The LSU Textile & Costume Museum's Second Debut

A Fashionable Debut

The LSU Textile & Costume Museum Opens with an Exhibition on Mayan Artifacts

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

Last year, an exciting feature of our 2020 “Deep South Design” issue was the much-anticipated completion of the LSU Textile & Costume Museum, whose grand opening had at that time been postponed from its original March 2020 opening to an unknown date due to the coronavirus pandemic.

While visitors have been invited to peruse the museum’s impressive collections of more than twelve thousand artifacts—which range from a 1966 James Galanos cocktail dress to Byzantine-era textile fragments to Larry Landry’s 1936 LSU boxing robe—up until now they’ve only been able to do so by appointment.

Finally, after forty years of preparation and one year of patiently waiting, the LSU Textile & Costume Museum will get its much-deserved debut on Sunday, August 29.

“The Friends are enthusiastically awaiting this very special event like small children on Christmas morning,” said Jeanne Triche, President of the Friends of the LSU Textile and Costume Museum. “We have worked hard and waited a very long time to see this come to fruition.”

The Museum’s grand opening will coincide with the exhibition Trajé: Mayan Textile Artistry, which features the Travis Doering Collection of textiles and related artifacts from forty Mayan villages in the Guatemala Highlands. Exhibits will include examples of traditional Mayan dress, which represent centuries of weaving traditions and symbolism, passed from mothers to daughters still today.

Adding context to these textiles is an exhibit of photographs by humanitarian photojournalist Connie Frissbee Houda, who will be present at the exhibition to share perspectives on the spirit and sacred nature of the Mayan people and their traditions. Dr. Travis Doering, co-director of the digital heritage and humanities collections at the University of South Florida, will also present a lecture titled “Woven Voices: A Journey Into Maya Textiles and Cultural Heritage” on opening day.

On opening day, the gallery will be open from 2 pm–5 pm. Admission is free and open to the public. For details on the exhibition and museum, contact Erica Woolard at (225) 578-2448 or by email at ericaw1@lsu.edu.