Gilded by Nature: Beetle Wings in Global Dress and Colonial Entanglement
Hillary Higginbotham
Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice
About this Item
- Title
- Gilded by Nature: Beetle Wings in Global Dress and Colonial Entanglement
- Contributor Names
-
Higginbotham, Hillary (Author)
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Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York. Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice (Degree granting institution)
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Byrd, Sarah (Thesis advisor)
- Date
- 2025
- Degree Information
- MA Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York 2025
- Department: Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice
- Advisor: Sarah Byrd
- Committee members: Hilary Davidson; Brooke Carlson
- Abstract
- Gilded by Nature: Beetle Wings in Global Dress and Colonial Entanglement is a proposed exhibition that examines how iridescent beetle wings have been used in dress and adornment across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Indigenous communities in the Americas, and how these materials entered Western museum collections through colonial pathways. Anchored at the Pitt Rivers Museum, an institution shaped by typological classification and imperial collecting networks, the exhibition applies decolonial methods to question how museums organize knowledge and privilege certain perspectives. It brings together material study and aesthetic analysis to reframe beetle wing objects as expressions of cultural knowledge and specialized knowledge. By tracing their histories and centering the communities who created them, the exhibition positions the museum as a learning space.The project is rooted in my research on global textiles and museum decolonization. It begins with the brilliance of beetle wings, particularly the shimmering elytra of jewel beetles in the Buprestidae family, and uses this as a lens for examining the labor, symbolism, and specialized knowledge embedded in traditions across India, Thailand, Myanmar, and regions throughout Asia and the Americas. The exhibition reconsiders objects that have been historically minimized through typological classification, offering a more attentive and contextual approach to their interpretation. Following the movement of beetle wing objects from community and ceremonial into colonial hands reveals how they were removed from their contexts and reframed through Western narratives of spectacle and classification. Guided by decolonial aims that include creating visibility and decentering dominant interpretive structures, the exhibition proposes revised object groupings and clearer interpretive texts that support stronger relationships between the Pitt Rivers and its audiences. Beetle wing objects become a means to confront colonial histories and model more inclusive approaches to global dress and object interpretation.
- Keyword
- Art education
- Beetle-wing
- Colonialism
- Decentering
- Decolonization
- Exhibition
- Museum collections
- Rights
- In Copyright
- The copyright for this work is held by its author/creator(s). Usage of this material beyond what is permitted by copyright law must first be cleared with the rights-holder(s). This work has been made available online by the Fashion Institute of Technology Gladys Marcus Library strictly for research and educational purposes. If you are the copyright holder for this work and have any objections to this work being made available online, please notify us immediately at [email protected].
- This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
- Identifier
- FIT Repository ID: etd_001041
- Submission ID: 10470
- URN: ISBN:9798273331020
- Related Materials
- Also available from ProQuest
- Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 87-07
- Masters Abstracts International
- Language
- English
- Publisher
- Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses,
Citation
Higginbotham, H. (2025). Gilded by Nature: Beetle Wings in Global Dress and Colonial Entanglement [Master's thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York]. FIT Institutional Repository. https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/669366
Higginbotham, Hillary. Gilded by Nature: Beetle Wings in Global Dress and Colonial Entanglement. 2025. Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, Master's thesis. FIT Digital Repository, https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/669366
Higginbotham, Hillary. "Gilded by Nature: Beetle Wings in Global Dress and Colonial Entanglement." Master's thesis, Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, 2025. https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/669366