Design is in the Details: A Journey from Toys to Time Periods

Join designer and Way's fashion historian-in-residence Kathy Dowd as she shares her career journey from creating imaginative toys at Fisher-Price to designing historically accurate apparel for museum figures and themed attractions. Through stories of creativity, research, and craftsmanship Kathy will reveal how attention to the smallest details transforms ideas into experiences. Way Public Library welcomes Kathy Dowd as our Fashion Historian-in-Residence for September through December 2026. For more than forty years, Kathy Dowd has combined artistic talent, meticulous historical research, and exceptional craftsmanship to bring the past to life through historically accurate clothing and textiles. Her career began in toy and product design, where she refined the creative and technical skills that would later become the foundation of her work as a historical apparel designer. In her pursuit of historical authenticity, Kathy studies original garments, period photographs, paintings, fashion plates, diaries, and surviving textiles to ensure every detail from fabric and construction techniques to trims, fasteners, and accessories faithfully represents the period. Please join Kathy as she presents a variety of programs on historical fashion for the community!