lundi 8 décembre 2014

Fashion, the 84th Anglo-American Conference of Historians [call for papers]


Senate House, London, 2–3 July 2015
Proposals due by 15 December 2014
In a major collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, the IHR is taking Fashion as the theme for its annual conference in summer 2015. Fashion in history is a topic which has come of age in recent years, as scholars have turned to addressing what is chic and what is style over the ages and across different cultures. The history of fashion, and the role of fashion in history, is not just confined to the study of dress and costume, but encompasses design and innovation, taste and zeitgeist, treats as its subjects both people and objects, and crosses over into related disciplines such as the history of art and architecture, consumption, retailing and technology. And across the world, fashion brings together museums, graduate teaching programmes, learned societies and the fashion profession around a common set of interests and concerns. The IHR conference next year we hope will be a perfect showcase and a meeting-point for the wide spectrum of specialists in this exciting field.
Our plenary speakers include Christopher Breward (Edinburgh), Beverly Lemire (Alberta), Ulinka Rublack (Cambridge) and Valerie Steele (Fashion Institute of Technology, New York). Proposals for panels on the themes of dress, imitation and emulation, taste and style, body-art, the fashion-industry and its media, fashionability and trend-setting, catwalks, fairs and exhibitions, innovation in interior design, architecture and public space, fashion education and technology will be accepted down to the middle of December. Individual paper proposals will also be accepted. Panels should comprise three papers and a chair, and proposals must include the name and affiliation of the speakers, the title of the panel and the titles of the individual papers. Please send proposals by 15th December toIHR.Events@sas.ac.uk Decisions will be made known once the Programme Committee has met in early January 2015.

lundi 1 décembre 2014

Fashion Mix [exposition, Paris]


Entre parcours personnels et histoire de la mode, Fashion Mix raconte une autre histoire de l'immigration, celles d'hommes et de femmes, artisans, créateurs, contribuant à faire la renommée de Paris, capitale internationale de la mode.
Fashion Mix est une exposition en hommage au savoir-faire français que créateurs russes, arméniens, italiens, espagnols, japonais, belges... font rayonner à travers le monde. De Charles Frederick Worth à Azzedine Alaïa, de Mariano Fortuny à Issey Miyake et Yohji Yamamoto, d’Elsa Schiaparelli à Martin Margiela, ou encore Cristobal Balenciaga, Robert Piguet, Paco Rabanne ou Raf Simons… autant de stylistes et directeurs artistiques étrangers qui révolutionnent la mode française, enrichissent son histoire.
Une exposition du Musée de l'histoire de l'immigration, Paris, du 9 décembre 2014 au 31 mai 2015.

dimanche 30 novembre 2014

RDV du mardi. La mode, quelle allure ! [cycle de conférences, Saine-et-Marne]

Les archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne proposent un cycle de conférences sur l'histoire de la mode et des costumes, lors de ses "Rendez-vous du mardi" 2014-2015.

Pour en savoir plus sur les modalités d'accès, cliquer ici.

A 18 h 30, entrée libre. Réservation obligatoire.


  • Mardi 18 novembre 2014
    Le costume à la cour de François Ier
    par Pauline Antonini, Conservatrice du patrimoine et sous-directrice des Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne 

  • Mardi 25 novembre 2014
    Armorial historique des villes et communes de Seine-et-Marne 
    par Arnauld des Lions
  • Mardi 9 décembre 2014
    Les spectacles à Fontainebleau : costumes et accessoires de scènes
    par Vincent Droguet, Directeur du patrimoine et des collections du château de Fontainebleau
  • Mardi 13 janvier 2015 
    Les tisserands indiens de Thieux
    par Douglas Gressieux, Président de l'association Comptoirs des Indes
  • Mardi 10 février 2015
    L'uniforme au XVIIIe siècle : une fabrique du masculin
    par Odile Roynette, Maître de conférences en histoire contemporaine à l'Université de Franche-Comté
  • Mardi 17 mars 2015
    Le journal des Dames et des Modes
    par Hervé Joubeaux, Conservateur du musée Stéphane Mallarmé
    • Mardi 7 avril 2015
      L'évolution de l'uniforme des gendarmes
      par le Capitaine Elinor Boularand, directrice du musée de la gendarmerie nationale
  • Mardi 14 avril 2015 
    Les uniformes de la Grande Guerre
    par Jean-Pierre Verney, Collectionneur et historien français de la Première Guerre mondiale
  • Mardi 19 mai 2015 La mode sous l'occupation par Marie-Laure Gutton, Responsable du département Accessoires au Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris
  • Mardi 16 juin 2015
    Au bonheur des archives : le grand défilé
    par Isabelle Rambaud, Conservatrice générale du patrimoine, Directrice des Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne / Cécile Fabris, Sous-directrice des Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne / Catherine Jacq, Chef du Service des Publics des Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne 

dimanche 19 octobre 2014

Des vêtements et des femmes [radio - France Inter - 19/10/2014]

Aujourd'hui, sur France Inter, l'émission "les femmes, toute une histoire", de Stéphanie Duncan, est consacrée au vêtement, sous le titre "Des vêtements et des femmes".
A écouter en direct ou en podcast.

vendredi 17 octobre 2014

Shakespeare l'étoffe du monde [exposition, Moulins, CNCS]


À l’occasion du 450e anniversaire de la naissance de Shakespeare, le Centre National du Costume de Scène explore l’univers du dramaturge au travers d’une centaine de costumes, pour la plupart portés lors des représentations françaises de pièces jouées depuis un siècle. Une exposition à voir du 14 juin 2014 au 4 janvier 2015.
De la découverte du théâtre élisabéthain aux interprétations modernes des comédies, tragédies et drames historiques shakespeariens, l’exposition capte les différentes facettes de cet univers théâtral, évoquées par les costumes des pièces les plus emblématiques : Roméo et JulietteLe Roi Lear ou encore Richard III.
Les grands noms de la scène française sont également mis à l’honneur : les comédiens Gérard Desarthe, Robert Hirsch et Maria Casarès ; les metteurs en scène Edward Gordon Craig, Charles Dullin, Ariane Mnouchkine et Patrice Chéreau ; les costumiers Charles Bianchini et Patrice Cauchetier. Toutes ces figures permettent d’appréhender les différentes interprétations des pièces shakespeariennes ainsi que les grandes institutions théâtrales, françaises comme anglaises.

Du 14 juin 2014 au 4 janvier 2015

Pour en savoir plus, cliquer ici.

mardi 14 octobre 2014

Producing the history of fashion in the West Symposium, may 2015, call for papers]




INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Producing the history of fashion in the West
Paris, 11-12-13 may 2015

Call for papers [deadline : 15 November 2014]

This conference organised by the "Appearances, bodies, and societies" Research Interest Group is open to researchers working on the history of fashion and appearances in Europe or elsewhere, from the end of the Middle Ages up to the present day. It will provide a multidisciplinary analysis of museum and university discourses, concepts, experiments and experiences, and of their intellectual origins and the institutional frameworks within which they are produced across diverse local and national contexts. The aim is to better understand the various ways of tackling the subject so as to highlight new areas of research convergence, thereby giving new impetus to international cooperation.
For several decades now fashion has ceased to be seen as a repertoire of perpetually evolving forms for the researcher to strive to observe, with an eye to drawing up some illusory and ultimately futile inventory. In the wake of works by Georg Simmel, Norbert Elias, Roland Barthes, etc., ways of dressing and adorning the body have been analysed using concepts which place the individual within a network of social norms. Research conducted in the history of the body has added new dimensions to this field of research (such as beauty, hygiene, etc.). This could have acted as the basis over the past sixty or so years for more numerous and open forms of international cooperation to emerge with regard to the contemporary processes that promote mass fashion and generate uniform means of shaping attitudes and postures. This has not been the case, however, and many barriers persist. There is still a lack of balance in recent research, with the Scandinavian and English-speaking worlds receiving greater levels of funding than the rest of continental Europe.

Overall it is a matter of considering all academic approaches to fashion so as to see what role they fulfil and what place they have in the way knowledge in general is built up and organised in different countries. Several additional observations may act as a useful guide for the approach this conference will take to specific current problems in research into the history of fashion:
Concepts. Whilst the French concept of "apparences" has led researchers to analyse the political and social norms governing dressing, that of "clothing", for instance, has accorded greater importance to the interplay of consumerist practices, identity construction, and the individual's relationship to their body. A comparable divergence may be observed between the concepts of "mode” and “fashion”. In France the forms taken by la mode are deemed to be ephemeral and thus of no intrinsic interest. Instead, it is said, research needs to focus on the social tensions generated between the peripheries and the centres dictating these forms. Such an attitude means that the forms of clothing and their evolution are regarded as relatively unimportant, whereas the experience of researchers working in different contexts has led them to reconstitute items of clothing. In northern and eastern Europe the issue of appearances has been tackled via those of the construction of the State and/or the nation. This has also transpired to a lesser extent in the study of regional fashions in Western Europe.
The way researchers view collections and timescales. The way in which researchers view objects varies from place to place, affecting the ways in which they apprehend “mode/fashion”. This transpires in attitudes towards existing items, towards experimental archaeology and the reconstitution of costumes, and in how to tackle the thorny issue of the vocabulary used to name objects. Is it possible to draw up an overview of these various differences, on the basis of experiments carried out in the field of experimental archaeology for instance? How can we go about analysing the sources of the history of appearance when the collections are incomplete or inexistent, especially for distant periods?
These frameworks have generated different forms of history of fashion, characterised in particular by the use of specific timeframes which depend on the criteria and methods chosen in the light of the prevalent concepts. Intellectual developments in place since the 19th century mean that is feasible to draw up a history of these timeframes, especially as they affect not just the histories of fashion but also the collections of objects and the way in which these are classified and presented.
Institutional factors and networks. Institutional factors and specific networks all too frequently transmit these differences and entrench them. These factors include the place accorded to the study of fashion and textiles in academic teaching and research, the relative importance accorded to the various disciplines used (history, sociology, anthropology, etc.), and the ways in which universities, research centres, museum institutions, and collectors work together, etc. Editorial strategies and differences in the ease with which researchers can access various tools for international cooperation further add to this general diversity.


Papers may address the following themes:

1 The history of the history of fashion. The state of research into the issue.
Authors, overviews, and exhibitions which have influenced the history of fashion. What publications have had an impact on the history of fashion in the past and in the present day? The nature and objectives of publications in the West.
Concepts, timeframes, and methods used for research.

2. Writing the history of fashion – issues and approaches
How can we go about conceiving of a history of contemporary fashion? How can we produce a history of fashion without objects (for distant periods)? What role does the technical and economic context play in the histories of fashion? What place are we to accord to the materiality of the body? And to visual cultures?

3 Teaching and presenting the history of fashion
What place is given to the teaching of fashion in school and university systems? What disciplines are used for the history of fashion? What links exist between universities and museums? What role do exhibitions play in the presentation and dissemination of the history of fashion?

4 International cooperation
What forms of international cooperation are open to researchers? What about undertaking projects, their organisations and funding? Problems and difficulties encountered.
What problems arise from the scale and extent of undertaking within structures for international cooperation?


Proposals (a title, a summary of about 2000 characters, and a bibliography giving the author's main publications) are to reach the following address before 15 November 2014: jean-pierre.lethuillier@uhb.fr

mercredi 8 octobre 2014

La guerre à travers ses uniformes [exposition]

Le musée de la chemiserie et de l'élégance masculine, à Argenton-sur-Creuse, présente jusqu'au 7 décembre 2014 une exposition sur les uniformes militaires, du XVIIIe s. à la Seconde guerre mondiale.

Pour en savoir plus, cliquer ici.

mardi 30 septembre 2014

Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV [livre]

9780896728578
Kathryn Norberg and Sandra Rosenbaum, eds., Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV: Interpreting the Art of Elegance (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2014), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-0896728578, $46.
Between 1678 and 1710, Parisian presses printed hundreds of images of elegantly attired men and women dressed in the latest mode, and posed to display every detail of their clothing and accessories. Long used to illustrate dress of the period, these fashion prints have been taken at face value and used uncritically. Drawing on perspectives from art history, costume history, French literature, museum conservation and theatrical costuming, the essays in this volume explore what the prints represent and what they reveal about fashion and culture in the seventeenth century.
With more than one hundred illustrations, Fashion Prints in the Age of Louis XIV constitutes not only an innovative analysis of fashion engravings, but also one of the most comprehensive collections of seventeenth-century fashion images available in print.
Kathryn Norberg is a professor of history and gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published on French history and is the coeditor of Furnishing the Eighteenth Century: What Furniture Can Tell Us about the European and American Past.
Sandra Rosenbaum is the retired curator-in-charge of the Doris Stein Research Center for Costume and Textiles, a part of the Department of Costume and Textiles, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for which she developed and supervised an extensive library of primary and secondary source materials.

Silent Partners: Artist and Mannequin from Function to Fetish [exposition]

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 14 October 2014 — 25 January 2015
Musée Bourdelle, Paris, 31 March — 12 July 2015




The articulated human figure made of wax or wood has been a common tool in artistic practice since the 16th century. Its mobile limbs enable the artist to study anatomical proportion, fix a pose at will, and perfect the depiction of drapery and clothing. Over the course of the 19th century, the mannequin gradually emerged from the studio to become the artist’s subject, at first humorously, then in more complicated ways, playing on the unnerving psychological presence of a figure that was realistic, yet unreal—lifelike, yet lifeless.
Silent Partners locates the artist’s mannequin within the context of an expanding universe of effigies, avatars, dolls, and shop window dummies. Generously illustrated, this book features works by such artists as Poussin, Gainsborough, Degas, Courbet, Cézanne, Kokoschka, Dalí, Man Ray, and others; the astute, perceptive text examines their range of responses to the uncanny and highly suggestive potential of the mannequin.

mardi 23 septembre 2014

Quand l'habit fait le moine. tenues de travail en photographie [exposition]


6 juin au 16 novembre 2014 - Musée de Bretagne

" L 'habit ne fait pas le moine " dit le proverbe, sauf peut-être lorsqu'il s'agit de vêtements de travail... 

D'un seul regard porté à la tenue, on reconnaît souvent la profession d'un individu. Il permet d'identifier un métier, comme de véhiculer des notions plus abstraites de pouvoir, de hiérarchie, de distinction sociale ou d'identité collective. Vêtements de travail et uniformes ont donc parfois des fonctions, parfois des rôles symboliques, mais toujours des significations.

Les photographes des années 1850 à nos jours se sont emparés de cette thématique dans laquelle le lien social transparaît à chaque image. Une sélection de clichés extraits des collections photographiques du musée de Bretagne vous propose de décrypter cet univers codifié.

samedi 20 septembre 2014

Soieries: Le livre d’échantillons d’un marchand français au siècle des Lumières [livre]


Par sa grande rareté, le livre d’échantillons reproduit ici pour la première fois et dont l’original est conservé au Victoria & Albert Museum de Londres, présente un intérêt unique. C’est une véritable révélation qui offre une source d’informations capitale sur la création des soieries en France au XVIIIe siècle.
La provenance de ce livre d’échantillons est originale à elle toute seule. En effet, il fut saisi en 1764 par les Douanes anglaises qui luttaient contre les importations illégales de textiles, qu’organisaient des agents français. Nous sommes aussi en plein roman d’espionnage et de contre –espionnage industriel, comme l’explique l’auteur Lesley E. Miller, conservatrice en chef du Département des Textiles et de la Mode au Victoria and Albert Museum. Son texte vivant nous immerge dans la vie quotidienne des soyeux lyonnais des années 1760. Elle apporte un éclairage très documenté sur la fabrication et sur le commerce des textiles à cette époque qu’elle a étudiée pendant plusieurs années. L’auteur brosse également un panorama illustré de la mode et de l’usage des soieries françaises en Europe sous l’Ancien Régime.
Une analyse technique rigoureuse de chacun des échantillons confère à ce livre le caractère d’un ouvrage de référence qui satisfera les attentes les plus exigeantes. Mais c’est le charme immense qui se dégage de la partie « fac-similé » qui fait de ce livre d’échantillons, reproduit intégralement, un véritable objet de séduction. L’original, relié en carton et en parchemin ne pèse pas moins de 8,400 kg ! Source inépuisable d’inspiration, ces centaines de «morceaux d’étoffe » aux noms pleins de poésie, aujourd’hui disparus, touchent par la fraîcheur de leurs tons et la richesse des motifs.
En dehors des spécialistes et des professionnels de la mode et des textiles, ce livre s’adresse également à tous les amateurs des arts décoratifs.


vendredi 19 septembre 2014

Critical Costume 2015. An international conference and exhibition of costume (Helsinki, 25-27 march 2015) [call for papers]

[Deadline for the submission of proposals: 20 October 2014]


What does it mean to study costume in the 21st century?
Early theoretical discourse on costume (Hollander 1975/1993; Wilson 1985/2013; Gaines 1990) underlines the active interrelation between costume, body and character by arguing that “costume assimilates bodily signifiers into character, but body as a whole engulfs the dress” (Gaines 1990: 193).
In the 21st century, costume practices are now encountered through a multitude of different media: from film and theatre to virtual environments and mediated platforms. Mediation has become a prevalent principle of contemporary life and culture. Yet, the role of the costumed body and of how bodily practices are ‘read’ within and explored through these contexts remains a central question of 21st century artistic scholarship and practice.
Costume is still a relatively new and emerging research area. However, the study of costume has significantly grown in profile in recent years as a subject worthy of focused academic study, as evident within the growing number of international scholarly publications on costume and the costumed body in the last decade. Most recently, special issues of academic journals, such asCanadian Theatre Review (2012) and Scene (2014, forthcoming), have addressed the agency of costume in live performance as well as in film and other media. In that regard, Critical Costume 2015 is the second event conceived under the banner of Critical Costume, following a research project initiated by Dr. Rachel Hann and Sidsel Bech at Edge Hill University (UK) in 2013 (seewww.criticalcostume.com). The overall aim of the Critical Costume events is to offer a platform for new academic thinking and design practices around the study of costume: with costume conceived as a means of critically interrogating the body in/as performance.
Therefore, Critical Costume 2015 invites contributions from scholars and practitioners that seek toad-dress the implications of research processes, new technologies and media for the study and practice of costuming today and in history.
While we welcome all proposals on the subject of costume, Critical Costume 2015 is particularly interested in contributions from practitioners and scholars that investigate the following:
a) Methodologies for researching costume in live performance, film and media: this includes practice-based approaches, new technologies as a tool for costume research, as well as historical, sociological, ethnographic, anthropological or other cultural perspectives in studying costume practices.
b) Media and mediated costume, and new design practices: costume in media and media in costume; these include digital costume, wearable technology, interactivity, latest technology and special effects, and the dramaturgical implications of interpreting screen-mediated or projected costume.  
c) Costume practices and performances that examine the performative qualities of material (whether physical or virtual), body, flesh, and design.

The event includes
-          an exhibition of artistic work and artistic research,
-          a conference comprised of academic presentations on current research in the field of costume and performance,
-          Flash Talks - short presentations by artists, and
-          film and media screenings.

In that regard, we invite all interested parties to submit their proposals stating which presentation format you wish to be considered for:

  • 20min paper presentation (title and 300-word abstract)
  • Flash Talk presentations (title and 200-word summary)
  • Exhibition or Installation work – physical or mediated object (title and 200-word description)

Note: We welcome applications to present in more than one format.
The event language is English.
 Deadline for the submission of proposals: 20 October 2014
Please submit your proposals online: http://costumeinfocus.com/?page_id=118
 Critical Costume 2015 is curated by Professor Sofia Pantouvaki and hosted by the Costume in Focusresearch group, based at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
 Important dates:
Deadline for the submission of proposals: 20 October 2014
Notification of acceptance: 25 November 2014
Event dates: 25-27 March 2015

For more information, please contact: Prof. Sofia Pantouvaki, email: sofia.pantouvaki@aalto.fi
Twitter: @CriticalCostume

Fashion Tales 2015: Feeding the Imaginary (Milan, 18-20 June 2015) [call for papers]

ModaCult is an academic research centre that has tried, since its creation in 1995 , to support dialogue across disciplines and practices and to compare the languages and expertise of different fashion professionals, both by organizing interdisciplinary conferences and promoting ethnographic research projects. In June 2012 it convened and hosted the first edition of the Conference Fashion Tales, attended by 250 delegates from 38 Countries from all continents.  Today, on the occasion of the Expo 2015 to be held in Milan and significantly entitled ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life’, we invite scholars, curators, media and consultancy professionals, as well as fashion designers and business people, to share ideas, meanings, images and methodologies with particular attention to the ways they feed the social imaginary towards sustainable lifestyles. (...)

To learn more / pour en savoir plus.

Call for papers : dealine = 1st october 2014

lundi 1 septembre 2014

War and Clothing. Fashion illustration at the time of the First World War [exposition]


The political upheavals of the period between 1914 and 1919 that shook the world and changed the course of history also left their mark on the silhouette of women's clothing and established the fashion industry as an increasingly important sector of the national economies of the Western world. Overshadowed by Art Nouveau and the so-called Golden or Roaring Twenties and therefore all too often overlooked by fashion historians, the clothes designed during the Great War are distinguished by a surprising vitality and modernity. Many details that had been introduced during the war years as practical innovations - the markedly shorter skirts and dresses, simple sportswear-inspired daywear, new materials such as wool and silk jersey or the penchant for black as a fashion colour - were retained and developed further after 1919.
The exhibition presents fashion illustrations and photographs from the fashion capitals of Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Among the exhibits are the exquisitely designed magazines Gazette du Bon Ton and Der Kleiderkasten as well as the Parisian fashion plate portfolios Modes et Manières d'Aujourd'hui with illustrations by George Lepape and André Marty and La Mode par Fried. The rare prints from the Mode Wien 1914/15 portfolio, published in cooperation with the Wiener Werkstätte, exemplify the characteristic expressive style of Vienna, while original drawings by Annie Offterdinger illustrate the sophisticated designs of the Berlin fashion house Alfred-Marie.
Fashion plates of the period of the First World War are marked by the influence of contemporary avant-garde trends in art such as Cubism, Fauvism and Expressionism. The selection of some 200 items from the rich holdings of the Fashion Image Collection of the Lipperheide Costume Library invites visitors to rediscover the astonishingly modern pictorial language of wartime fashion illustrations.
Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 25/09/2014 to 18/01/2015


mardi 19 août 2014

Se vêtir dans les années 1870 [video]

Comment une femme à la mode se vêt dans les années 1870 ? Une excellente video du Bowes Museum (Grande Bretagne)  explique comment s'y prendre, à l'aide d'une reconstitution d'habit à partir d'une robe de 1872 appartenant à la collection muséale. Intéressant commentaire du costumier Luca Costigliolo.

dimanche 10 août 2014

Mode, vêtement et société en Europe durant la première guerre mondiale Fashion / Dress and Society in Europe during World War I (colloque/symposium)

Ce colloque se tiendra les 12 et 13 décembre 2014 à l’Institut Français de la Mode, 36 Quai d’Austerlitz, à Paris.

Ce colloque sur l'histoire culturelle de la mode et sur l'industrie de la mode au cours de la première guerre mondiale, qui se tiendra dans le cadre des commémorations officielles du centenaire de la première guerre mondiale, aura lieu les 12 et 13 décembre 2014. Afin de montrer comment la mode a joué un rôle essentiel dans le remodelage des sociétés européennes au cours de la première guerre mondiale, ce colloque a pour but de rassembler une communauté internationale de chercheurs et de professionnels des musées qui ont un intérêt commun dans l'exploration des questions liées aux notions de genre et de mode, aux phénomènes de production et de consommation de la mode, et au rôle de la presse entre 1914 et 1918.

Inscriptions du public au colloque et détails sur celui-ci sur le site Internet du colloque :  

Pour avoir une idée des participants, voir le blog Histoire de mode