Dior & More: For the Love of Fashion

I live in Cleveland (we're not Detroit! (for the record, this video was made before LeBron left and Cleveland started getting nicer).  We actually have a pretty nice museum district in University Circle, one of which is the Western Reserve Historical Society.

one of their buildings, a mansion they give tours of/that I want because it's gorgeous (especially in pictures taken in not-February

They have like four or five buildings they've managed to squish together - the cognitive dissonance of the different architecture styles is probably the one thing I can complain about them for, because otherwise, they're pretty nice, and they win a lot of bonus points for having a gallery filled with designer dresses.  Which is obviously why I'm writing this post, isn't it?  ;)  I think after my post about Dreaming of Dior and Dreaming of Chanel, we know how I feel about vintage designer dresses.  Seriously, though, I went there mainly to see that, although I'll have to return for their library.

The exhibit showcases vintage clothing from different eras, donated to WRHS by various figures - diplomats' wives, Cleveland socialites of days past, and even Audrey Hepburn.

Probably my favorite part of the exhibit, however, were the videos shown along with it on displays in the gallery:

The second video, for some reason, will not embed, but no matter, it's here, and interesting if you've never heard of Lesage.

The exhibit itself is really lovely.  All the dresses are enclosed in a giant glass box in the center of the gallery so that visitors walk around, and there are little informational stands about each saying who wore it, who made it, roughly when, and interesting little personal tidbits that may have been passed along with the dress, as well as discussing some of the technique put into the dress.  I loved reading those - I spent about three hours in WRHS, and two of those were spent in this gallery, so...

Audrey Hepburn dress! 

I would love to find dresses as amazing as all the ones in this exhibit, but just looking at them is at least a treat.  And it's open till March 30, 2014, so I'll probably go back there again to drool admire them more before then.  Probably multiple times.

Have you been to any cool museum exhibits lately?