Enfilade

Opening in May at Historic Deerfield:

Body by Design: Fashionable Silhouettes from the Ideal to the Real

Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, Massachusetts, 3 May 2025 — 22 February 2026

Gown or robe à la française, made in France or Amsterdam, ca. 1765; blue and white brocade weave silk (paduasoy?, bleached plain weave linen lining, and silk knotted fringe (Historic Deerfield, F.355).

This exhibition explores the enduring interest in clothing our bodies to achieve fashionable shapes. It will feature twenty-five ensembles from the 18th to 21st centuries drawn predominantly from Historic Deerfield’s renowned clothing collection. Displayed along with the historical garments will be the understructures—stays, corsets, hoops skirts, and bustles—that helped shape, exaggerate, or reduce bodies to fit fashionable ideals. The show follows a loose chronological organization starting with two garments from the 1760s: a woman’s formal dress with exaggerated wide skirt supported by hooped petticoats and a man’s pink and gold brocaded suit. Fashions from the 19th century highlight huge sleeves, corseted torsos, and skirts that were supported by crinolines and bustles. Fashion plates from the museum’s collection will help contextualize styles within their time while select modern fashions, juxtaposed with historical garments, offer interesting connections between the past and today.