Dress Codes

What stories do clothes tell? What do a pair of blue jeans or a plaid shirt say about the wearer and their identity? This exhibition examined what we wear, how we wear it, and why through six enduring icons of Western style: blue jeans, the plaid shirt, the fringed leather jacket, the aloha shirt, the China Poblana dress, and the cowboy boot. Featuring more than 150 objects—including apparel drawn primarily from the Autry’s extensive clothing and textile collection as well as art, photography, and historical artifacts—this exhibition excavated the histories embedded in these key garments and explored their connections to ideas of Western identity, tradition, individual freedom, hybridity, and reinvention.

This was a temporary exhibition at the Autry Museum, Los Angeles, CA.