The LFC strengthens Lasell University's Connected Learning philosophy as students and faculty use this educational resource in the classroom and in professional venues, such as gallery exhibitions and off-campus events. Connected Learning provides students with an opportunity to engage in hands-on, experiential and collaborative initiatives that bridge theoretical concepts with practical applications.

Teaching

Courses in the School of Fashion and the general college curriculum utilize the LFC for research purposes and inspiration. Objects from the collection are brought into the classroom as a tool for student engagement that is core to having a deeper understanding of history, art and human behavior. 

FASH420- Collection and Research Management:

Students assist LFC Curator, Jill Carey, and Collections Manager, Stephanie Hebert, with the management and promotion of the Lasell Fashion Collection. This includes website management, research associated with artifact documentation, and exhibition work. In addition, writing for the discipline includes publications and conference presentations within a framework of museum practices. 

FASD and FASH415- Lasell Fashion Collection Internship:

The internship course is crafted to address the needs of the collection, while matching student interest. The experience is typically comprised of cataloguing, preservation work, and scholarly research. Students are trained in basic museum methodologies, and through direct experience in the collections, they gain a working knowledge of proper object handling, archival storage techniques, and collections documentation.  By the end of the internship, students will have achieved proficiency using PastPerfect, the LFC's collections management database. 

FASD325- Footwear Design and Production: 

Students learn about footwear design and construction from both historical and contemporary  perspectives through industry experts. The Lasell Fashion Collection provides inspiration for student designs as they explore various assignments related to conceptual pieces to actual shoes.   The LFC has approximately 115 examples of footwear which spans over 200 years. Students in this course have both online and physical access to this assortment.

FASD313- Draping II- Couture:

Fashion Design and Production students create original garments that are inspired by history and significant trends. During the spring semester, objects from the LFC are incorporated in this curriculum for teaching purposes regarding silhouette, fabrications and design details. Students observe and document connections between actual pieces from the 20th century and respond with their own design interpretations.

FASD215- Fashion Illustration for Designers:

Emphasizing techniques essential to creating two-dimensional fashion design renderings, this course develops skills related to drawing the fashion figure, illustrating original design ideas through various media, rendering textiles and developing technical drawings. Often physical pieces from the Lasell Fashion Collection are brought into the classroom, where students have the opportunity to draw actual artifacts from specific periods in time. The Lasell Fashion Collection also provides fashion illustrations and advertisements from both the 19th and 20th centuries to use as reference.

FASH200 & 303- Fashion History I & II:

Students studying historic fashion incorporate the LFC as a primary research tool for writing assignments and connected learning projects. Students are able to examine selected clothing and accessories to study the characteristics of historic dress in connection with theoretical concepts explored in these courses.

Learning Outcomes:

	FASH420: Coco Chanel famously said that "fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions." In this presentation, Fashion Retail and Merchandising students, Dana Blanchette and Hillary Brown, explore architectural details from historic homes in Newton and how such elements are expressed within The Lasell Fashion Collection. Their talk highlights how trends in architecture and in fashion reflect one another, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries.
FASD325: Professor Blake works with students studying footwear design, as they examine design features and the anatomy of specific styles.
	FASD215: Fashion Design and Production student Sammi Yang created original illustrations of 20th century nurses uniforms for a book publication and exhibition at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, titled "The Fashionable Nurse."
FASH200: Students have the opportunity to see actual fashion plates from the early 19th century by exploring Ackermann's Repository of Arts from the LFC. Certain examples from this collection are also depicted in the assigned textbook for this course which brings the content to life.
	HEM301: Social Events Management- Event Management Students collaborate with Wedeman Gallery Director and Professor, Vladimir Zimakov, to exhibit objects that profile everyday life in early 20th century Boston.
HON305: Three Credit Directed Study- Fashion and Retail Merchandising student, Chanel Mendoca, presents a research paper with Professor and Curator, Jill Carey. Title: "Female Identity Through Vietnamese Tribal Dress" for the Fashion, Style, Appearance, Consumption and Design area of the 2016 Popular Culture Association & American Culture Association Conference in Seattle, WA, 2016.