Join us for the online conference Tailoring for Women: Theory and Method
29 June, 2024
10:00-16.30 BST | Online
We are excited to invite you to our 2024 conference which will bring together speakers presenting innovative theories and methods for assessing and understanding the historical and cultural significance of tailored clothes for women. This international conference will showcase findings at the end of our five-year ACORSO programme of research into Tailored Clothes for Women 1750-1930.
The one-day event will highlight recent research from eight scholars and curators on the creation, dissemination and consumption of bespoke, ‘tailor-made’ and mass-produced tailored clothing for women from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The expansion of tailored clothing for women expresses the development of sartorial modernity; from tailored sportswear adapted to women’s increasingly active lives to professional attire for women entering the workforce and public life to bohemian creatives exploring gender, tailored clothes were reflections of the shifting representations of feminine identity.
The day will be structured around two thematically linked panels: Theories and Methods, which will explore a range of sources and methodological approaches for the study of historical tailoring, and Museums and Material Culture, which will feature object-based, detailed analysis of extant examples of innovative historical tailoring for women held in museum collections. Confirmed speakers include Cally Blackman (Central St. Martins); Vanessa Jones (Rijksmuseum); Igor Zubizaretta (Balenciaga Museum), Jane Hattrick (Independent scholar), Eleanor Medhurst (Independent Scholar) and Eliza McKee (Fulbright Scholar, NYU).
This conference is hosted by the Centre for Design History, University of Brighton and supported by ACORSO: The Appearances, Bodies and Societies Research Interest Group of 80 European researchers in 32 member institutions whose basic aim is to bring together researchers working in museums and universities across Europe with shared interests in the research and exhibition of the past, present and future of dress, fashion, and appearance. Director: Dr Marjorie Meiss, Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septrention, (CNRS), University de Lille.
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