UCLA Library's biennial Bonnie Cashin Lecture Series, which celebrates the creative process and innovation of gifted individuals represented in Library collections, will recognize the enormous influence of the series' namesake, Bonnie Cashin (1908-2000), during a public lecture featuring Mellissa Huber, associate curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on March 5.

A fashion historian specializing in 20th-century dress, Huber's talk, "Tomorrow Begins Today: The Creative Legacy of Bonnie Cashin," will revisit Cashin's significant legacy as a prescient thinker, innovative designer and dedicated philanthropist who challenged convention and anticipated the needs of women, seeking creativity and freedom for maker and wearer alike.

Throughout a career that spanned over 60 years, Cashin's influence on design continues to inspire fashion and retail today. Her oft-stated credo, "Chic is where you find it," sums up her belief that designers should possess a habit of wonder and an ability to connect the fashion world with objects and ideas not usually associated with it.

"Bonnie Cashin was among a coterie of designers that helped the domestic clothing industry move beyond the hegemony of French haute couture, establishing the liberating, future-forward philosophy that came to characterize American fashion," said Huber. "Cashin adeptly oscillated between temporal, cultural and environmental needs while delighting in the expressive and material qualities of her luxurious, yet highly functioning, fashions. This versatility is evident within the significant range of materials found across UCLA's Cashin collection."

UCLA Library Special Collections acquired the Bonnie Cashin Collection of Fashion, Theater and Film Costume Design (1913-2000) as a gift from the designer's estate in 2003. In addition to more than 300 boxes of her personal papers, photographs and other physical artifacts, and a trove of garments recently rehoused by UCLA Library conservators, the estate provided an endowment to establish the Bonnie Cashin Lecture Series.

Inspiring the creation of more art and culture

"Cashin's early career as a costume designer for stage and film informed her later fashion designs, specifically her focus on movement and character," said Miki Bulos, performing arts curator for Library Special Collections. "In the sketches, garments and accessories we have in the collection, we can see Cashin creating fully realized 'characters' - that is, modern women moving through the world unrestricted, with purpose, wit and style."

For students and researchers interested in art and culture in the mid-20th century, the Bonnie Cashin collection can be a good place to start.

"Library Special Collections makes our archives and historical materials publicly available to inspire the creation of more scholarship, art and culture," Bulos said. "Mellissa is an ideal scholar to activate the Cashin collection, through her own archival and object-based research, and by engaging with our students and the public to deepen our understanding of Cashin and adjacent collections."

With one of the largest publicly accessible holdings of fashion and design collections on the West Coast, UCLA Library's Cashin collection is in "conversation" with the many other collections that represent important artists, architects, designers, writers and thinkers working in the mid-20th century. These include fashion designer Rudi Gernreich; materials connected to motion picture and television designer Dorothy Jeakins; items from the David C. Copley collection of costume designs; architects Richard Neutra and A. Quincy Jones; materials from Charles and Ray Eames; and writers Raymond Chandler, Anaïs Nin and Tennessee Williams, among others.

This year's talk marks the first lecture since the pandemic. Past Cashin lecture topics have focused on Chandler, Martha Graham, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, John Fante and L.A. Beat Poets. Art director and costume designer Eiko Ishioka will be the subject of the 2028 Bonnie Cashin Lecture Series.

For information on research access to UCLA Library collections, visit UCLA Library Special Collections. The Cashin collection is also accessible to scholars and researchers around the world through UCLA Library Digital Collections.