There are three new exhibits at the Sweet Briar Museum, compiled by Sweet Briar College students in the Arts Management Curating, Collecting and Connoisseurship class.

The new assemblages — "Sweet Briar Fashion: The Early Years" by Rebecca Olander '09, "Dining at Sweet Briar Plantation" by Caroline Rainey '09 and "The Will of Indiana Fletcher Williams" by Britt Patterson '09 — will be on display through the end of the 2008-2009 academic year.

Housed in the Whitley Gallery, the fashion exhibit includes clothing worn by "fashionable Sweet Briar students" in the early part of the 20th century. Among the items displayed are peach cotton frocks, white "summer day dresses" and Art Deco evening wear adorned with beads and faux gemstones.

Olander, an art history major with a Spanish minor, said she focused on fashion, in part because it interested her. "I also chose it because we got to ask some local seventh graders what they wanted to see in the museum and they said more fashion [and] clothes from the early days of [Sweet Briar College]," she said.

Silver is at the center of Rainey's dining exhibit, which is enclosed in a towering glass case just outside the Whitley Gallery. A variety of dining utensils, tea sets, platters and plates are on display. "I chose [silver] because I had done an internship at the Victoria and Albert Museum [in London] in the metalwork department," Rainey, an art history major with an archaeology minor said.

Patterson's collection focuses on Williams' last will and testament, which mandated the College be founded. Encased in the museum's front gallery, items include, among other things, a timeline detailing the College's efforts to reinterpret the will so African-American women could attend Sweet Briar.

Fall museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, call (434) 381-6246.