Jewelry designer Mignon Faget was the featured guest on Feb. 28, at Tea, Fashion and Fancies at the LSU Rural Life Museum. Friends of the museum and Friends of the LSU Textiles and Costume Museum put on the event, which included a traditional English high tea. (Photo by Tobie Blanchard)

Models displayed several pieces from Mignon Faget’s jewelry collections on Feb. 28, at Tea, Fashion and Fancies at the LSU Rural Life Museum. (Photo by Tobie Blanchard)

Marjorie Rabalais, 3, shows off the Mignon Faget-inspired necklace she created to Faget and Diane Deaton, who hosted the Tea, Fashion and Fancies event at the LSU Rural Life Museum. Marjorie’s mother, Amy Rabalais looks on. (Photo by Tobie Blanchard)

News Release Distributed 03/04/15

BATON ROUGE, La – Friends of the LSU Textiles and Costume Museum and Friends of the LSU Rural Life Museum gathered on February 28, for Tea, Fashion and Fancies. The event held at the LSU Rural Life Museum featured a traditional English high tea and a discussion with Louisiana jewelry designer, Mignon Faget.

“We want to highlight Mignon Faget’s contribution to fashion in Louisiana,” said Pam Vinci, curator of the LSU Textiles and Costume Museum.

Faget is a New Orleans native and resident. She studied sculpture at Tulane and said her artistic endeavors grew out of “passion and boredom.”

She started her career designing clothes.

“My mother was an amazing seamstress,” Faget said. “I would design clothes, and my mother and I would pick out fabrics, and she would make it. I thought all mothers did that.”

Faget said she created her first accessory in 1968 for her first ready-to-wear line. She said she melted down silver bon bon dishes she received as wedding presents but rarely used and turned them into jewelry.

Her jewelry collections include iconic Louisiana symbols such as an oyster ring, a gumbo necklace, a hot pepper bracelet, king cake doll earrings and a pelican charm.

“I am inspired by the city and state I was born in,” she said. “I like to take familiar items that haven’t been used in jewelry.”

About 200 people attended the event. Many of the women wore fashionable hats or fascinators and tea-time dresses. Children who attended the tea were able to make Mignon Faget-inspired necklaces.

This is the fourth year the two museums hosted the event.

“Not only does it bring funding for our museum, it brings awareness.” Vinci said.

The LSU Textiles and Costume Museum is located in the Human Ecology Building on LSU’s campus and is part of the LSU College of Agriculture’s Department of Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising.

Tobie Blanchard