Of the 20th century’s many antiquated fashions, the “monobosom” might be the trend best left behind.

Beginning Saturday and running through March 10 in the Rowland and Letitia Radford Collection Study Gallery at the Georgia Museum of Art, “Shaping the Silhouette: A Glimpse into 20th-Century Fashion” will feature an outfit from each individual decade of the last hundred years.

“One of the problems we have is modern mannequins,” said José Blanco, an assistant professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences during an interview in the gallery last week.

He pointed to the first dress in the series of 10, showing the way the mannequin failed to fill out the turn-of-the-century’s common “monobosom” silhouette.

The students of Blanco’s “Museum Issues in Historic Clothing and Textiles” course put together the exhibit in what was the culmination of a full semester of work.

The class, which consists of undergraduate and graduate-level students, was divided up to work on specific decades.

“They went through the garments we had in the (historic costume) collection – 1500-2000 items,” Blanco said, adding that each group selected its top five choices and presented them for a class vote.

“We were looking for something representative of silhouettes (of the different decades),” said Blanco.

Ashley Callahan, curator of the Henry D. Green Center for the Study of Decorative Arts and “Shaping the Silhouette,” said to take Blanco’s course, the students had to already have completed a history of clothing course.

Each of the exhibit’s outfits consists of a dress, and many are accessorized with period-appropriate items. Blanco said the reason only dresses were used was more out of necessity than a deliberate choice.

“Out of all those 2000 (items) we probably have 40 male garments,” he said. “It’s a void in our collection.

“The changes in women’s fashion (over time) are so obvious,” Blanco said, whereas in men’s clothing there “is usually so little embellishment.”

Blanco said the reason more casual clothing will not be exhibited is because the College of Family and Consumer Science’s historic costume collection consists mostly of valuable pieces their owners deem worthy of preservation.

“Usually what people keep and save and donate are evening wear,” he said. “You don’t think about your Old Navy T-shirts ending up in a museum. We didn’t have anything really casual.”

Standing between the 1950s and 1960s mannequins, Blanco gestured toward the second half of the century.

“From the 1960s on, anything goes,” Blanco said. “It’s hard to define any (single) widespread style.”

He also said the 1950s marked the first time independent, youth-specific fashion trends emerged.

“In the 1950s, it was the first time teenagers dressed differently from adults,” he said. “Before that they (were) miniatures of adults.”