By Monica Sklar,
April 30th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Exhibitions)
“SWEDISH FASHION: EXPLORING A NEW IDENTITY”
Through May 17
Fashion and Textile Museum [London, England]
This exhibit showcases a new wave of Swedish design talent, with the work of 13
fashion and jewelry designers who challenge the stereotypical picture of
Swedish fashion as blonde, functional and minimal. Created by the Swedish
Institute and specially enhanced and adapted for the FTM, this exhibition
showcases the bold, the avant-garde and the surprising. In addition to
Swedish fashion, the FTM is also showcasing a number of new Swedish jewelry
designers.
Click here for details.
“THE BALLETS RUSSES: CELEBRATING THE CENTENNIAL”
Through May 24
The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art [Hartford, CT]
This exhibit presents highlights from the Wadsworth Atheneum’s unrivalled
collection of costume and set designs originally purchased in 1933,
enlivening the company’s phenomenal history through the use of multi-media
elements such as historic photographs and video footage from modern
performances of the company’s most famous ballets. Click here for details and go to Current Exhibits, then to Ballet Russes.
“WHAT CAN A WOMAN DO?: WOMEN, WORK, AND WARDROBE, 1865-1940″
Through May 31
Mt. Holyoke College Museum [South Hadley, MA]
This exhibit explores the ways that women’s identities and attitudes are forged
by visual culture. Inspired by a book entitled “What Can a Woman Do?”,
written by Mrs. M. L. Rayne in 1893, the exhibition examines women’s career
options and shifting perceptions of women between the Civil War and World
War II, and how clothing fashions changed in response to women’s changing
roles and attitudes, becoming less restrictive and confining. Fine and
popular art, along with clothing of the era will be included in the
exhibition.
Click here for details.
Thanx to the Costume Society of America e-News for some of these listings.
Comments
By Heather Vaughan,
April 29th, 2009 at 9:20 am
(Book Reviews, Uncategorized)
The Victoria and Albert Museum series “Fashion in Detail” released several ‘new’ titles this month. The authors are primarily curators within the Museum: Rosemary Crill and Verity Wilson are curators in the department of Asian art; Jennifer Wearden is a curator in the department of furniture, textiles, and dress; Lucy Johnston is curator of 19th-century fashion in the Department of Furniture, Textiles & Fashion. Susan North is Curator, Department of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion, at the V&A. Valerie D. Mendes is a fashion and textiles historian and Chief Curator of the former Textiles and Dress Department at the V&A. Claire Wilcox is a leading expert in contemporary fashion who has curated several V&A exhibitions and Avril Hart is an expert in historical dress. Her published work includes Englishmen’s Fashionable Dress: 1600-1799, Ties, and Fans.
The books in the Fashion In Detail series include:
According to the V & A website, the paperback of World Dress Fashion in Detail
, was previously released as Dress in Detail From Around the World
, in 2004. These books look to be very handy resources for information on the holdings of the V&A, for both the museums fashion collections, but that also incorporates other departments holdings as well.
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
April 28th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
(Academic Research & Related, Uncategorized)
This weekend’s Op Ed of the NY Times featured a controversial piece by Columbia’s Mark C. Taylor on the antiquated system of graduate education in our country. He was blatant and brutal, and at times just idealistic, radical, and even lame, but no matter what—-the piece was a breath of fresh air and brought to light some of the most pressing issues in academia.
Making the sweeping changes he advocates probably won’t happen or at least not everywhere and/or quickly, but what he has done is drawn attention to some of the most glaring issues facing someone like me: a soon to be graduating PhD in with an education that is creative, diverse, inter-disciplinary and multi-faceted (and multi-formatted) yet I am often encouraged to be narrow, routine, formulaic and repetitive.
Although there have been vast hiring freezes and budget cuts, and there is a stale wind in the air, there is good news from what I can tell for people in apparel/dress/design studies:
1. It is a growing field professionally-call it the Project Runway effect, but there are more undergrads than ever, generating the need for more instructors.
2. There is a huge retirement about to happen as many of the people who entered the system in the 70s and earlier are on their way out. I’m sorry to see them go, but it will open a lot of jobs as well as bring in a new perspective regarding topics for study, manner of study, and technology to name a few areas. However, it also means that some concepts will possibly disappear if we don’t fight for them and it is imperative that new scholars know their history and not just whatever is the hot topic of the moment (which I felt Taylor was advocating for). I recently tried to fight for some classes (about writings in our field) to stay afloat at my U since the prof who teaches them is retireing and I think they are of great value, but I lost that battle because no one knows the material or sees its value. Therefore little bits of that material will supposedly be absorbed into other classes. We’ll see how that plays out.
3. Dress can be (if you play it right) interdisciplinary-therefore you can look for options in multiple academic programs, as well as commercial art, business, textiles science, entertainment and more industry professional avenues. This contradicts Taylor’s argument that we aren’t trained to do anything. I will total back him on the problems with formulaic and overly-narrow dissertations (what I call “vanity projects”) that cannot pass the “so what” test. (Since I recently posted on WT about my diss., I’d be happy to discuss how it passes the “so what” measure if you’d like).
4. There are “fashion” programs everywhere. Yes, the research schools are all pretty much in corn fields, and yes the cities only have art degrees for the most part, but, virtually every school out there has some sort of fashion program, ranging from a class or two to PhDs, and therefore there’s work to be had at every level from adjunct through professors. Something to suit everyone in some way or another. Although I would agree with Taylor that this may be sort of leading to overkill and lack of amazing work, since there isn’t consolidation or working together happening enough between institutions–but at least it’ll help us get jobs and joblessness was a major premise of his piece.
Now this doesn’t mean that I’m not completely freaked out by the prospects of the job market and the recession, in conjunction with a dated educational system applauding the study of minutia to be read by your BFF colleague only. But, in our field-I don’t think it’s quite as sour as what Taylor proclaims.
Let me know what you think.
1 Comment
By Monica Sklar,
April 28th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Jobs)
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Assistant Professor-The Fashion Merchandising Program
Application Deadline is May 18, 2009
Responsibilities include teaching undergraduate courses in the Fashion Merchandising major. Content areas that must be covered include introductory fashion concepts, garment specifications, global sourcing, merchandising math, and aesthetics of fashion. Other instructional assignments are dependent upon academic preparation, experience, and departmental needs. Additional responsibilities include student advisement, committee assignments, scholarship in the areas of expertise, and university/community service.
Qualifications: Doctorate degree in fashion/apparel merchandising, textiles and clothing, or a related field required. Professional experience and university level teaching experience preferred. Knowledge of apparel computer software applications preferred. Interviews may include a teaching demonstration. All applicants must be work eligible.
How to Apply: Send letter of application, including description of professional and/or teaching experience, scholarly activity, CV, unofficial academic transcripts, and three references, to Dr. Janet A. Blood, Fashion Merchandising Search Committee Chair, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 207 Ackerman Hall, 911 South Drive, Indiana PA 15705.
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
April 27th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Uncategorized)
This new journal might be a good spot for some dress scholars to land some of your work.
Visual Culture in Britain
New to Routledge in 2009
Appearing three times a year, Visual Culture in Britain publishes original
work that places a broadly defined visual culture, encompassing painting and
sculpture, architecture and design, print, film, photography and the performing
arts, in relation to its wider geographical and historical contexts. The journal
seeks material engaged with the period from the 18th century to the present
day and addresses a range of debates involving constructions of racial, ethnic,
sexual and gender identities, nationality and internationalism, imperialism and
colonialism, high, low and consensus cultures, the role of institutions and cultural
groupings, and models of production and consumption. Submissions which
consider theoretical and interpretive issues as well as those concerned with
empirical research in relation to cultural production and representation are
encouraged. Material which is methodologically and historiographically
innovative and significant which will stimulate discussion and demonstrate
connections across relevant disciplines is particularly welcome.
Click here for all the submission details.
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By Lauren Michel,
April 24th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Teaching)
Image source.
When covering textile structures in a basic textile class, weaving and knitting are typically in the top two, followed by felted and other nonwoven textiles. I have found it valuable in my classroom to have students weave strips of paper into plain-, basket-, and satin-weave swatches. After that, I teach them handknitting.
In my textile design course, in addition to knitting, I also cover crochet, however, the final technique I cover is one you may not have heard of: Naalbinding, also called cross-knit looping, or single needle knitting. It was used in Scandinavian cultures to make socks and mittens, and also in South American cultures, for the construction of various textile forms.
Image source.
Here are links to some sites I have found useful in teaching the various methods and the global history of naalbinding. Each one has various photos or illustrations to supplement their instructions.
-
- Bernhard Dankbar’s Nadelbinden is the most extensive resource I have found, in terms of photographs and experiments with various stitches and needles.
- This third source, Stringpage, begins with this wise counsel with which I agree, “naalbinding is very hard to learn from a written description, even with lots of pictures. If you can, find someone who knows the technique to demonstrate. Once you learn, it is very simple.”
Image source.
If you’re still wondering about the title of today’s post, a play on the timeworn excuse for not handing in an assignment, “the dog ate my homework,” I once asked students to create small animals for their naalbinding projects. When it came time to turn the projects in, more than one student said their pets had been quite amused by the little animals they had made for class, and one student told me that they could not turn theirs in, because their dog had eaten it. That’s not usually something you hear when you teach fashion, so I treasure that one.
Image source.
As for what the animals looked like, they were inspired by the handknit Peruvian finger puppets here.
Comments
By Monica Sklar,
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
(Academic Research & Related, Uncategorized)
Hi All,
Well today is the day I can finally get going on collecting dissertaton data from participants! Hooray!
Below you’ll find a link to my dissertation survey about punk dress & the workplace. It takes under ten minutes to complete.
Click here for my survey
If you are in the Midwest U.S., have a job, and are into the punk scene please participate, or send it to someone who might be interested.
The goal is to have numerous people take the survey, and based on responses I will select about 20 people to do in-person interviews with as my case studies. Those interviews will take place staring in mid-May.
Since the interviews will be in-person, I am requesting that for now only people in the Midwest take the survey. I am currently in the Twin Cities, and this summer will visit Detroit and Chicago. I can also drive to other neighboring cities if needed. If I cannot get enough participants from these regions I will expand later.
Thank you for your interest and PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG to other people in the Midwest.
I appreciate your time.
Thanx a ton!!!
The photo is from INKED Inc., Tattooed Professionals
.
1 Comment
By Monica Sklar,
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Exhibitions)
Note-I saw this exhibit and it does have a nice selection of garments from the 20th century
“EXPRESSIONS OF STABILITY AND CHANGE: ETHNIC DRESS AND FOLK COSTUME”
Through June 14
The Goldstein Museum of Design [St. Paul, MN]
This exhibit will feature 30 male and female ensembles of ethnic dress and folk
costume from Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, China, Turkey, Nigeria, Cameroon,
Somalia, Ghana, Palestine, Egypt, Scotland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden,
Croatia, the Ukraine, Laos (Hmong), Mexico, Guatemala, and Native American
(Ojibwe). The constant evolution of ethnic dress and folk costume, and how
they are used as a form of cultural expression and unification will be
highlighted
Click here for details.
Thanx to the Costume Society of America e-News for some of this info.
Comments
By Heather Vaughan,
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Book Reviews, Exhibitions, History of Dress)
This week, I’m pleased to present a guest blog by my colleague and fellow costume historian Katie Andusko. Katie and I went to graduate school together at NYU’s Visual Culture: Costume Studies Master of Arts Program. She has experience with such institutions as Doyle New York, The National Museum of the American Indian, The Museum of the City of New York, and Sotheby’s. Most recently, Katie worked on the Brooklyn Museum’s Mellon cataloging project that allowed for the transfer of its collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute (Details on that historic transfer of clothing is available here). When I interned with Katie at the Costume Institute in New York, she was always particularly fascinated by detailed embroidery – especially Todd Oldham‘s work. I think it is therefore highly appropriate that her guest blog for WT is on an exhibition of historic embroidery. And now, on to Katie’s post.
I had wanted to see the Bard show and this assignment put a fire under me to just do it. The show (now closed) was called “English Embroidery from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700: ‘Twixt Art and Nature.” Beautiful to say the least! Please forgive my dark photos– I took them without flash.
Bard is such a beautiful, intimate setting and is always a treat to visit. The show, co-curated by the Met’s Melinda Watt and Bard’s Andrew Morrall, was split up onto three floors and included articles of clothing and accessories, home décor and personal objects such as book covers and the ubiquitous caskets. The caskets, mirrors, panels and book covers showed not only the intricate time-consuming work of the embroiderers, both professional and amateur, and the variety of stitches and materials used to create realistic motifs such as water and leaves, but also showed the common themes and patterns of the Tudor and Stuart eras. Biblical stories, various flowers, plants and insects and scrolling floral vines were all well-represented. In my opinion, the piece de resistance, however, was the embroidered woman’s jacket, ca. 1616 (photo above).
The creativity in the choice of motifs is stunning. Strawberries, acorns, a plethora of real and mythical flowers, caterpillars, flies, dragonflies, birds and my absolute favorite: pea pods with delicate raised sections made to look like peas (hopefully you can see these at the bottom CF). The vines are vibrant metallic thread and the edges are trimmed with metallic bobbin lace studded with spangles. As our friend Tim Gunn says, it’s staggering.
Here are a few more pics from the show:
A plate showing various motifs to inspire embroidery designs, from “The therd booke of Flowers Fruits Beastes Birds & Flies exactly drawn,” English, 1661
A panel including various stones at the bottom such as agate, coral, carnelian and rock crystal, English, third quarter 17th century
An unfinished panel depicting David and Abigail, English, mid-17th century
Accompanying the exhibition was a short film called “The Art of Embroidery.” It explained the various materials, such as silk floss and metallic strips, and how they were actually made into different types of threads such as filet and purl. It walked the viewer through some of the complicated stitches used on various pieces that were actually in the show, such as a coif and gloves. It also discussed the types of people wearing these exquisitely embroidered pieces, such as Queen Elizabeth I and various other nobles. The highlight of the film is the discussion of the Plimoth Plantation’s valiant undertaking to recreate a 17th century embroidered jacket. The work the embroiderers, lacemakers and spanglemakers (if that’s even a word) are doing is extraordinary and really shows the level of quality and beauty that were once put into these bodices, truly works of art in their own right. Here’s the website which discusses the project in detail: http://thistle-threads.com/blog/ Enjoy!
For more detailed information and more images from the exhibition, see: http://www.bgc.bard.edu/exhibit/exhibits/Twixt_Art_Nature/index.html
For information on upcoming exhibitions at Bard, see: http://www.bgc.bard.edu/exhibit/upcoming.shtml
Special thanks to Katie for her contribution this week. Her recap seems especially fitting for Earth Day! I’ll be back next week with a regular post. For those of you who missed the show, and are interested in learning more, a catalog for this exhibit is also available (released by Bard in January of 2009)
English Embroidery in the Metropolitan Museum 1580-1700: ‘Twixt Art and Nature
1 Comment
By Monica Sklar,
April 21st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
(Academic Research & Related, Uncategorized)
I’m just curious if anyone wants to comment on the funding at their schools for things like graduate assistantships, internal grants, travel allotments, etc. ???
At my school there were a bunch of new hires this past year, but that was just before the economic hurricane and for this upcoming year I know there is less money in the graduate assistantship pot for example. I’m curious what’s up with general funding issues for different schools and how it has been effected by the economy in apparel departments?
I am only clued into some of this as a PhD student. There are some things I’m privey to and other things they keep very quiet in administation. There were lots of discussions about the economy changed graduate assistantships, and that does seem to be the case.
I have had full funding for three years, but after that my department says it is optional to futher support you, even though most people take 4 years to graduate. I’m not complaining (much), but it’s tricky. (Especially curious since this is only a department thing, as friends at the same university but different departments have 5 year funding).
That, combined with the fallout from the economy means that I was offered a reduced assistantship for the fall and nothing for the spring (so far-this might change as people accept and reject offers and they go in the pot for seconds).
I understand the balance of new student recruitment being directly tied to offering them assistantships, but I am somewhat concerned as many of my friends and I have been offered anywhere from none to reduced amounts and we are the current students. Thus, I am hugely flattered that I did receive a decent assistantship for this upcoming fall since I know a lot of people didn’t receive offers.
So, I’m also curious of the practices at schools regarding enticing new students or new professors versus what they’re like down the road. I have been told to negotiate for the world early on because it’ll pretty much be your only chance to get most of the things you want…
So this is mainly a curiosity post to check out what is happening elsewhere, and isn’t meant to cause a big ruckus. Just to see how different apparel programs strategize funding and how it has been complicated by the rough economy.
1 Comment
(due October 2009)
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