Preserving the IHM Habit

Darrin Pufall Purdy, costume designer from Boise State University, Idaho, who visited the IHM Archives in January 2025, revisited us in September. Darrin is documenting habits of religious congregations in order to preserve the history of religious women, of their dress, of American women, and of the church. Darrin updated us on his progress of recreating our habit; he checked the measurements of our bonnet, e.g., the size, the shape of the bonnet board with its linens, displaying it on a head form for verification. Although his pattern of our dress was too narrow, he was able to adjust it to reveal the fullness of our habit.

Darrin is working with several other communities including the Oblate Sisters of Providence, Baltimore, Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament; the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Cabrini Sisters). He plans to return to Scranton with a complete, accurate pattern of our habit and a newly constructed one for our archival holdings. He will eventually create a book with the patterns, photos, descriptions and significance of the parts of the habits to women’s religious congregations. His hope is that this book will be a source for the authenticity, precision, accuracy of habits for those interested in understanding garb of religious women and in the use of the information and patterns in other display arenas, including motion pictures and plays.

Darrin designed and constructed the habits (Sisters of Charity of New York) in the revival of the Broadway show “Doubt: A Parable.”