Talk about Muslin: Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

Abstract

Though Jane Austen has few references to dress in her novels, muslin, and talk about muslin, play a significant role in Northanger Abbey. Catherine Morland's first conversation with Henry Tilney, the man she eventually marries, is about her sprigged muslin dress and its properties. Austen's point is that clothing can be as appropriate a topic of conversation between men and women as art and literature. But we are also shown how other characters talk less sensibly, more obsessively and even dangerously about clothes.     

Dress and National Identity: Women’s Clothing and the Celtic Revival

This paper will focus on an interesting diversion in the history of dress in Ireland: the story of clothing and the Irish cultural revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It will endeavour to address the ideology of so-called Irish costume, and how it was intended to be a visual symbol of an Irish renaissance, one which would help in the effort to counter British influences and establish a strong cultural identity. Although Celtic Revival clothing was worn by both men and women as a signifier of cultural and political sympathies, this paper will look specifically at women’s dress and attempts to promote Irish costume as a tool for nation building, and as a practical solution to the wearing of imported fashions. It will highlight just some examples of where, when and by whom Celtic Revival dress was worn.     

Keeping Up Appearances: Genteel Women,Dress and Refurbishing in Gold-Rush Victoria,Australia, 1851‒1870

The discovery of gold in 1851 attracted a flood of migrants to the Colony of Victoria. Aspirational migrants, who struck it rich on the goldfields or in providing services to the diggers, turned to material consumption to express their newfound wealth, with the consequence that clothing could complicate its wearer’s social status. Integrating primary sources and surviving material culture, this article explores genteel articulations of the spontaneous and extravagant purchases of luxury goods by the lower orders, and their response: an engagement with notions of tasteful dress and genteel economy. It examines how genteel women carefully selected their dress, essential when gowns were worn over many years and wearing secondhand clothing was common, and how clothing was maintained through material practices, including mending and refurbishing, to demonstrate the place of dress and related needlework activities in constructions of genteel identity.     

Visions of Dress: Recreating Bronze Age Clothing from the Danubian Region

Abstract

This article highlights and discusses the challenges of recreating the clothing of a wealthy Bronze Age woman from Winklarn in Austria. She was buried with jewelry and dress fittings that appear almost theatrical, such as a wide belt of bronze, extremely long pins, and a collar consisting of fourteen spiked bronze pendants. A series of different sources underpin suggestions of what her dress might have looked like: placement patterns of jewelry in Bronze Age graves from Central Europe; Bronze Age iconography; textures of Bronze Age textiles, including a group of completely preserved garments from Denmark; and tailoring principles. Each of these sources has its own rules and pitfalls. Do the remnants of clothing we find in the graves represent garments worn in daily life, or garbs for burial? To what degree do stylized human images in Bronze Age art depict the shapes and decoration of “real” clothing? How can we use complete outfits of clothing found in oak-log coffin graves in Denmark, far away from Central Europe? A series of experiments has been carried out in order to investigate how the lady of Winklarn may have been dressed. The appearance of the resulting outfits is discussed, focusing on perception, visual appearance, and the interplay between clothing, dress accessories, textures, decoration, colors, and glittering bronzes.     

A Fashionable Confinement: Whaleboned Stays and the Pregnant Woman

Abstract

For around 400 years fashion and decency required a neatly boned body, yet at the same time many women spent much of their adult lives pregnant. How women were able to dress would affect their role in public society, yet letters and diaries show little reduction in their daily activities. Evidence of what was actually worn is scarce, perhaps because the dilemma was not so great as we imagine — whenever clothing is mentioned or depicted we see women wearing normal garments adapted with the addition of one or two items. Front-lacing stays could be adapted with stomachers, and some back-lacing ones exist with additional side-lacing; both styles would suit the pregnant and non-pregnant state alike. It is not until the nineteenth century that specific maternity corsets and clothing begin to appear, when general corset design and fashion styles became impossible to adapt without structural alteration.     

壮族布傣族群女子“长袍黑衣”服饰的艺术特征

布傣族群是古骆越人的后裔,属于壮族的一个支系,是中国与越南的跨境民族。“长袍黑衣”是布傣族群女子演奏天琴时所穿着的服饰,地域性特色鲜明,与其他壮族支系有较大的区别;服饰款式与制作工艺独特,具有较强的民族文化内涵和较高的艺术审美价值。通过实地考察调研后,解析了“长袍黑衣”服饰的款式特点及形成原因,阐释了布傣族群的服饰文化。在全球化语境下,如何挖掘布傣族群服饰的特色与价值,传承、弘扬民族文化,有待关注与更深入的探讨。     

学龄前儿童着装特点及其科学性研究

着装对儿童身心发育以及健康成长有着不可估量的作用。文章通过分析儿童身心发育特点、儿童对着装的特殊需求以及对儿童着装现状的调研,分析了学龄前儿童着装中出现的一些问题,并对学龄前儿童如何进行着装科学性提出了相关建议,为童装市场,童装设计与现代父母科学育儿提供一定的参考价值。     

唐代服饰元素在现代女装设计中的应用研究

现代社会,女性对自身形象的要求越来越高,为了增加审美性,不惜让服装束缚自身的生理发展需要。而在唐代的审美中,崇尚丰腴之美,造就了舒适、大气、雍容、华贵的宽松女装款式风格。通过研究唐代服饰元素的特点,并应用到现代服装款式结构设计中,进一步提高服装的舒适性。并在借鉴的基础上加以创新,制作出适合现代女性要求的服装,进一步解放...     

Fashionable Figures: Narrative Roundels and Narrative Borders in Nineteenth-Century Han Chinese Women’s Dress

Figural motifs have received little attention in Chinese dress and textile history; typically interpreted as generic ‘figures in gardens’, they have long been overshadowed by auspicious symbols. Yet embroiderers, like other craftsmen and women in Qing dynasty China (1644–1911), sought inspiration from the vast array of narratives that circulated in print and performance. This paper explores the trend for the figural through the close study of two embroidered jackets from the Royal Ontario Museum collection featuring dramatic scenery embroidered upon ‘narrative roundels’ and ‘narrative borders’. I argue that three primary factors explain the appearance and popularity of narrative imagery in mid- to late Qing dress and textiles: the importance of theatrical performance and narratives in nineteenth-century life; the dissemination of narrative imagery in printed anthologies and popular prints; and the commercialization of embroidery. By placing the fashion for these jackets firmly within the socio-economic context of nineteenth-century China, the paper provides a novel way of understanding the phenomena of narrative figures on women’s dress through the close relationship between popular culture and fashion in nineteenth-century Chinese women’s dress.     

Modern Fashions for Modern Women: The Evolution of New York Sportswear in the 1930s

Abstract

This article aims to establish the significance and diversity of sportswear styles designed and manufactured in New York during the 1930s. It will assert that the 1930s was a crucial period in New York sportswear's evolution. This decade tends to be overlooked by fashion historians, who either make generalisations about American fashion in the 1930s or focus on developments in the 1940s. This article will demonstrate that the Depression era was central to sportswear's emergence as a key form of affordable, mass-produced clothing, which comprised simple, interchangeable garments that could be worn in a variety of settings.

This article will establish the importance of the 1930s as a period when New York sportswear was crystallised as a design and marketing ideal. This was due to both the economic pressures of the 1930s, which made cheaper mass-produced clothing more appealing, and to shifts within the fashion industry, which saw more co-ordinated attempts to promote indigenous design.

Sportswear will be discussed in terms of three key categories: active sportswear, town and country wear and resort wear. Surviving dress from American and British collections will be analysed to demonstrate the importance of these categories, and the ways in which they came to form an ideal of Americanness through their design aesthetic, as well as the way they were advertised.

Garments by manufacturers such as Davidow, and designers such as Clare Potter, will be contrasted with examples from London and Paris to show how New York was gradually to evolve its own distinct styles, which would in the following decade be characterised by the term the 'American Look'. The clean lines and machine aesthetic of this style were mythologised as an expression of American national identity — as practical, rational and authentic.

As the 1930s wore on, New York sportswear was increasingly linked to modern lifestyles, and thus was portrayed as ideal for women who were active, whether as college girls, housewives, career women, or through travel. The notion of femininity that it evoked linked to white, middle-class ideals, and existing assumptions about American fashion's 'democratic' approach that eschewed the élitism of European fashion therefore need to be questioned.     

From Part to Whole: Developing an Appreciation of Kuna Molas as Collectibles

Abstract

In the Kuna language the word mola is polysemous, with meanings which include cloth, a rectangular panel of appliquéd cloth and a complete blouse. A pair of mola panels joined together with a yoke and sleeves form a mola blouse, thus the word mola means both part and whole of an item of clothing. Sewn and worn by Kuna women and girls, molas have become identified with Panama and mola panels have become the quintessential tourist souvenir. Parallels are made between the meaning and iconic role of the Kuna mola and art forms from other indigenous cultures. Individual mola panels are found in the collections of major ethnographic, art, and textile museums and there are many private collectors in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia. The role of the mola blouse as part of the dress ensemble of Kuna women is frequently not appreciated, since complete mola blouses form a small part of many collections. The display of mola panels as artworks in ethnographic and art museum exhibitions promotes their intrinsic aesthetic qualities and contributes to distancing them from their role as a component of dress. The meaning of molas may be considered to be polyvalent: Kuna women who sew and wear molas and Kuna communities may derive various meanings; there may be various meanings attributed to specific designs; and outsiders may derive different meanings. The attraction of molas to the Western eye is explored in terms of Kuna ethnoaesthetic principles and choice of iconography, as well as aesthetic appreciation. Molas may be interpreted as early examples of craftivism and contemporary collectors are attracted to their handmade qualities.     

Fashionable Adaptation and Commercial Consumption of Indian Gold Embroidery and the Implicated Imperial Politics (c.1850‒1910)

Abstract

In the nineteenth century the consumption of exquisite Indian textiles occurred either through trade, colonial acquisitions, or exchanges. While the shawls of Kashmir and embroidered textiles from Gujarat have already been extensively researched, the production of gold (zari) embroidery from North India in the colonial era and their consumption by the British has largely escaped scholarly attention. Each of the period garments which will be discussed has been worn by individuals of the period, and this necessitates investigation into the history of consumption of these fashionable garments. From the seventeenth century onwards as more and more British arrived with their wives and children in India, there was a formation of a new social group—that of the imperialists. Until the mid-nineteenth century it was not uncommon for Oriental appearances to be sported on social occasions as an amplified way of celebrating the conquest of the lands up to the Far East. However, the mutiny of 1857 in India had strained British-India relations, resulting in reduced tolerance of the British (in India) towards Indians and further reinforced their attitudes of maintaining class distinctions. Towards the end of the century there was a strict regulation in their sartorial preferences which was exercised by limiting their contact with locally made clothing. A flimsy, outlandish display of indigenous costumes was no longer entertained; rather, a traditional British dress code was observed at all formal and informal occasions. Ironically, British women in India at the time served as carriers of an Anglo-Indian trend in clothing, and women in England were all the more enthusiastic about incorporating Indian ornamental effects in their dressing. Enquiry into the historical circumstances of the period presents an intriguing dichotomy of opinions on the fashion trends that loomed in the colonial scenario.     

Coupons,Clothing and Class: The Rationing of Dress in Ireland, 1942–1948

This paper will explore how clothes rationing impacted upon the population of Ireland during the Second World War and how the restrictions were encountered by the general population. It allows for a reconsideration of the period with particular reference to notions of respectability and class, and how these were manifested in dress and fashion. It will also examine the concept of Dublin as a destination, both during and after the war, for the purchase of Irish manufactures and clothing types which remained scarce in Britain and on continental Europe. It will draw upon a diverse range of sources including the espionage reports provided to Winston Churchill by the Anglo-Irish writer, Elizabeth Bowen, contemporary fiction, memoirs, travelogues, government papers, newspaper reports and advertisements. These vivid accounts will reveal much about a period which has received little consideration from dress historians within the Irish context.     

Reimagining Bolivian cuisine: Haute traditional food and its discontents

Abstract

This article considers the emerging Bolivian gastronomic discourse as a project fraught with tensions. On the one hand, the discourse surrounding Bolivian cuisine, as presented in urban restaurants, highlights a new kind of nationalism that promotes regional cooking and innovation. This process has elevated indigenous ingredients, such as quinoa, chuño (freeze-dried potatoes), and llama meat, to the status of delicacies. This gastronomic emergence parallels the recent rise of an indigenous middle-class, as well as the shifting political boundaries between indigenous and non-indigenous in the era of President Evo Morales. Nevertheless, elite urban forms of Bolivian cuisine only partially transcend gender, class, and ethnic divides; they sometimes have the (unintended) effect of highlighting and re-inscribing existing social fault-lines. This article considers how indigenous Bolivian women are used to mark Bolivian cuisine, while they are simultaneously marginalized from it. While indigenous women dominate the “culinary field” of quotidian eating in domestic and marketplace arenas, they are far less evident in the “gastronomic fields” of elite restaurants, cookbooks, and written texts. Despite this exclusion, their presence is often invoked through ethnically-marked clothing such as the pollera and their symbolic production of “local” food.     

Trade and Transformations of Secondhand Clothing: Introduction

Abstract

This article draws out some of the broader themes arising from the study of secondhand clothing economies, as an introduction to this special issue. The articles in the issue address worn clothing markets and recycling technologies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, charting the expansion of the trade from relative scarcity in the longue durée to the current global industry dealing in millions of tons of used clothing. The used clothing economy brings into one frame the links between the market, materiality and morals, revealing complex connections as gifts of clothing are commodified by charities in the Global North, sold onto the international market, and become a resource for developing local livelihoods in the Global South. The heterogeneity of materials and the temporalities of fashion cycles and disposal strategies create a variable supply of unknown quality and quantity, for which differential markets must be developed, yet more work needs to be done to understand where the maximum value is extracted, and how this might be measured; issues of reciprocity, power and inequality are implicated at each stage. This article suggests that the specificity of the secondhand clothing economy has much to offer contemporary theoretical concerns with economization, marketization, and the convergence of economic value with cultural values.     

南阳汉画像石中的人物服饰特征

对南阳汉画像石中人物的服饰特征进行分析,与现代服饰进行对比,讨论其对现代服饰设计发展的影响。     

Women’s Dress in Sixteenth-Century Sweden

Abstract

This essay presents an overview of women’s fashions in sixteenth-century Sweden, which at the time included present-day Finland. Aristocratic fashions and the manners of dress of the people are considered, using documentary, visual and material sources from the period such as sumptuary laws, inventories, church paintings, portraits, woodcuts and surviving garments.     

Giles Moore’s Clothes:The Clothing of a Sussex Rector,1656–1679

Abstract

This article uses the household account book of Giles Moore, rector of Horsted Keynes in Sussex from 1656 to 1679, to explore clothing production, supply and consumption in rural England in the second half of the seventeenth century. Moore’s detailed record-keeping provides an insight into the supply and acquisition of textiles and clothing, as well as the clothing choices of a well-to-do country parson. A careful analysis of this underused source reveals Moore’s attitudes to shopping and clothing through his selection of shops, trade and craftsmen, his concerns about excessive prices, and his cloth, clothing and accessory choices. The article examines the range of shopping opportunities that were available to Moore and which ones he made use of, arguing that he exercised a high degree of consumer choice, made possible by a well-developed shopping culture. As well as the costs of his own clothing, Moore’s book records expenditure on that of his teenage niece, Martha Mayhew. In contrast to Moore’s shopping choices, we can see that Martha’s were considerably more circumscribed. This is consistent with recent studies of seventeenth-century consumption which have identified men rather than women as primary shoppers.     

折纸造型工艺构成技术在女装中的应用

 折纸造型改变了传统服装的结构模式与形态要素,形成了细致、优雅、活泼的独特设计风格。由于折纸造型给人生硬复杂的感觉,具体实现比较复杂,较难应用于服装中,但可以充分利用折纸造型工艺构成技术,来拓展女装制作及设计空间。本文通过系统地阐述折纸造型性质特点,提出折纸造型工艺构成技术,如扇形折叠、曲面折叠、折面折叠、几何型立体折叠、重复折叠、仿花造型折叠、仿生动物造型折叠等工艺构成技术,及其在女装设计中的应用,使之对折纸造型类女装的设计、制作有一定的参考。掌握折纸造型工艺构成技术在女装设计中的应用,使女装达到最佳造型效果,从而提高服装的功能美与视觉美。