What: The University of North Texas will open Fashion on Main -- an exhibition space at Universities Center at Dallas, showcasing selected items from UNT's prestigious Texas Fashion Collection. The premiere exhibition, Flights of Fancy, features exotic 20th-century designer fashions.

When: The exhibition space opened to the public on Sept. 22 (Friday).

Where: Universities Center at Dallas, 1901 Main St.

Cost: Admission is free

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- This September, the University of North Texas will open Fashion on Main, an exhibition space to showcase selected items from the university's Texas Fashion Collection, considered one of the most important historic fashion collections in the country.

Dallas Mayor Laura Miller will join UNT officials in an invitation-only ribbon cutting for the ground-floor exhibition space at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 21 (Thursday) at Universities Center at Dallas, 1901 Main St. (Media are welcome to attend.) The center is a former Joske's department store that now provides office and classroom space for seven higher education institutions, including UNT.

Fashion on Main opened to the public Sept. 22 (Friday) with an exhibition titled Flights of Fancy, featuring exotic, feathered fashions from the collection, which is part of the UNT School of Visual Arts.

"We will have a space that is uniquely ours," said Myra Walker, director and curator of the Texas Fashion Collection since 1987. "We want to be able to show these wonderful treasures where people can pop in for a short visit and see the exhibition on their lunch hour. People will be able to experience the Texas Fashion Collection right in the heart of downtown Dallas near many other museums, without having to drive to Denton."

The collection is now housed in a 4,500-square-foot climate-controlled room in Scoular Hall on the UNT campus. While the majority of the collection will remain in storage in Scoular Hall, Fashion on Main will provide the first permanent exhibition space for items to be displayed on a rotating basis. The exhibition space will initially be about 500 square feet, later expanding to 1,000 square feet.

"The opening of Fashion on Main is a very exciting event for UNT, the UCD and the Dallas/Fort Worth community," said Dr. Robert Milnes, dean of the UNT School of Visual Arts. "It is wonderful that the historic department store, now an educational center, is able to blend the glamour and style synonymous with Dallas with the educational excellence so characteristic of UNT. We are so grateful to the chancellor and provost for their support, and to the donors to the Texas Fashion Collection for their ongoing interest and dedication, which is making this first step on the path toward a great new center possible."

Fashion on Main is also made possible with help from The Fashionistas, a nonprofit group founded by Heidi Dillon of Dallas.

"Fashion, like art, defines who we are. It edifies us and delights our senses, keeps us warm and enables us to express our individuality," Dillon said. "The Fashionistas have dedicated themselves to bringing this important collection to downtown Dallas. For the past year we have been raising funds to make this dream a reality."

About the Texas Fashion Collection

The collection began in 1938 when Stanley and Edward Marcus preserved examples of top designers' works in honor of their aunt Carrie Marcus Neiman, a co-founder of the Neiman Marcus store. The Carrie Marcus Neiman Foundation maintained the collection after her death in 1953, and the Dallas Fashion Group took over in the 1960s at the Apparel Mart. The collection, then known as the Dallas Museum of Fashion, came to the UNT campus in 1972 and was later renamed the Texas Fashion Collection. It has grown from 3,000 items to more than 15,000 historic items today.

UNT News Service Phone Number: (940) 565-2108
Contact: Ellen Rossetti (940) 369-7912
Email: erossetti@unt.edu