Emily’s work with the Queens College community at large includes a CUNYTV film shoot Study With the Best: Preservation and Innovation, a Queens College Communications photo shoot, and a talk about the Queens College Fashion and Textiles Collection at the NorthShore Towers in Queens. She regularly visits individual donors to accession new items for the archive, and has provided tours of the collection. Emily has also curated and staged exhibitions for the annual Queens College Gala and an Alumni event.
Emily Ripley
Didactic for Francois Boucher Print
Godwin-Ternbach Museum
The ambiguously pensive posture of this bourgeoise or noble sitter with her delicately evocative display of fingers across a fan belies the furious debate that her gown, the sacque or robe volante, elicited in the early 1700s. Its creation spawned one of the first documented uses of the phrase “fashion victim.” The gown, with its loose, box-pleated structure, not only allowed the wearer to flaunt volumes of fine textile, but to also disguise any socially troubling weight gain. It was therefore decried as immoral by religious leaders, and was mocked by many, including by the writer Marivaux, who described it as “a feigned rejection of coquetry.” The evocative positioning of the fan reflects the use of accessories and furnishings in the 18th century that were designed for personal use, allowing the bearer to show off a pair of beautifully kept hands, and to denote a private language of emotive expression.