The Fashion and Textiles Museum, Inside and Out

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Hannah Rumball, PhD candidate, documents an extraordinary day in Bermondsey, London.

Founded in 2003 by British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, and still functioning as her London residence and studios, the Fashion and Textiles Museum presents a constantly changing series of design and jewellery exhibitions operated in association with Newham College. On 4 June 2013 the MA History of Design student group, joined by Professor Lou Taylor and Dr Annebella Pollen, were given unprecedented access to the museum’s current exhibition, Zandra’s cutting and print room, and even to her home. As Curator, our fellow Masters student Dennis Nothdruft was in a perfect position to provide an intimate behind-the-scenes tour of the site.

The day commenced with a visit to the hit show Kaffe Fassett: A Life in Colour. The gallery space had been skilfully curated as a unified flowing composition that also managed to represent the core themes of each of the craft practitioner’s creative phases through painting, knitting, textile design and quilting. The relatively modest size of the exhibition space and the overlapping arrangement of the exhibited pieces created an intimate and homely environment for the textiles, much as you may imagine Kaffe envisioned them in use. A heavy wool knitted handmade cardigan, for example, draped over the back of a chair, sat as if its owner had just abandoned it. A Wedgwood-inspired cabbage teapot stood as if ready for pouring amidst the vegetable and flower motifs of Kaffe’s Berlin wool work pillows and needlework furniture coverings. This compilation of recent and earlier pieces, featuring an example of the Victorian ceramics that inspired his earliest works and which he reinterpreted through his bold colour palette, was organised as a psychedelic garden tea party on the mezzanine floor in the space’s most striking curatorial composition. The exhibition perfectly reflected the life’s work of its subject yet also combined it effectively with the bold and distinctive aesthetic favoured by the gallery’s founder.

Widely recognised as one of the world’s most distinctive designers, Zandra Rhodes’ career has spanned more than forty years.  Rhodes originally studied printed textile design at the RCA, and this practice is still central to all of her creations. Her distinctive hand-printed fabrics formed the basis for her first fashion collections, with which she crossed the Atlantic to be featured in American Vogue in 1969. Her international profile among the new wave of British designers during the 1970s helped bring the London scene to the forefront of the fashion world. Renowned for her safety pin-adorned, torn and beaded punk-inspired creations, she later went on to dress Diana, HRH Princess of Wales and Freddie Mercury, amongst others. Her designs continue to adorn well-known figures, including Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Mirren, for both awards ceremonies and on-screen roles. In addition to her clothing brand, Zandra’s current output includes costume and set design commissions for opera performances around the world. Her tireless work in the field of fashion was honoured with a CBE in 2007. She has also received a spectacular nine Honorary Doctorates internationally and is Chancellor of the University of the Creative Arts. Zandra’s bright pink hair, theatrical make-up and daring jewellery have also made the designer into an icon as recognisable as any of her gowns.

Such exhaustive creativity can be witnessed first-hand when entering the rabbit warren of studios, offices and private rooms that make up the behind-the-scenes of the Fashion and Textiles Museum. Steep, narrow stair cases, lushly carpeted in bold patterns and crammed with artworks, connect the myriad of functional quarters that operate as separate sites for each of the specific stages in her creative process. Wandering through, every wall positively groans under the weight of stored and displayed material; every nook and cranny houses a design, swathe of fabric, finished garment or magazine from any of the past 40 years of her career. Zandra is a meticulous collector and archivist of her own practice and nowhere is this more evident than in the textile design studio in the lowest sector of the complex. As a functional site, the uncharacteristic concrete floors and grey walls signal the dirty-hands nature of the artistic work undertaken in the area. An enormous print table, easily 10 feet long, is bordered by neatly arranged wooden markers and screens organised likes books in a library. While digital techniques have been latterly introduced into Zandra’s textile design practice, this screen printing area is still a hub of activity. The print room also houses all of her original screens dating back to the 1960s, featuring her most iconic patterns. As we huddled around the expansive work bench, like children at an oversized dinner table, Dennis Nothdruft explained the function and significance of the space as creative site of inception, realisation and archive.

For many, however, the highlight of the visit was lunch in Zandra’s private flat, with the designer herself joining us for an M&S sandwich and a chat. Zandra’s vocal opinions remain razor sharp, and she keeps her finger firmly on the pulse of the international fashion and gallery scene. Perched on a leather lounger, surrounded by architectural plants, flamboyant artworks by the likes of Andrew Logan and a collection of her extraordinary dresses on rails in a corner, Zandra had the perfect backdrop as her private rooms reflect the kaleidoscopic aesthetic of her professional and personal style. With rainbow shades of blue, green, yellow and hot pink adorning every wall of the rooftop space, Zandra’s vision comes fully alive in the space she calls home. Venturing out onto the rooftop terrace, only the stunning views of a baking hot London skyline reminded us of the outside world.

Behind the Scenes at the Musee Galleria, Paris

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Second year BA (hons) Fashion and Dress History students Amy Hodgson, Nicola Goodwin and Nicola Hayward describe their ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ insight into the historic dress collections of Paris.

As part of our second year option, A Trip to Paris, we were given the chance to go on a five-day study visit to the culturally and historically rich French capital over Easter 2013. As student dress historians it was unfortunate that many of the permanent fashion museums and exhibitions were closed during our time there. However, the Musee Galliera had exhibits in various locations and venues around Paris. One of these was the Paris Haute Couture show at the Hotel de Ville, an enlightening and informative experience which showed not only examples of couture garments but also gave an insight into their elaborate and innovative design techniques. This show included many designers who are not household names, and provided a broad selection showcasing fashion throughout the eras to enthusiastic crowds of visitors. After witnessing this exhibition by the Galliera we were curious to understand the work that takes place to create such a vision.

Luckily we were given the rare opportunity to visit the Musee Galliera costume stores. Despite the renovations that were taking place, our tutor Dr. Charlotte Nicklas was able to arrange the trip through a colleague and curator who was working there. Under heavy security we began our tour of one of the largest dress collections and restoration facilities in Europe, featuring thousands of garments, photographs and historically significant records. Needless to say we were overcome with excitement at the prospect of being allowed to witness this fine collection.

Figure 1. View of the Restoration Room and early 20th Century Dancing Dress. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal Photograph by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

Figure 1. View of the Restoration Room and early 20th Century Dancing Dress. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal Photograph by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

Firstly, entering the conservation room, we were faced with an early twentieth century dancing dress being restored by expertly trained seamstresses and members of the highly regarded team of conservators. Every item is meticulously studied, conserved and catalogued before it is considered for the collection. The store rooms even feature a room dedicated to garment cleaning; steamers, hoovers and washing implements are used to make sure all garments are immaculate and at no risk of insect infestation.

Figure 2. View of Martin Margiela 2006 Menswear Invitation. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal photograph by the author. 22nd April 2013.

Figure 2. View of Martin Margiela 2006 Menswear Invitation. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal photograph by the author. 22nd April 2013.

As well as garments, the museum also acquires significant documents, photographs, and accessories. All of these elements are essential to creating an understanding of the fashion industry throughout history. One of the examples we were able to see was a Martin Margiela 2006 Menswear show invitation, which offered a glimpse into the post-modern, conceptual fashion world, where the invitation is the first insight into the illusion and theme of the fashion show. The numerous records and photographs that are gathered by the Musee Galliera are easily overlooked, but are equally as important in understanding the culture, images and innovative work that surrounds, and are sometimes created by, many of these designers.

The next stage of the tour was the storerooms, where we were asked to wear shoe protectors to prevent outside germs entering the controlled space. The room is kept at a consistent temperature and monitored constantly. We were faced with rails upon rails, as far as the eye could see, all holding historically significant garments from a range of eras, and each holding their own stories. We were guided through a maze of storage containers. It was unlike anything any of us had ever seen or could have imagined, and was quite overwhelming in its scale.

Figure 3. View of a Worth 19th Century Opera Coat. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal photography by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

Figure 3. View of a Worth 19th Century Opera Coat. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal photography by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

We were shown three garments that had been chosen to represent their particular era, from the 19th century and early 20th century to the 1950s. All were excellent examples, embodying the style and design of the their time. A late 19th century Worth opera coat, for example, acted as a potent symbol of bourgeois decadence and the luxurious lifestyle that this social standing entailed. The second example we were shown was a 1920s dancing dress, adorned with rhinestones and velvet fringing, by an unknown designer.  Again, this piece evocatively embodied the changing notions of femininity for which the 1920s are well known. It also exemplified the innovative design and skilled workmanship that is involved in creating such a heavily embellished garment. The third and final garment we were shown was a dress that was part of Yves Saint Laurent’s first collection for Dior in 1957/58. The dress echoes Dior’s New Look style, with hidden corseting and a full skirt, creating the recognisable 1950s fashionable silhouette.  The monochrome floral print gave the dress a photomontage effect and the motif appeared quite modern because of these elements. This small selection provided a glimpse into the varied and impressive collection at Musee Galliera. The final room that we visited showcased the museum’s selection of mannequins and the workmanship that is put into displaying garments. Differing body shapes and changing attitudes towards the body must be taken into account, giving a historically authentic form for when the garments are exhibited.

Figure 4. View of 1920s heavily embellished dancing dress. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal Photograph by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

Figure 4. View of 1920s heavily embellished dancing dress. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal Photograph by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

Figure 5. View of Yves Saint Laurent for Dior 1957-1958 Couture Dress. Musee Galliera Store Rooms. Personal Photograph by the author. April 22nd 2013.

Figure 5. View of Yves Saint Laurent for Dior 1957-1958 Couture Dress. Musee Galliera Store Rooms. Personal Photograph by the author. April 22nd 2013.

We were delighted to be offered the opportunity to have a once-in-a-lifetime insight into the inner workings of one of the most important and vast dress collections in Europe. Even though the garments that we saw were spectacular, to be given the chance to observe the conservation, organisation, display and management of the collection was truly insightful. All of these elements demonstrated the vast amount of work undertaken by the highly regarded team of specialists who understand the importance of building and maintaining this internationally important collection.

Figure 6. View of our Protective Footwear that must be worn whilst inside the Store Room. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal photograph by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

Figure 6. View of our Protective Footwear that must be worn whilst inside the Store Room. Musee Galliera Store Rooms, 2013. Personal photograph by the authors. April 22nd 2013.

 

Design and Culture in Spain, part III: Almudena Cathedral

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Alice Power, first year student on the BA (hons) Museum and Heritage Studies degree pathway, completes the short series of blog posts resulting from a recent study trip to Madrid by examining the distinctive traditions of Spanish Catholic art.

Fig 1. An interior arch in Almudena cathedral, Madrid. Amy Lou Bishop. 13 February 2013.

Fig 1. An interior arch in Almudena cathedral, Madrid. Amy Lou Bishop. 13 February 2013.

As we stood outside the Almudena Cathedral in the heart of Madrid, I turned to my student colleagues and set them a challenge, asking: ‘How old do you think this building is?’ Here was a chance to put into practice what we’ve been learning in our first year History and of Art and Design lectures by looking at a building of which none of us had prior knowledge. The four of us looked carefully at the decoration that adorned the ornate exterior.  It didn’t seem to fit clearly into any style or movement that we were familiar with.  There were certainly Baroque influences, which complimented the neighbouring Palace nicely, but as a whole it looked too fresh to be from that period. Our collective brain power estimated that it probably dated from circa 1875. We weren’t far wrong. Construction started in 1879. However, due to despites over decor and the turbulent political conditions in Spain during the twentieth century, it wasn’t completed and consecrated until 1993.

Fig. 2. Exterior of Almudena catherdral taken from Calle Mayor , Madrid. Amy Lou Bishop. 13 February 2013.

Fig. 2. Exterior of Almudena catherdral taken from Calle Mayor , Madrid. Amy Lou Bishop. 13 February 2013.

The interior was, somewhat unexpectedly, neo-gothic in style. Nevertheless, the bright whiteness of this still-young building gave it a very different atmosphere to the countless neo-gothic churches I’ve visited in the UK, Ireland and France. The ceiling decoration was very fluid and modern, marked with the bright colours that one often associates with Spanish imagery.  We visited on Ash Wednesday, so the space was active with worshippers as well as tourists. Despite this, the space felt somehow bare. Due to its age, it isn’t cluttered with tombs and monuments. One of my fellow students mentioned that it felt more like an art gallery than a place of worship.  With little uniformity in the scale and style of art displayed in each chapel, it was easy to view them as exhibits. As I had been educated in Catholic school, I’m fairly familiar with what each of the religious signs are meant to indicate, but here things weren’t so typical. Christian art, as a category, is vast and ever changing, yet within Catholicism, traditional styles and forms usually dominate.

Two years ago I visited a church called Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación in Marbella. It was situated down a rather unassuming alleyway in the old quarter of the town.  I found the style of the interior, however, to be completely overwhelming. Many of the statues were life-size, draped in velvet robes and featured real hair. Each one was richly decorated with gold. They were extreme examples of what I’d anticipated. The iconic, highly decorative images of Catholic saints produced in Spain and other Hispanic countries are globally recognised as distinct to their cultures. Hispanic-style images of the Virgin Mary are a staple of any tattooist’s repertoire and are also often recreated in kitsch novelty items.  Examining the chapel of Ave Maria Purisima sin Pecado Concebida  in Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral, however, challenged all my preconceived ideas about Catholic art in Spain. The chapel was focused on an oil painting of the Madonna. Instead of highlighting her holiness by covering her in regalia, this Madonna was depicted in white with her head exposed, carrying a light. The most striking aspect to me was how clearly youthful she was. The gospels say that Mary was in her early teens at the birth of Christ, yet in most of the art created in her image she is more like a doll than a child. The painting did exactly what religious art is supposed to do. It made me think. Although I’d heard the gospel passages countless times, I don’t think I’d really ever connected the stories to the condition of a modern day young mother. Above the painting was a stained glass window made up of strikingly modern angular shapes. This is something I’d often seen in Protestant churches, but never in a Catholic cathedral.

In many Western cultures, the presence of a cathedral is still an unofficial sign of city status.  Yet, for centuries, Spain’s capital lacked an operational Catholic cathedral.  As an outsider I found this peculiar. I’d always assumed that there was something almost innately Catholic about Spanish national culture. In reality, Spain’s religious identity is a result of a long standing power struggle between Jewish, Islamic, Protestant and Catholic traditions, as well as the amalgamation of many strong regional identities. Nonetheless, 92% of people living in Spain consider themselves Catholic although many infrequently attend church. In some regions, parishes broadcast masses on local television networks. Perhaps this explains the diversity of the art in their churches. While in the UK, we’re predominantly interested in preserving the past, in Spain religion is much more connected to the present.  Not long after I returned from Madrid, a news story about a Catalan church that commissioned local graffiti artist to paint its dome was widely reported: www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21529832. This shows that modernising trends are evident in churches all over Spain.

Ultimately, Madrid’s Almudena cathedral is not just a place of worship and tradition. It is a boast that Catholicism survived attempts by other faiths to become dominant. As a site that incorporates elements of the past and the present, as well as local and universal iconography, it’s also a showcase for the diversity of Spanish national history and culture.

Design and Culture in Spain II: Museo del Traje

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Karen Scanlon, a first year BA (hons) Fashion and Dress History student, continues a short series of blog posts on hispanic material culture by examining Spanish dress, past and present, at Madrid’s Museo del Traje.

Entrance to Museo Del Traje, Madrid, Spain. Photograph by Karen Scanlon

As part of a recent study trip to Madrid, I made a visit to the city’s fashion museum. Although not as conveniently located within the centre as most of the other museums, this shouldn’t put anyone off from visiting, as a short underground journey from the city centre to Moncloa station will get you there.

The city’s clothing collection began with an exhibition called ‘Regional and Historical Costume’ in 1925, held in the Palace of the Library and National Museums of Madrid. By 1934, this exhibition had merged with the Museum of the Spanish People and was arranged by the government of the Second Republic in the hope of creating a display that would reflect different Spanish traditions. The museum was open on and off between 1940-44 and again between 1971 -73. From then, the collection went into storage until 1987 when it was moved to its current location and site of the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (MEAC) with a plan to reopen the collection to the public. Museo del Traje started as a project that would bring traditional, historical and contemporary fashions together as a site for reference and research.

Having never been to Spain before, my knowledge of Spanish dress was, I admit, very limited. Thoughts of flamenco dancers, boleros and other ideas of traditional dress were the only images that came to mind.  However, from the moment I entered the museum and began to look at the exhibits, I realized there was much more to Spanish dress than that. In fact, the museum’s permanent collection is arranged with an overview of the history of costume in Spain from as early as the 16th century right up to the 21st century. The purpose-built interior enjoys wide open spaces to move around comfortably and without the overuse of placards, displays appear to be less cluttered than in other museums. Although signage is limited, the use of interactive touch-screen terminals provides visitors with access to further information about a particular costume, designer, accessory, and so on. That said, although objects may appear better presented without labels, the terminals are a bit finicky and can be time-consuming to use.

Space has been well organized and items are chronologically arranged, including, for example, a section on the Neoclassicism style resulting from the French Revolution and its effects on dress in 18th century Europe as a whole, and a display showing a typical 19th century Spanish domestic interior. An in-depth view inside some garments is offered; a corset for example, is shown in an x-ray image, allowing a closer examination of its construction. Another display features a partly-cut garment to reveal how the bustle’s construction was used to define the desired 19th century silhouette. Each display is a feast for the eyes and each direction offers the viewer one beautiful arrangement of costume after another. As the museum guides the visitor through its historical chronology, there is also an offshoot from the main trail, which leads to a section on regional dress. At once I recognized these clothes as fitting my original impression of typical Spanish costume. This exhibit, covering the late 19th to early 20th century, features items of dress and accessories which represent historical ceremonial dress, typical work clothes indicating specialist trades, and dress used in festival or traditional dance (in fact, the latter styles can still be seen in Spanish dance performances today).

One example of dress that was particularly striking was from the region of Montehermoso, the north west province of Cáceres, Extremadura. The museum display shows a woman sitting in a chair with colourful, multi-layered underskirts, beautifully embroidered with motifs of birds, rosettes, carnations and other flowers. The woman also wears a particular gorra, a bonnet made from very colourful straw, adorned by ribbons, buttons and pompoms. The bonnet sits on top of a colourful kerchief, which is visible from a slight slit in the back of the bonnet. This flows downwards to cover the women to her shoulders. If worn traditionally, the bonnet would appear slightly tilted forward, a result of a type of regional hairstyle that has since been abandoned. The cuffs of her sleeves and her flat, ballet-style shoes are all richly embellished with embroidery. This elaborate use of embroidery also decorates the flamenco dancers’ manton de manila, the silk shawls and fans associated with Spanish culture and the typical matador’s costume.

Approaching the end of the permanent gallery there is a section covering haute couture, and most importantly, Spain’s own contributions, including the work of couturiers Mariano Fortuny and Cristobal Balenciaga,both enormously important to the trade in their own right. Fortuny, an accomplished designer who invented innovative processes for dying and pleating silk fabrics, is featured. Also highlighted is Cristobal Balenciaga, regarded as the most influential Spanish couturier of the 20th century. Balenciaga, from the Basque Country, used Spanish culture, art, and religious dress as inspirationfor many of his evening gown and coat designs, such as the colourful, extravagant robes of cardinals in the Catholic Church. Balenciaga’s creations suggest the grand sweeping movements of a flamenco dancer or matador. The use of sashes, tassels, embroidery, boleros, brocades and hats throughout his collections reinterpret traditional Spanish culture for 20th century European fashion tastes.  Moving on from haute couture are displays on the growth of Spanish ready-to-wear, marking the end of the museum’s historical journey.

Looking back, it appears to me that the art and craft of embroidery indigenous to Spanish culture is a key signature feature of Spanish dress. The preference for materials of rich colour also undoubtedly creates a vibrant museum display. After being treated to such fashion profusion, don’t expect any ordinary ‘exit through the gift shop’ at Museo del Traje. Visitors here are invited to leave in style via their very own catwalk. With loud music pumping in the background, a walk on the red carpet awaits, surrounded by bright lights and your very own (simulated) audience. What more could you ask of a fashion museum?

The catwalk front row: From left to right; Chaqueta y zapatos, Vivienne Westwood. 1985 – 1990; Vestido, Jean Paul Gaultier. ca. 1980; Capa, Roberto Capucci. ca. 1980. Photograph by Karen Scanlon.

Design and Culture in Spain I: Templo de Debod

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In the first of a short series of posts about Spanish visual and material culture, Amy-Lou Bishop, a first year student on the BA (hons) Museum and Heritage Studies degree course, reflects on a recent international study trip.

As a guest of the University of Brighton’s BA (hons.) Design and Craft students, in February 2013, I found myself, along with seven other History of Art and Design students, on a study trip to Madrid. Having never been to Spain before, I was travelling with an open mind, with my expectations only informed by the Spanish imagery we all instantly recognise. Before we went we were told by our tutor to look out for the distinctive visual culture of Spain and try to identify what we think is their particular national cultural identity. We almost all had a ready check list of clichéd images of ‘Spanish-ness’: tapas and paella; matadors and bull fighting; flamenco dancers and their dresses, shoes and fans. We were told to look out for Moorish style and its legacy, and to see if there were any visible clues to Spain’s violent Civil War past. Being aware of Spain’s current economic crisis, there was a chance we’d see the effects of that on Spanish art, design and culture too.  So by the time we got to Madrid, map in hand and intent on seeing anything and everything, we were directed to an ideal spot from which to see the city. When we got there, however, we found something I had in no way been expecting: an ancient Egyptian temple. Whole and complete, floating on a pool of water, it sits high above Madrid. As pleasantly surprisingly as it was to see, my main question was: why was it there?

The Parque Oeste, Madrid. Photograph by Amy-Lou Bishop. 15 February 2013

The Parque Oeste, Madrid. Photograph by Amy-Lou Bishop. 15 February 2013

There was surprisingly little information provided at the monument, as if the locals were so used to it or it was so taken for granted that they didn’t need this anomaly on the landscape to be explained. Since getting back, however, I have found out that it is called Templo de Debod. After standing on the banks of the Nile for two millennia, it was relocated from Egypt in 1968 to thank Spain for their assistance in saving ancient temples from flooding during the dam building of the period. Along with another temple, sent to New York City, Templo de Debod was given to Spain and placed in the Parque Oeste near the royal palace in Madrid.

We visited the spot on two separate occasions and were surprised each time by the amount of people there. However, they were not in the park to see the unusual landmark. They were all gathering for the view behind it – the uninterrupted landscape and the ideal spot to view the sunset. Vast numbers of visitors come and turn their back on the monument, and instead pose in front of and photograph the brilliant, dramatic hues of the setting sun. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that everyone has seen a sunset, and perhaps almost all of those will also have photographed one. The sunset in Madrid seems particularly spectacular, at least compared to ones in England, and I found myself in the same position as all the other visitors, taking pictures of something I’d seen hundreds or even thousands of times before. Of course, by doing this we were all guilty of the same thing – ignoring the temple. When the sun sets, you might expect the temple to regain some attention, but with the sun gone the people start to leave too, as if there is nothing left to hold them there.

Templo de Debod, Madrid. Photograph by Amy-Lou Bishop. 15 February 2013

Templo de Debod, Madrid. Photograph by Amy-Lou Bishop. 15 February 2013

Obviously not everyone ignores it; I am proof that they don’t. I think, on balance, I took more photographs of the temple than of the sunset, but I can say that on those two occasions I was almost the only one. There were others there using the space as they would any open space. There were families strolling, skateboarders passing, people just sitting on the water edge, even a man entertaining children by blowing giant bubbles; but for them it seemed that the temple wasn’t adding anything to their activities. Despite its ancient origins, sacred status and unusual location, thousands of miles from home, I could have been in any park and the scene would have looked exactly the same.

I wonder how the temple is viewed by the local madrilenos. Do they find it odd that a piece of Egypt is located slap bang in the centre of their city? Does everybody who visits find it as unusual as I did? Or do they just take it for granted as an added extra to their sunset snapshots? However it is seen, I felt it added something to my trip. And maybe, in a roundabout way, it helps to answer what Spanish national identity is: it can be a bit of everything, even a little bit of Egypt.

Transatlantic Dress History: An interview with Dr Charlotte Nicklas

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Amelia (Milly) Slater, first year student in BA (hons) Fashion and Dress History, interviews Dr Charlotte Nicklas about her research interests and background.

“The Fashions Expressly Designed and Prepared for the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine” (fashion plate). Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, May 1860. Hand-coloured engraving. Special Collection, St. Peter’s House Library, University of Brighton.

For the blog I took the opportunity to interview Dr Charlotte Nicklas, a senior lecturer in the History of Art and Design at University of Brighton. Charlotte has taught here since 2006 and specialises in the history of dress and textiles. She completed her PhD in Brighton after starting her studies at Harvard and the Bard in New York.  It was a great experience to be able to find out a lot more about Charlotte’s studies, both past and present, and the reasons and influences that encouraged her to choose to study fashion and dress history and teach us here in Brighton.

Milly: What drew you to study fashion and dress history?

Charlotte: I had been interested in the subject for a long time, almost as long as I can remember, however, the inspirational moment for me would have to have been my 12th birthday trip to New York with my grandparents. It was then that I was first taken to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to visit the exhibition From Queen to Empress: Victorian Dress 1837-1877 . I almost had to be pulled out by my grandmother as I was so enthralled by it. It was there that I started to think about dress history and consider how it could be possible to study it. It isn’t possible to do an undergraduate degree in Fashion and Dress History in America, so I studied History and Literature at university and was lucky in my second year to meet a lecturer who was completing her PhD on 18th century dress and this again made me think ‘wow you can do this!’ All through my undergraduate degree I thought of ways to study this history of dress. To tailor my degree, for example, I took courses in Indian history and studied chintz, always along the lines of dress history.

Milly: Is there a difference in the study of fashion and dress history between England and America?

Charlotte: In the collections here there is a longer ‘history’, in that there are surviving Renaissance portraits and texts, whereas in the US there is obviously a shorter history of European-influenced dress. However while I was working the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I did get this sense that there was a little more dialogue between the museum world and the academic world in Britain, although this is changing now. This may be to do with the size of the UK – you can get anywhere in a couple of hours and not have to take a plane, so it is easier to see colleagues more frequently. I really enjoy being here, partly because it is so much easier to move around, but also because Britain really is a centre for the study of fashion and dress history. Due to my training in humanities, this is a department I feel comfortable and happy to be working in, mixed with lectures to the Fashion and Design students. It is interesting to have these two very different, but interrelated, ways of approaching a subject.

Milly: From what you have said previously about the very different histories the two countries have, do you think the American system provides a more detailed study of fashion and dress through having a shorter, more documented, history than England’s?

Charlotte: I think it really depends on where you go to study, even here in England a lot of histories of dress start from around the 18th century. A few will go back as early as the sixteenth century, but then you start to have to use more archaeological methods of research as there are so few surviving examples of dress.  This is the same in both England and the US, and in the United States they tend, like England, to focus largely on the dress history of Western Europe and Northern America, although this is changing now.

Milly: What drew you to studying the area of 19th century American and British Dress?

Charlotte: My PhD was about the transition from natural to artificial textiles dyes in the mid-19th century. The way that I found that research project was through an essay that I wrote during my MA degree, for a module on the 19th century domestic interior, so it did not even begin as purely the study of dress history. However I got particularly interested in the relationship between textiles and dress and science and technology and it was this which really got me thinking about making this my MA research project. The 19th century is, for me, so intriguing as in many ways a lot of the issues surrounding modernity that are so apparent today – transport and travel  and the moving of people away from the traditional community centres – were, if not created by the changes of the 19th century, were thrown into sharper relief during this period. Also, looking at the dress that women wore in the 19th century , it was so different from what we wear today.  It was a time when women’s roles changed very dramatically, and certain  women started to demand new rights.  It is these similarities and differences which drew me to study this era.

Milly: Have you noticed during you studies any noticeable differences between England and America at this time?

Charlotte: The US at this time was far less urbanised than England and Europe. The process of urbanisation was happening but the distances were far larger. It takes far longer to travel across the country and there were huge spaces of wilderness, which still remain. These have been preserved even till this day in many places, partly by accident and partly by learning from the large scale urbanisation of England and Europe which was happening in earnest by the mid-19th century. Comparing what was happening in 1870 in Britain and in 1870 in the United States, there were huge differences. There were, of course, the obvious differences of the systems of government, the monarchy versus the republic The differences in the way the fashion system worked might not have been so obvious in some of the East Coast cities where there were significant similarities with Europe . It is these similarities I am perhaps most interested in–there has been a lot of very interesting scholarly work recently about the concept of transatlanticism.

Milly: What are you currently working towards?

Charlotte: I am working on an article at the moment which is developed from part of my PhD and I am working on a book proposal to turn my PhD into a book. Alongside this I am working on a new research project for the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association conference in California called Loco/motion about travel in the 19th century. I am interested in the figure of the women traveller and the way in which travel took women away from their ‘proper’ domestic sphere. I am interested in how they negotiated the public space and activity of travel, especially on trains where the space could be both public and private and how this affected their self-presentation through dress.

Milly: Lastly, why did you choose to complete you studies in Brighton and to work here?

Charlotte: Professor Lou Taylor is the reason I came to do my PhD here. I considered some places in the US, but she was a very well-established scholar and I knew she was interested in 19th-century dress and in my project. But also for reasons that I have mentioned before, I realised that being in England would be a great opportunity more generally, to see collections first hand, allowing me to explore certain areas of research just not possible in the US. And it was just luck which meant there was a job here that was so right for me at the right time, so I stayed!

Art 13: New global art fair

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Aurella Yussuf, second year BA (hons) History of Design Culture and Society student, describes her experiences at Art 13, a new London art fair, in March 2013.

A new addition to the art fair circuit, Art13’s press promised a departure from the regular scene. According to their website it would present ‘a truly global perspective’, showcasing art from 1945 to the present day. Admittedly, these sorts of events only register on the periphery of my art world radar, being that the academic interests of an average (read: impoverished) art and design history student and the pecuniary interests of the dealers in the commercial art market have seemingly little in common. However, a timely encounter with a social media giveaway put me in the possession of VIP entry to Art13, as opposed to regular entry, which went for £16 per person, per day.  Was this a chance to mingle with the glitterati of the art world? Not quite. The majority of the VIP events had been fully booked months in advance (presumably by those who had actually purchased their tickets). Nonetheless, students love a freebie, so I made the most of the three-day entry that my ticket provided.

My previous, albeit limited, art fair experiences have been somewhat paradoxical – the events can be elitist in atmosphere, yet still give the impression of being at some sort of trade show. Upon entering Kensington Olympia, however, it was immediately apparent that, in spite of its commercial motivations, this was indeed an art exhibition. Entertainment seemed to be the principal intention, with a young, trendy crowd (and reportedly boy-band members) in attendance. Individual gallery areas varied in size and layout, seemingly in no particular order, with a great deal of space provided to mingle, to drink champagne or coffee (whichever was more appropriate) and to take in the works. Many of these were interactive installations, which did not appear to be associated with any particular dealers and seemed instead to function only for visitors’ amusement. The catalogue would later tell me that these ‘projects’ were indeed intended to ‘enhance the multi-sensory experience of visiting the fair.’

Visually speaking, Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui’s enormous wall hanging In the world but don’t know the world was spectacular, but was draped so far above the doorway that it was only particularly noticeable when leaving. Constructed of discarded bottle caps it takes on the appearance of a rich, luxurious tapestry. In my opinion the distance made it difficult for the viewer to really connect with the associative possibilities that close inspection of the work could convey. As far as interaction went, South African sculptor Roelof Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges, was the clear leader. This conceptual sculpture was inspired by Covent Garden fruit market and requires the participation of the audience. Displayed at floor level without any barriers, visitors – many of whom were children – were invited to take an orange and by doing so change the shape of the sculpture. Elitist this was not.

What struck me most about Art13 was the strong emphasis on selling work by artists from Asia and the Middle East, indicating a growing interest in art from these regions. It was refreshing to see these artists represented by their regional galleries, not only by established European dealers searching for the latest trend. Chinese artist Su Xiaobai’s unmissable large scale panels layered with paint dominated the view as one entered the exhibition hall. South Africa’s strong photographic culture was represented by Zwelethu Mthethwa, and there were a smattering of other global works, but the Far and Middle East were the stars of the fair, with both regions also featured in the discussion series. Unfortunately, I felt that these talks fell flat and lacked critical depth, which is perhaps unsurprising, since the panels were dominated by private collectors who may be more interested in profit than critique.

Overall, Art13 was thoroughly enjoyable and I appreciated the inclusive atmosphere even if, as a student, I was not the intended audience of art dealer or collector. It was refreshing to see such an international market represented, and felt less alienating than other similar events. It will certainly be interesting to see if it manages to retain this uniquely friendly and youthful feel in years to come.

Hollywood Costume: A review

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Florence Staunton Howe, a third year BA (hons) Fashion and Dress History student, reports back on her visit to the V&A’s blockbusting exhibition for her dissertation research.

The V&A’s Hollywood Costume Exhibition. 20 October 2012 – 27 January 2013 (c) Victoria and Albert Museum

I went to visit the Hollywood Costume exhibition in December 2012 and was looking forward to it enormously as I’ve always wanted to be involved in costume for film as a career. It has been one of the most publicised and eagerly awaited exhibitions the V&A has ever had and because of this I was expecting good things. As anticipated, when we arrived, there was a massive queue and a forty five minute wait. The queue kept getting longer as we stood in line.

The first thing that struck me once inside was how crowded it was and how difficult to move around and see everything. The mannequins were set out in lines and there was a solid wall of people in front of them. You had to try and ignore this fact to enjoy the exhibition. The selection of Meryl Streep’s and Robert De Niro’s costumes side by side really stood out for me as they are both acting legends and the costumes spanned their careers. Other costumes I particularly enjoyed included Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow costume from Pirates of the Caribbean, designed by Penny Rose, due to the fact that I’m writing my dissertation on the dress history of the pirate and its changing representation throughout history and popular culture. A costume from Avatar was intriguing to see as the film was a mixture of live action and computer generated imagery; it was fascinating to know what was real and what was virtual. In terms of display, Batman and Spiderman costumes were hung dramatically from the walls, while Marilyn Monroe’s famous classic white dress from her 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, designed by William Travilla and worth almost three million pounds, was displayed in a glass case as the culmination of the show. All around the exhibition there were videos of costume designers and actors talking about the process of creating costumes for film. The heads of all the mannequins showed digital projections of the actors’ moving faces (which was an unnecessary addition and little more than a gimmick). Each mannequin was displayed behind a photo of the actor wearing the costume and then text explaining which film the costume was from, who wore it and who designed it. There was usually also further explanation from someone involved in the production.

The main message I gained from the exhibition was an appreciation of the costume designers themselves. The exhibition was curated by Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Sir Christopher Frayling and Keith Lodwick. Landis and Lodwick have backgrounds in set and costume design, while Frayling is an eminent art and design historian. Together, they were keen to communicate how central and under-appreciated costume designers are in the creation of a film’s meaning. The exhibition definitely made you realise what an important and difficult job they have, and the exhibition goes some way towards finally giving them the credit and recognition they deserve. Costume plays a huge part in the creation of characters in film. A good costume designer, in my opinion, is someone who creates costumes that create characters and atmospheres, but doesn’t detract from the story. Film costume can also create effects beyond the screen, such as influencing fashion. As film scholar Sarah Gilligan has written, on this point, “clothing creates a tactile platform in which the spatial distance between the text and the spectator can be bridged via adornment and touch and thus the processes of identity transformation and performativity can be played out in our everyday lives”.

I’m not completely convinced that costumes can communicate character when static in an exhibition, without their accompanying actors, sets and music, but this was surely always going to be the biggest challenge for the curators of Hollywood costume: to see whether the costumes alone could recreate screen magic. However this, if anything, made me appreciate even more how hard the job of a costume designer is. After all, they have to design costumes for characters and films that haven’t yet been fully realised. For my dissertation I particularly wanted to see the Jack Sparrow costume as I am studying the historical influences and after effects of this particular manifestation of the pirate figure. While the costume was interesting to see, it certainly wasn’t as impressive as when Johnny Depp wears it on the exotic sets of Pirates of the Caribbean. However I did like how the exhibition had the mannequin engaged in a sword fight with an Errol Flynn Don Juan costume. It worked to bring the costume to life and give it a sense of movement.

Although the exhibition’s argument could be said to be the promotion of the art of the costume designer, this wasn’t a particularly scholarly exhibition. Its main aim was to have a wide appeal to anyone who is interested in film and clothing, and to include the most famous costumes they could to draw in the crowds. If they didn’t have crowd-pleasers such as the Jack Sparrow, Darth Vadar and Dorothy costumes, the exhibition would surely not have been so appealing. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this ambition. It was great to see how popular a museum exhibition could be, with enthusiastic crowds prepared to queue for up to an hour. It was, in any case, always intended to be a blockbuster event. The V&A described as a “ground-breaking exhibition including over 100 of the most iconic and unforgettable film characters from a century of Hollywood film-making”. It certainly was that. The overcrowding did slightly detract from the experience, however, and the exhibition could be said to be a victim of its own success. Nevertheless, it was clear why it was so popular, and I thoroughly enjoyed gaining further insight into the fascinating world of costume design.

Design History Society: The student experience

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Doctoral student Ness Wood describes the student opportunities provided by the national Design History Society, and the role of the Student Officer in particular.

The Design History Society (DHS) was set up in 1977 as a means to promote and support research in the history of design in its broadest sense. The Journal of Design History, affiliated to the society, followed ten years later. In the first edition, editor Christopher Bailey stated that ‘we hope to bring coherence to the historical study of design’, stating that ‘the humblest object to the grand plan finds a place’. The society has also always sought to promote and develop the work of students of design history, through providing discounted membership and journal fees, research funding, essay prizes and also opportunities to participate in the running of the society.

The DHS is made up of eleven voluntary Committee members from across the country. The Chair, Dipti Bhagat, is Senior Lecturer in Design History at London Metropolitan University. In addition there is a Secretary, a Treasurer, a Membership Officer, a Communications Officer, an Essay Prize Officer, a Teaching and Learning officer, a Research Grant Officer, a Conference Liaison Officer, the Chair of the Journal of Design History Editorial Board and the Student Officer (my role). University of Brighton lecturers, Charlotte Nicklas and Annebella Pollen, are both committee members.

The Executive Committee meets every two months in central London to discuss DHS matters, such as the organisation of the annual conference. In 2012, the conference was organised by Dr. Paul Jobling at Brighton and was entitled The Material Cultural of Sport: Design, History, Identity. The previous year, the venue was Barcelona and the topic was Design Activism and Social Change. This year’s conference, Towards Global Histories of Design: Postcolonial Perspectives, is to be held in Ahmedabad, India, and it is the first DHS conference to be held outside of Europe, reflecting the increasing relevance of design as a global discipline. The DHS are able to support some student conference places as part of a bursary. Executive meetings might also involve discussions about Day Seminars, which have included one at Brighton on Design History in East Asia, organized by Dr. Yunah Lee, one at Edinburgh College of Art/University of Edinburgh devoted to craft and one at University of Wolverhampton about country houses. Each were paid for by DHS funding.

I have been the DHS Student Officer for the past 18 months. Studying the History of Design at the University of Brighton for both my BA and my MA developed my passion for all things designed and that is why I applied for the position. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the Executive Committee. Although the meetings are formal, the Committee is both welcoming and supportive. My role involved being responsible for and responding to student queries. This meant liaising with other members of the committee about student matters and generally representing student interests.

As the Student Officer, one of my core tasks was to manage the Student Travel Award to which students are encouraged to apply. It is certainly worth considering making an application as a sum of up to £500 can be granted. The award can be used to fund travel, accommodation and photocopying costs incurred when researching. My role involved making sure that the award is advertised by a variety of means, including word of mouth, email, Twitter and posters. I was also the point of contact for students who applied for the award. As Student Officer I was also responsible for managing the award-winning students’ reports. Successful students must report on their research and send in a written piece to the DHS. The articles are then published in the DHS electronic newsletter. Other Student Officer tasks can include reviewing exhibitions or events for the DHS newsletter. Writing for the newsletter was a great experience and also good practice for essays. I wrote about the V&A’s exhibition, British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age, as well as a piece about a student publishing workshop held at the 2012 conference in Brighton.

To take on the responsibility of the Student Officer post one needs to be dedicated, organized and have some knowledge of social media, as well as having ideas about how the student role could develop. I am now stepping down from the role to concentrate on my PhD studies and so the DHS will be looking for a replacement. Good luck to the next candidate!

www.designhistorysociety.org

Taking Part: Silver Action

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Althea Greenan, doctoral student and curator of The Women’s Art Library/Make, describes her recent experience as a participant in a large-scale feminist art work in The Tanks, Tate Modern.

During December 2012 I leapt at the chance to participate in Suzanne Lacy’s Silver Action. I was eager to recreate the spectacle of her earlier art work The Crystal Quilt, where hundreds of women, seated at tables arranged in a vast pattern, discussed age and public life. Tate Modern recently purchased The Crystal Quilt as it exists now in the form of a video, documentary, quilt, photographs and sound piece. Its display helped launch the new space for performance art in the Tanks, but Lacy has long been a personal touchstone of art for social change.  Her work, for example, featured alongside other radical feminist art projects in the groundbreaking exhibition Issue: Social Strategies by Women Artists at the ICA in 1980, curated by Lucy Lippard.

Silver Action concentrated on recognizing a generation of women’s action for social change in Britain, and the project specifically invited older women to talk about their experiences. The resulting Sunday afternoon – 3 February 2013 – went beyond mere remembrance, judging by the impassioned discussion it generated and continues to generate, including a letter on the subject in the Financial Times (16/2/2012). Over 400 women participated in shifts of 100 throughout the afternoon. Seated four at a time around tables, we were for the most part strangers. We might forget each other’s names as soon as we heard them, but not the stories that were told. We were asked:

– What do you believe in?
– How has age and experience shaped your ideas?
– What are you willing to take action on?

The function of Silver Action was to “write yourself into history”. Experiences stretched back as far as 1958 when two women started the Notting Hill Carnival to rebuild the community in the wake of the riots.  Our timeline clustered around actions taken between 1980 and 1990 and included public protest alongside other actions, from setting up health clinics and nurseries to personal stories of defiance.  Crucially, we also discussed what was important now.

During our hour we were invited to join a transcriber at a laptop that was rigged up to project text directly onto the wall of the Tanks.  However, finding words as an audience watched your text appear was less like writing a press release and more like constructing a disembodied RSS feed from a non-linear past. Yet all I needed to describe was the event that made me get involved in activism. My answer: hearing feminist psychotherapist Susie Orbach speak about her book On Eating. This led to the founding of AnyBody  http://www.Any-Body.org and its wonderful off-shoot http://endangeredbodies.org  connecting  groups working against body hatred all over the world.

The long admission queues were a tribute to the project’s success. Even though many of the spectators were friends and family of participants, I glimpsed in this art audience a real shift in expectation. One described her astonishment at the first thing she saw: a tall gentleman on bended knee genuflecting to a spot-lit table of older women.

A range of different motivations attracted women to take part in the project. For me, I volunteered to realize an artwork, as opposed to those who came to realize action through the invitation circulated on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour or via the National Women’s Register and other active women’s groups.  The Tate website, nevertheless, called us all ‘participants’. So what is distinctive about being a ‘participant’ in an artwork? On the day, the work depends on you; Lacy was nowhere to be seen. However, the week before she had met us to explain how the ‘aesthetic’ of Silver Action was to give voice to the tradition of women’s activism in Britain, and how the event was designed for us. For the audience forced to drift around the periphery as most of the wonderful exchanges remained unheard, this too was the point.  

Accounts shared could be hasty or hilarious. Sometimes they were set adrift; at other times they were almost too harrowing to absorb, but absorb we did because we were talking to each other. Lacy knew, perhaps, that with the distance of time and in the company of these smiling women, attending to the pain would be possible.  And if that’s possible, anything is possible. In the end these fragmented accounts became shatterproof, reinforced not by placards, by speaking through megaphones or by civil disobedience, but by turning up in the hundreds to a contemporary art museum in the full understanding and faith that this too is action. And yes, this is what activism feels like; it’s like being in a participatory artwork. If you felt it wasn’t participatory enough as a member of the audience, that’s because connecting with social change is not just about the odd Sunday visit to the Tate. But for once, it could be a start.