Object: Dress
Designer:
Patrick Kelly
(1954 - 1990)
Date: Fall 1987
Medium: Cotton denim and metal
Country: France
Credit Line: Gift of Bjorn G. Amelan and Bill T. Jones
Object number: 2016.82.9
DescriptionDenim overalls dress; floor length with full fishtail back; white topstitching
Label Text:Oversized denim overalls were Patrick Kelly’s signature uniform. Here he transforms them into a woman’s dress. Professor Eric Prichard notes that denim overalls were important as an activist tool for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the 1960s, “to employ fashion as a tactic of building community” and “challenge expectations of respectability and propriety.”
Exhibitions:
- Power Mode
- Food and Fashion
- Black Fashion Designers