Events

Political philosopher Nathalie Goldwaser Yankelevich (National Scientific and Technical Research Council – CONICET and National University of Avellaneda, Argentina) will discuss (in French) her book, *Fashion, a Fleeting Revolution* (*La moda, revolución efímera*).

The discussion will be moderated by Guillaume Lecoeur (historian and sociologist, PhD from Lise and associate researcher at the HT2S laboratory) who will contextualize the speaker's work based on his own research in economic sociology.

She will present how the phenomenon of fashion has been addressed by the sociological tradition, particularly by the early Frankfurt School.
After offering several definitions of the "phenomenon of fashion" that depart from its usual associations—clothing, ornament, adornment, brands, haute couture houses—she will present a new perspective based on the study of various authors, including Leopardi, Balzac, Baudelaire, Simmel, Freud, Benjamin, Tarde, Frisa, Bard, Berardi, and Fisher, among others. Thus, fashion must be understood as a phenomenon that draws upon tradition, customs, and the immemorial past, appropriating elements of these to introduce novelty which, in the future, will fade and die, becoming a habit or a new custom. Therefore, far from being a simple synonym for clothing, fashion is linked to a relentless repetition at the heart of which revolve death, memory, and oblivion. Everything that covers the body or is perceived by the mind—from architectural or sartorial works to media discourse—is part of this complex phenomenon, which is embedded within the framework of tradition and hegemony. This would answer the question of why we constantly and compulsively buy things, whether objects or services, however trivial and useless they may be. (…)

Study Days Embroidered Heritage of the Middle Ages and Renaissance: From Inventory to Study

Registration required by writing to journees.broderiesgmailcom
         (Please indicate if you wish to attend the session on March 4, March 5, or both.)

These study days are part of a project to create a digital catalog of embroideries in French collections (1200-1600). Led by the Saprat laboratory (EPHE-PSL) and funded by the City of Paris through the Émergence(s) program, the project brings together a team of researchers supported by the network of French museums, the Inventory of Historic Monuments, and the French National Heritage Service. The aim of this meeting is to bring together embroidery historians from different countries and specialties to take stock of the methods and approaches used to identify, study, and promote this textile heritage, which remains poorly understood and understudied to this day. The program will be presented at this event, along with an overview of the research on the embroideries in the treasury of Sens Cathedral, which fall under the first phase of the investigation.

Click on this link to access the program on the École Pratique des Hautes Études website.

The International Committee of Costume, Fashion and Textile Museums and Collections is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
To mark the occasion, the committee will award a one-off prize.
Proposed projects must meet several criteria. They may cover any topic relating to textile collections: theory, practice, exhibitions, education, research and design.
Furthermore, they must have been in existence for less than three years and be written in one of ICOM’s three languages (English, French and Spanish).

Click on this link for further information on the call for entries (English, PDF, 147KB)

Study Day organized by AFET

Special occasions mark a departure from everyday life. They offer a wide range of individual or collective situations, unique or recurring; they recur in an unchanging form or, conversely, in a renewed one, and can unfold over a longer or shorter period.
Private life, public life, civil or military life, religious life, university life, community life, sports, festive life, cultural life… so many contexts give rise to them.
Textiles, one of the elements associated with this departure, bear the mark of the era, the place, and the social milieu. Carrying an explicit or implicit message, often open to interpretation, they prove to be a valuable tool for understanding a society.
Special occasions alter the intrinsic value of textiles. Whatever their use, whether for clothing or other purposes, they stand out through their material, color, shape, and ornamentation. It can be luxurious, ruinous, or cheap, involve significant expenses or the use of rentals, be new or secondhand, be reused or transformed/adapted, or even be a pastiche.
The areas to explore are very diverse, from "Sunday best" attire to the decorum of sovereigns. The focus will be on identifying the methods and reasons for this unique textile style. Is it the individual's self-perception or the adherence to social codes? Is it ostentation, pretense, or perhaps the individual or group's appreciation of the occasion?
The abstracts must clearly define the proposed communication issue, which must be original. Professional attire is only relevant when worn in exceptional circumstances. Wedding or mourning attire should be avoided…unless the example prompts innovative reflection on the subject.

Click on this link to access the program on the AFET website.

Lecture Series 2017–2018

This comparative history of dress norms in different parts of Europe, century by century, will explore the specificities of civilian clothing in the main geo-cultural areas of the European continent, from clothing in Roman Empire to the dominant dress in Europe at the dawn of the 21st century. It will attempt to highlight the characteristics of clothing specific to each era, examine the major transformations that have occurred over time and their causes, the economics of clothing, its modes of diffusion across Europe, and try to understand what clothing tells us about the lifestyles, customs, and values ​​of the societies that wore it.
This series opens the triptych on the cultural history of Europe that the Association of Historians invites you to follow: the history of housing and then the history of food practices will follow.

Click on this link to download the program (pdf, 2.5MB)

Frills and Embellishments? Textile Ornamentation and Clothing Adornment in Museums and Historic Homes

Naomi Bailey-Cooper, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, How can ornamentation offer an alternative to the decorative and seductive notion of exotic animal materials?
Animal materials such as fur, feathers, and exotic skins are problematic (ethically, socially, and environmentally), yet remain popular as decorative products in contemporary fashion. The industry has developed a whole range of technical imitations of animal fur and exotic skins from other resources. However, few studies explore the seductive and inimitable associations of high-end animal materials and apply these qualities to create alternative ornaments. The historical context of this research lies in the evolution of fur, feathers, and exotic skins from a functional to a decorative use. Drawing on 19th- and early 20th-century archives held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, this research analyzes, through case studies, the rise of the extravagant use of animal materials and the “romanticism of fur.” Examples of these ornaments are preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Clothworkers Centre in the form of paintings and textural descriptions, as well as period imitations of animal fur.
This research aims to advance textile design practice by using historical archives to identify the key factors that motivated the use of exotic animal materials for decorative purposes. It also aims to apply this knowledge to the design of ornaments using alternative, more ethical, and socially responsible materials and methods. This could encourage other professionals to use museum archives not only as a source of visual inspiration but also for knowledge transfer regarding the motivations and effects of raw material consumption.

Jenni Dixon, University of Birmingham, A Beautiful Ingenuity: Luckcock’s Buttons and 18th-Century Masculine Appearance
The Birmingham Museum houses the James Luckcock Collection, comprising over 500 different buttons, assembled between approximately 1780 and 1820, and considered primarily representative of local Birmingham manufacture. Although buttons were essentially utilitarian, they became highly fashionable accessories for men’s attire in the 18th century, and the Luckcock Collection illustrates the wide variety of designs, materials, and processes used to produce more decorative models. The collection is also unusual because it was assembled at the time of production, or shortly thereafter, which adds another dimension and reveals that these objects possessed desirable qualities beyond contemporary retail and use.
To examine this, I propose to follow the buttons' journey from their use, through retail, to their manufacture in Birmingham (in which Luckcock, as a jeweller, was involved), in order to understand their place as collectibles and to explore ways of identifying with museum objects as they were in the past.
Buttons could be social and cultural markers; some sources comment on the inappropriate choice of buttons, as well as their role in 18th-century masculine appearance and masculinity. While this presentation was aesthetic, these objects also represented the ingenious skills, processes, and technologies that produced them, and which were part of an enlightened manufacturing culture. Birmingham's Soho Manu
To examine this, I propose tracing the buttons' journey from their use, through retail, to their manufacture in Birmingham (in which Luckcock, as a jeweller, participated), in order to understand their place as collectibles and explore ways of identifying with museum objects as they were in the past. Buttons could be social and cultural markers; some sources discuss the inappropriate choice of buttons, as well as their role in 18th-century masculine ostentation and masculinity. Although this ostentation was primarily aesthetic, these objects also reflected the ingenuity of the skills, processes, and technologies that produced them, reflecting an Enlightenment industrial culture. Birmingham’s Soho factory, for example, produced a considerable quantity of buttons, with over half of its site dedicated to button making in the 1780s. Matthew Boulton developed the Soho site as a miniature version of Birmingham, bringing together a variety of trades: from jewelers crafting individual “sparkles” and “cut stars,” to painting, gilding, and edging workshops using various machines. The Soho archives show how a number of Luckcock buttons would have been produced within this division of labor, which was a novelty for consumers and attracted large numbers of tourists both to Soho and the rest of the city. By collecting individual buttons, Luckcock assembled a representative sample of this production, not only as beautiful objects, but also as examples of Birmingham's manufacturing craftsmanship and the processes it entailed. These aspects are obscured in the museum's exhibition, but further research helps to understand their appeal to 18th-century consumers, beyond mere aesthetics.

Anthea Harris, University of Birmingham, “Coptic” Ornamental Textiles in the Ure Museum, Reading
This article reports on the results of a project to critically examine a small collection of so-called “Coptic” textiles, acquired in the 1930s by Annie Ure, the founder of what is now the Ure Museum at the University of Reading, when they were discarded by the British Museum. Described as “trifles of no importance” in Annie Ure’s papers, they were stored unrestored and were only catalogued and examined in the last decade. The collection comprises around 20 objects from a cemetery at Ahkmin in the Egyptian desert, most of which are medallions or ornamental bands detached from linen garments. In some cases, the ornamentation was an integral part of the garment; in others, it was a separate piece sewn onto the finished garment. Almost all the items in the collection were crudely cut from a larger piece of textile (which was then presumably discarded).
Ironically, the criteria on which previous generations of archaeologists, art historians, and museum professionals dismissed these textiles may now be their primary focus. These textiles had suffered a difficult fate before their discovery: most had been damaged by acidic bodily fluids, causing shrinkage or dissolution of the fibers (particularly the wool). At the beginning of the 20th century, collectors and professionals, who had access to an abundance of higher-quality, better-preserved Coptic textiles and were primarily interested in art historical research, dismissed these “inferior” specimens and discarded them, failing to realize that some of them had the potential to provide more information about the “life” of the textile (and thus about the people who interacted with it) than their more “perfect” counterparts.
The objects in the collection I will discuss here illustrate, for example, the ways in which textiles were used, repaired, and reused, as well as the production processes themselves. They show evidence of mending, of ornaments recycled from one garment to another, and of "rags" used as stuffing material in tombs. Most museum collections of late Roman and Byzantine Egyptian textiles do not generally allow for such commentary, although the implications of examining their "social life" from this perspective can be revealing, particularly in challenging historiographies that portray funerary rites as favoring "new" or "the best" garments.

Kate Strasdin, Falmouth University, Forgotten Ephemera: The Hidden Stories of Late 19th-Century Ornaments
Scholars of late 19th-century women’s fashion are well acquainted with the flounces and frills, tassels, trimmings, and passementerie that are integral to the aesthetics of this period. Yet this article argues that these very characteristic ornaments are also, in a sense, invisible: they are forgotten ephemera. In this article, I will examine how to reposition and reinterpret late 19th-century dress ornaments from two perspectives: “embodied” ornaments, which are already an integral part of a garment’s decoration, and “disembodied” ornaments—those pieces that have survived without ever having been incorporated into a garment and which, as a result, arguably retain a different, perhaps more visible, identity.
A recently acquired collection of Edwardian haberdashery items, mounted on their original gauze backings and cardboard, offers researchers a different perspective, allowing them to examine the nature of ornamentation when dissociated from its association with clothing. In this context, these objects become commodities, their price per meter written in pencil in a corner of the cardboard; thus, in my view, these trimmings gain greater visibility. The manufacturers and retailers of these materials have been lost to time, becoming part of the many hidden histories of garment making and textile production. The embellishments on late 19th-century women's dresses are often linked to the history of these objects. This article will examine case studies of the clothing of Queen Alexandra, the subject of my doctoral thesis, in order to analyze how the addition and removal of ornaments evolve over time and according to context: one garment kept in a museum had a beaded fringe added by volunteers in the 1960s to create a more "royal" outfit.
The interpretation of these forgotten ephemeral objects and the highlighting of these aspects of clothing and textile collections, often relegated to the background in favor of more "complete" garments, are part of a growing interest in the many auxiliary trades that have supported the fashion industry but which, until now, have often been neglected.

Anna Sznajder, Bringing Communities Together Through Traveling Collections of Textile Crafts – Bobbin Lace Makers of Central and Eastern Europe
This article aims to introduce the concept of traveling collections of textile crafts through the example of communities and individuals preserving traditional bobbin lace techniques in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. By examining examples of craft exhibitions such as regional galleries, ethnographic rooms in schools and cultural centers, and private collections, this article seeks to highlight the role of bobbin lace exhibitions as a historical representation of a place's collective craft identity.
Some of these collections are mobile and participate in projects based on cultural exchange with other countries. Current lace exhibitions at fairs across Europe offer a context for interpreting the significance of historical and contemporary crafts in the form of mobile collections. In particular, the Bobowa International Bobbin Lace Festival (southern Poland) provides an insight into the diverse links between craft exhibitions and lacemaking communities at local, national and international levels.
The physical and symbolic space of the exhibition intertwines with local ethnographies and reinforces local identities through interaction with others and with handcrafted objects from the past and present. It also offers insight into the sense of belonging to a broader context created by European artisans. In what ways are these collections innovative? What significance do lace collections acquire within the space of an international event? How do the presentations construct historical meanings for contemporary craft communities, leisure groups, and individuals? This article addresses these questions related to traveling collections of textile crafts by presenting the unique environment of bobbin lacemakers.

Alison Toplis, University of Wolverhampton, Rural Embellishment: Case Studies of Blouse Dresses
By examining in detail a selection of blouse dresses held in local museum collections, this article will focus on the ornamentation and decoration of these garments. These garments will be placed within their local context to explain both why they were made in this way and whether this influenced their inclusion in museum collections.
The focus will be on blouse dresses from different regions of the country, including the south coast of England and Yorkshire, in order to investigate the differences and similarities in both ornamentation and use. In conclusion, this article will consider whether the mere act of collecting blouse dresses in museums in the early 20th century led to an embellishment of the rural past and to misrepresentations regarding the use of the blouse dress.

Mark Wallis, War and Peace
Throughout the modern period, we can observe the emergence of distinct elements of national dress in various European countries, except, curiously, in England. Our national costume—insofar as we can say we had one—is not recognizable as such until the late 18th century. Until then, a (well-to-do) Englishman or woman freely borrowed from the clothing of other nations. The courtesans who thronged around Henry VIII wore French or Italian gowns, while their male counterparts sported outfits in the French or German style—all immediately recognizable to their contemporaries thanks to their differences in cut and decoration. Anything new pleased the king throughout his life, and he owned several "Polish gowns"—one of which is depicted in a portrait of him in his later years.
So-called "Polish" or "Hungarian" clothing was recognizable by its parallel bands of braid decorating the chest and extending from the neck to the waist; these gave the wearer an air of exoticism tinged with a hint of gunpowder, especially since braided "dolmen" jackets were worn by the famous Hungarian hussars and Polish lancers, considered among the best light cavalry in Europe at that time. This decorative style was actually adopted by Christians from the Turks, who conquered Hungary in 1526, although Ottoman turbans were replaced by caps trimmed with fur and feathers – all very elegant!
Elizabeth I was depicted wearing a feminine version of the men's doublet, adorned with bands of braid in the still-fashionable Polish-Hungarian style, while her subjects, as is well known, borrowed from other nations for their clothing, mixing Italian breeches, Dutch capes, German doublets, Spanish shoes, and French hats. Shakespeare mocked this indiscriminate borrowing.
In the 18th century, when these garments in my collection were made, the Polish-Hungarian style was at its height, and men wishing to appear military or mysterious sometimes wore braided coats. Their sons and grandsons in the 19th century did the same, while the light cavalry regiments of all European armies were dressed as hussars, lancers, and dragoons, the former still wearing the braided jacket and fur cap of their 16th-century ancestors. The Royal Horse Artillery of the modern British Army still wears such braided jackets in its dress uniform, so the style endures and, in my opinion, has lost none of its exoticism over the centuries.

Rosamund Weatherall, National Trust Textile Conservation Studio, Study and Revelation: Documenting and Conservation of the Sequined Bed Hangings from Knole House, Sevenoaks, Kent
The sequined bed from Knole House, Kent, the former residence of the Sackville family, is currently undergoing conservation treatment at the National Trust Textile Conservation Studio in Norfolk. It is arguably one of the most important state beds in the country, yet it also remains somewhat enigmatic. The bed is known to have existed in its present form from the early to mid-18th century and to have remained in its current location since its installation. It was not the subject of any major study until Knole launched a major, long-term conservation project, funded by the HLF, for the house and collection, when it was considered a royal possession, like many other pieces in the collection. The work of Emma Slocombe, the project's curator, has begun to reveal something of its true origin: it appears to be a set of textiles commissioned by Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, in the early 1620s. This merchant had risen to the rank of Lord High Treasurer to James I in 1621, and his daughter had married a member of the Sackville family. These textiles were intended for a man of high rank. A study of the inventories of Chelsea House, his London residence, reveals a lavishly decorated home and mentions, in particular, a set of state furniture including a state chair, a grand armchair, two four-poster beds and high-backed chairs, as well as a set of stools. Another document, a letter, refers to the bed made for his wife, who is said to have slept “very sumptuously” in furniture made by the king’s craftsmen (Chamberlain, II, Letter 394, 10 November 1621, p. 406; Letter 399, 22 December 1621, p. 417; Town and Fryman, “Lionel Cranfield and the Furnishing of Chelsea House 1620-1625,” p. 4).
Each of these suites shares common features with the textiles found on the current bed: embroidery, fringe, and crimson damask. The existing hangings feature two distinct types of applied embroidery, but with shared motifs. Conservation work has also begun to reveal details hidden beneath a layer of dust and lost to wear. Our current task with the bed hangings is to document our findings, clean the curtains with water, and stabilize the appliqués, which were originally composed of silver and gold fabric, silver and gilt sequins, beads, silver and gold metallic thread cords, silver and gold looped braids, and deep, narrow fringes.

Session 4 – Roundtable: Fashion and Globalization

The workshop “Anthropology of Fashion Worlds” aims to be a meeting place and forum for exchange, bringing together researchers, students, and professionals interested in fashion, understood here as an economic, creative, technological, professional, social, cultural, and political space, but also as a space for the staging and communication of appearances…

Anne Monjaret, ethnologist, sociologist, IIAC-LAHIC, CNRS, EHESS, President of the SEF
Kristell Blache-Comte, anthropologist, IIAC-LAHIC, CNRS, EHESS, photographer

Click on this link to download the program (pdf, 8.2 MB)

Free admission

After a first year devoted to research sources, the second year of the seminar "Men's Fashion 1820-1970," organized within the framework of the "History of Fashion and Clothing" program, will focus on bodies and objects, pursuing the same objective: to highlight the singularity and complexity of these 150 years of men's fashion.

Speakers

• Joya Indermühle, Curator, Swiss National Museum, Zurich, The Tie Through Time: Forms, Fabrics, and Motifs
• Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator, The Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Men in Heels: The Politics of Augmented Height
• Raphaël Sagodira, Collector, Paris, The Formal Man Materialized Analysis of selected wardrobe elements from 1910-1930

Audiovisual Archives

• Men’s Fashion, program 24 Hours on Channel 2, February 9, 1970, INA (ORTF)
• Men’s Fashion, 8 PM News, November 28, 1970, INA (ORTF)

This lecture series for postgraduate students provides a well-established forum for anyone interested in the historical dimensions of gender, sexuality, feminism, and masculinity across a broad chronological period, a wide geographical area, and various disciplines. We welcome speakers from the Cambridge History Department and other faculties, as well as from other universities.

Click on this link to access the program on the University of Cambridge website.

Session 3 – Roundtable: Fashion and Precarity

The workshop “Anthropology of Fashion Worlds” aims to be a meeting place and forum for exchange, bringing together researchers, students, and professionals interested in fashion, understood here as an economic, creative, technological, professional, social, cultural, and political space, but also as a space for the staging and communication of appearances…

Anne Monjaret, ethnologist, sociologist, IIAC-LAHIC, CNRS, EHESS, President of the SEF
Kristell Blache-Comte, anthropologist, IIAC-LAHIC, CNRS, EHESS, photographer

Click on this link to download the program (pdf, 8.2 MB)

Session 1 – Discussion Around the Fashion Mix Issue on the theme of Fashion and Migration – with the journal Hommes & Migrations

The “Anthropology of Fashion Worlds” workshop aims to be a meeting place and forum for exchange, bringing together researchers, students, and professionals interested in fashion, understood here as an economic, creative, technological, professional, social, cultural, and political space, but also as a space for the staging and communication of appearances…

Anne Monjaret, ethnologist, sociologist, IIAC-LAHIC, CNRS, EHESS, President of the SEF
Kristell Blache-Comte, anthropologist, IIAC-LAHIC, CNRS, EHESS, photographer

Click on this link to download the program (pdf, 8.2 MB)