counterpart to the Barbie doll

Kenneth Sean "Ken" Carson Jr. is a fashion doll introduced by American toy company Mattel in 1961 as the counterpart of Barbie, who had been introduced two years earlier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Area codes 561 and 728</span> Telephone area code in Palm Beach County, Florida

Area codes 561 and 728 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Palm Beach County in the U.S. state of Florida. 561 was created on May 13, 1996, in a split of area code 407. The numbering plan area (NPA) comprises nearly every major city in the county, the largest of which being West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Wellington, Boynton Beach, Jupiter, Delray Beach, and Belle Glade. On March 10, 2023, area code 728 was added to the same numbering plan area to form an all-services distributed overlay.

Lillian Pulitzer Rousseau was an American entrepreneur, fashion designer, and socialite. She founded Lilly Pulitzer, Inc., which produces floral print clothing and other wares.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens</span> Art center, museum, and gardens in Delray Beach, FL

The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens is a center for Japanese arts and culture located west of Delray Beach in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The campus includes two museum buildings, the Roji-en Japanese Gardens: Garden of the Drops of Dew, a bonsai garden, library, gift shop, and a Japanese restaurant, called the Cornell Cafe, which has been featured on the Food Network and Vizcaya Television. Rotating exhibits are displayed in both buildings, and demonstrations, including tea ceremonies and classes, are held in the main building. Traditional Japanese festivals are celebrated several times a year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pearl City (Boca Raton)</span> Neighborhood in Boca Raton, Florida

Pearl City is a historic African American neighborhood, and the oldest community, in Boca Raton, Florida. The establishment of Pearl City predates the official incorporation of Boca Raton. In December 2023, Pearl City was added to National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. The neighborhood's name is thought to be derived from the Hawaiian Pearl, a variety of pineapple grown in the Boca Raton area at the time of Pearl City's inception. Pearl City is located directly south of Glades Road between Dixie Highway and Federal Highway in Boca Raton. During segregation, Pearl City developed a rich social, economic and cultural life which persists today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fashion doll</span> Doll designed to be dressed to reflect fashion trends

Fashion dolls are dolls primarily designed to be dressed to reflect fashion trends. They are manufactured both as toys for children to play with and as collectibles for adults. The dolls are usually modeled after teen girls or adult women, though child, male, and even some non-human variants exist. Contemporary fashion dolls are typically made of vinyl or another plastic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sindy</span> Fashion doll made in the United Kingdom

Sindy is a British fashion doll created by Pedigree Dolls & Toys in 1963. A rival to Barbie, Sindy's look and range of fashions and accessories made her the best-selling toy in the United Kingdom in 1968 and 1970. After Marx Toys' unsuccessful attempt to introduce Sindy in the United States in the late 1970s, Hasbro bought the rights to Sindy and remodelled the doll to look more American. As a result, the doll's popularity declined; in addition, Barbie manufacturer Mattel filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement, which was settled when Hasbro agreed to remodel Sindy's face. During the 1990s, Barbie's share of the doll market continued to grow while Sindy's diminished, which led to Sindy being delisted from major retailers in 1997. Hasbro returned the doll's licence to Pedigree, and the doll was relaunched in 1999, manufactured by Vivid Imaginations. Sindy's 40th anniversary in 2003 saw a new manufacturer, New Moons, and another relaunch and redesign. There were further relaunches in 2016 by Tesco and in 2021 by Kid Kreations.

Teen Talk Barbie is an edition of Mattel's Barbie doll, introduced in 1992, that incorporates a voice box programmed to speak one of four randomly selected phrases when a button is pushed. It became controversial because one of the spoken phrases was "Math class is tough", and was also later used for a protest wherein some dolls had the voice boxes exchanged with those for Talking Duke G.I. Joe action figures produced by Hasbro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delray Beach, Florida</span> City in Palm Beach County, Florida

Delray Beach is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The population of Delray Beach as of April 1, 2020 was 66,846 according to the 2020 United States Census. Located in the Miami metropolitan area, Delray Beach is 52 miles north of Miami.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonny & Cher dolls</span> Celebrity dolls

The Sonny & Cher dolls were a collection of 12-¼ inch high celebrity doll likenesses of pop rock duo Sonny & Cher. The line was released by Mego Corporation in 1976. The release of these fashion dolls coincided with the popularity of The Sonny & Cher Show prime time variety TV show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iris Apfel</span> American interior designer and fashion icon (1921–2024)

Iris Apfel was an American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion designer, known for her flamboyant style, outspoken personality and oversized eyeglasses. In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel had a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that spanned nine presidencies. In retirement, she drew acclaim for a 2005 show at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring her collection of costume jewelry and styled with clothes on mannequins as she would wear them. She became a fashion icon, was the focus of the 2014 Albert Maysles documentary Iris, then signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97.

The Barbie Basics is a line of collector's edition Barbie dolls. They were created by Mattel designer Bill Greening and were introduced in late 2009 to be officially released in the spring of 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlotte Durante</span> American woman city commissioner

Charlotte Gilmore Durante was elected in 1978 as the first African American woman City Commissioner in Delray Beach, a city in Palm Beach County, Florida. She served until 1982. In 2010, she was arrested on charges of defrauding Haitian immigrants out of 1.8 million dollars in a Ponzi scheme, in order to purchase a permanent location for the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History, which her daughter ran. Convicted on a portion of the original charges in 2013, she completed her sentence in 2016.

West Boca Raton, also known as West Boca, is an unincorporated community west of the city of Boca Raton, Florida. It is populated by numerous developments such as Boca Landings, The Hamptons, Mission Bay, Sandalfoot Cove, Century Village, and Loggers' Run.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County</span> Organizations based in Florida

The Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Boynton Beach, Florida. Its stated mission is to improve literacy in Palm Beach County. One in seven adults in Palm Beach County is unable to read and understand information found in books, newspapers, magazines, brochures and manuals. The organization's operates with the assistance of over 9,000 volunteers. In 2013, the Literacy Coalition provided services to more than 25,000 adults, to children and families.

The Village Beat is the second African-American newspaper in Palm Beach County, Florida, but the first African-American newspaper to cover news county-wide.

The Marvelous World of Shani, also known as Shani & Friends or simply Shani, was a fashion doll line manufactured by the American toy company Mattel, Inc. and launched in 1991. The principal designer of the dolls was longtime Mattel toy designer Kitty Black Perkins, also responsible for designing 1980's First Black Barbie doll, and many other African American dolls in the Barbie line.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Palm Beach Daily News article entitled: A Place To Call Home written by Robert Janjigian. December 1, 2008 issue
  2. 1 2 3 Palm Beach Post Neighborhood Post for Delray Beach & Boynton Beach cover news stories. "Fashion Museum Seeks to build own space" written by Lina Hasse. March 14, 2007

26°32′08″N80°05′45″W / 26.5356°N 80.0957°W / 26.5356; -80.0957