Established by Carolyn Wingo in 1967 to support the teaching mission of the Department of Textile and Apparel Management in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri, the MHCTC has grown to include over 7,000 items of apparel, accessories and household textiles, as well as over 4,000 archival resources including books, catalogs, illustrations, and photographs. Objects range in date from the early nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. Housed in the climate-controlled Josephine Margaret Holik Conservatory in Gwynn Hall, the Collection includes apparel and accessories for men, women and children, as well as military apparel, world dress and household textiles.

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOLARSHIP

Collection artifacts are used in a variety of interdisciplinary collaborations with campus, community and regional museums, departments and institutions. MHCTC exhibits such as Missouri Women: Suffrage to Statecraft, Origins: Dress and Textiles  and Arts and Crafts Design (Re)Forms  include numerous artifacts from local, regional, and national collections. The MHCTC’s online presence encourages national and international inquiries, research requests, and consultations, such as those by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Cornell and Stanford Universities, the University of Cambridge in England, even the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia! See even more examples below and on our EDUCATION and EXHIBITION pages.

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

The MHCTC actively collect artifacts with Missouri-related provenance, as well as those by prominent designers, manufacturers and retailers of the past and present. Numerous collections of artifacts exist within MHCTC holdings, many of which reflect Missouri’s strong apparel and design history. Explore a few highlighted collections below.