Washington D.C. Adventures: The Textile Museum

Your next adventure should be to the Textile Museum! We had the pleasure of venturing to the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C recently and we had a wonderful time. The museum is about a mile walk from the Lincoln Memorial and a great uphill workout if you walk lol but there is plenty of parking near the museum.

We made a special adventure to the Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair exhibit while it is still on display! The Ebony Fashion Fair was created by fashion pioneer Eunice W. Johnson. It was a traveling fashion show that serviced an unrepresented audience, African Americans.  Mrs. Johnson fought racial prejudice to showcase global fashion to African Americans.

Alongside her husband, John H. Johnson, they founded Johnson Publishing Co., that produced two groundbreaking magazines, Jet and Ebony. She also started a cosmetic line, Fashion Fair, that catered to women of color.

To read more about this amazing woman, check out Changing History on the Catwalk.

Here are a few of my favorite looks from the exhibit.

So, how can you make looking at mannequins fun for littles ones? GREAT QUESTION! MAKE-UP SOME GAMES! 

We played two games.

The first game was essentially a colors/texture game. I would tell my littles to find someone wearing a particular color or texture (i.e. fur) and ask them to  stand in front of them. They were real excited when they found the correct mannequin.  After this got redundant, we started to use our imagination.

We “talked” to the mannequins and gave them a backstory.  I would ask my daughter varying questions like:

• Where do you think this person is going?
• What is their profession?
• What is their name?
• Etc

The answers to these questions got real interesting and was fun to see where her imagination would go!

**BONUS**

For children that can read, you can try having them find all of the designer pieces from a particular fashion designer.  That sounds like that would be fun!

Here is a quick video of this amazing exhibit! You should swing by before its gone on July 24, 2017!!!

This adventure was very special to me for a few reasons.  We had the pleasure of having my Mother with us on this adventure.  She actually knew a model in this traveling show and also  wanted to attend the show as a kid, but her family could not afford it.  So, her being able to witness this fair in some form was great! I also remember whenever my Mom was shopping for make-up, she would always ask if they had Fashion Fair.  At the time, I never really understood why she was so adamant about buying this particular brand, but now it makes sense.  Just like the Ebony Fashion Fair show, this cosmetic line was created for African Americans and the first of its kind.  The Johnson’s truly embodied how powerful representation can be!

Enjoy!

Maya