By Tove Hermanson,
July 21st, 2009 at 12:11 pm
(History of Dress)
Due to a coveted invitation to my friend’s tea party this weekend, I have that genteel social event on my mind. And since I always have costume on my mind as well, it’s only natural that I should want to dissect a portrait of a young woman enjoying the same activity that I shortly will.
"The Cup of Tea" by Mary Cassatt, 1879
Mary Cassatt’s “The Cup of Tea” is a portrait of Cassatt’s sister, Lydia Simpson, wearing a pink gown, circa 1879 (among other date indicators, Lydia’s flat-laying skirt suggests horsehair crinolines underneath, which made a brief return to fashion between 1876 and 1882 before being replaced by the bulkier bustle). “Tea gowns,” essential garments of the late 19th and early 20th century wardrobes and invented by the tea obsessed English, are frilly, decorative, and also comfortable, often achieved by a looser fit uncommon in other dresses of the 19th century. Though Lydia’s dress appears rather fitted — you can clearly see the outline of her corset at her tiny waist and gently bulging belly — it’s possible that her arm is blocking our view of a looser fitting back, allowing her to recline more comfortably. The profile of a stiffer seated subject was famously used to portray an older, darker, more somber portrait: that of “Whistler’s Mother,” officially entitled the more clinical “Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother” (1871), and I doubt it’s a coincidence that Whistler’s mum was painted just a few years earlier than Cassatt’s sis.
A small enough amount of lace is present in the Lydia’s cuffs so that it’s conceivable that handmade lace — a precious luxury item — was used. However, the appearance of a Great Exhibition in Paris just a year before this portrait helped popularized machine-made lace, making it more accessible and far more affordable, so it is reasonable to think that Lydia wears some. The rich silk-satin fabric advertises Lydia’s wealth, and though it is possible that Lydia’s dress was sewn with the help of the sewing machine (a major asset to the fashion industry since the 1840s), the upper class still preferred the personally designed, tailored and unique looks generated by the haute couture industry.
Charles Frederick Worth (1827-1893) was an Englishman who pioneered the haute couture experience with his House of Worth located in Paris. Founded 1858, his success corresponded with France’s Second Empire which devoted considerable energy to rebuilding the luxury textile / fashion trades Paris had been known for before the French Revolution (1789 – 99), during which all things seen as bourgeois were attacked, very much including high fashion. Worth not only capitalized upon the climbing demand for sumptuous clothes, he absolutely revolutionized the dress purchasing experience, turning it into a social event for the privileged. Instead of being visited by a doting tailor, as in the past, a 19th century woman in need of a new dress would go to her fashion house (others opened after Worth’s, though his remains the most acclaimed to this day). There she would be received in a decadent parlor filled with other wealthy society ladies, and a fashion show would parade before them, to select the styles they desired. Consultations on fabrics and trimmings would follow (these finishing touches would distinguish the same dress style purchased by different women), measurements taken, the final product being a unique work of wearable art. The elegant simplicity of Lydia’s gown makes it a possible product of the House of Worth itself.
Here is a gown from the House of Worth just a few years after Cassatt’s painting:
Day dress, 1883–85 by Charles Frederick Worth. From the Met's caption: "Lavish textiles were not only used for evening wear in Worth's designs, as this day dress of cut and uncut voided velvet attests. The ensemble also provides an example of Worth's practice of incorporating elements of historic dress in his designs. The large scale of the pomegranate and floral motif follow the style of Louis XIV textile patterns."
During the High Victorian Period (1850-1885), a strict regulation of clothes was maintained. According to these laws of dress, Lydia’s high neckline, three-quarter length sleeves and sumptuous fabric show that the portrait captured a moment of the afternoon (as opposed to plunging décolleté with short sleeves which were for fancier evening activities, or if the same dress were made with less refined material like cotton, it would have indicated casual dress for mornings). As the title suggests, the primary purpose of this painting was not portraiture, but the depiction of a popular social ritual. And though Cassatt was American, she frequently depicted bourgeois Parisian society, which, “between 1870 and 1914 was thrown back on its own devices to satisfy its taste for elegance. The Ancien Regime and the Imperial aristocracy, the bourgeoisie enriched by the economic revival, and the spendthrifts, frivolous demi-monde that succeeded to the follies of the Second Empire, all provided an easy prey for the new lords of elegance, the masters of Couture and Fashion,” as Francois Boucher noted.
"Madame Edouard Pailleron" by John Singer Sargent, 1879
In John Singer Sargent’s “Madame Edouard Pailleron,” also painted in 1879, a similar look is achieved. A small departure is that Lydia wears a tea gown while Mme Pailleron wears a fashionable dress suitable for outdoor activity, and this is confirmed by her grassy surroundings. The same idealized long-waisted hourglass figure is achieved with the same long corset. She lifts her skirts enough to reveal the crinolines we assumed Lydia wore. Where Lydia’s tea gown of soft silk satin was conducive for casual indoor comfort, Mme Pailleron’s stiff dress is probably silk taffeta and more appropriate for formal public appearances. In contrast to Lydia’s ultra-feminine and youthful pink, Mme Pailleron wears somber black, obviously a fashion choice and not imposed on her by rules of mourning (see my earlier post), as she also has a large white tulle bow around her neck and flamboyant red flowers on her shoulder — unacceptable for mourning. In spite of its conservative color, Mme Pailleron’s dress is highly decorated with short, layered ruffles along the hemline (it must’ve sounded divine, rustling with her movements!), a band of beadwork around the hips and neckline, lace sleeves and lace strips draped around the skirt (machine-made, judging from the length and quantity), and taffeta bows on the cuffs and skirt. Though both women have white tulle around their necks and cuffs, that tulle is Lydia’s only dress ornamentation. As expected, the two women seem to be following the same fashion trends, the major differences only being those that can be attributed to different activities.
Lydia’s light but voluminous collar is similar to Mme Pailleron’s of the same year, and Lydia has taken it to an extreme so that it becomes reminiscent of the standing ruffs of the 16th century, which was a major social status symbol, made of that precious lace, laboriously starched, and difficult to keep clean in its proximity to the face:
”The Ermine Portrait” of Queen Elizabeth by Nicholas Hilliard, 1585
Revival styles (or “flashback fashion” as I like to call them) was extremely popular in the 1870s, and Lydia seemed to embrace this fascination with the past. Her costume suggests an affinity for Neo-Rococo taste: the soft, curvy lines exaggerated by the hourglass corset, the fitted, three-quarter length sleeves ending in a flurry of bell-shaped white lace, not to mention the vaginal billowing pink silk, are all reminiscent of Fragonard’s Rococo painting “The Swing” (1766). This painting, along with the original Rococo movement a century earlier, was obsessed with the idea of femininity and sexuality in the eyes of the voyeur:
Fragonard's "The Swing," 1766
Lydia’s style would have been well noted, as she lived a life where to be a successful society woman, one had to keep up appearances. With the completion of Garnier’s Parisian Opera in 1874, the opera became an important place to see and be seen. Opera glasses were just as often used to observe audience members as they were to watch performers on stage, and usually by the traditional voyeurs: men. Not limited to sexual voyeurism, a man would survey his business competitor’s wife to see how well she was dressed, her appearance a direct reflection of how successful her husband was. Baudelaire wrote that woman was “the object of keenest admiration and curiosity that the picture of life can offer to its contemplator.” Mary Cassatt and the Impressionist art movement was fascinated with this phenomenon, often painting these privileged voyeurs at the Opera. Cassatt continues this theme in “The Cup of Tea,” eliminating her sister’s companion from the composition and making the viewer of the painting Lydia’s voyeur — all the more titillating, perhaps, as tea time was a female ritual that men would not see at all — except in paintings.
The floral theme in “The Cup of Tea” warrants examination as well. Throughout art history, flowers have acted as a visual metaphor for a woman’s sex, and the concept of the femme fleur was especially popular in Victorian times. The melding of the flower in Lydia’s hat with the flowers in the flowerbox behind her is echoed by her bell-shaped cuffs and the rosettes making up her collar, which gives a floral illusion when viewed en masse. Furthermore, the blurred lines between hat flower and flowerbox flower create a physical unity with the house, thus suggesting a traditional psychological unity of woman with the home. Though feminist movements had manifested themselves in both fashion (with the invention of the Bloomer costume in 1849) and politics (with the women’s suffrage movement), it is clear that neither Mary nor Lydia Cassatt subscribed to these radical ideas, instead perpetuating traditional stereotypes of feminine roles in painting and costume.
But enough of Lydia, and on to more important, current issues: what will I wear to my own tea party?
Further Reading:
2 Comments
By Lucy Collins,
July 21st, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Jobs, Uncategorized)
The Fashion Design & Merchandising Department at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia seeks qualified applicants to teach Survey of Fashion (historic costume).
Minimum Qualifications: Master’s degree in historic costume; museum studies with a concentration in costume; clothing and textiles; or related apparel field is required.
Preferred Qualifications: Teaching experience at the higher education level is preferred.
Please complete the online job application and attach a CV, cover letter, and references. For the online application, please visit: https://www.marymountjobs.com/applicants/jsp/shared/position/JobDetails.jsp?time=1248145929331
Marymount is a comprehensive, coeducational Catholic university that combines the liberal arts tradition with career preparation. Marymount serves nearly 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The Main Campus is located on a hillside in residential Arlington, Virginia. Marymount University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer.
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By Monica Sklar,
July 20th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers)
CALL FOR PAPERS
Henry James Review
Topic: The Women
Deadline: should be sent by March 1, 2010
Call:
Thirty years ago, the new fields of Women’s Studies and Feminist Criticism looked with interest at the fiction of Henry James. For many, his work offered an exception to the general misogyny of American male writing; for others, the Master’s ouevre was irredeemably patriarchal. Those early studies re-oriented our critical understandings of Henry James. Recent archival, biographical, critical, and creative work have again shifted how we understand James’s life and writing and re-opened this topic. The Fall 2010 special issue of the Henry James Review seeks to explore, broadly, how we read James with women in the twenty-first century.
Some possible topics include:
Female bodies: beauty, sex, motherhood, health, disability
Women artists, James/James’s women artists: depiction, criticism, translation
Fashion, clothing, interior decoration, objects
Gendered politics: suffrage, nationalism, feminism, the law
Women and money: work, consumption, inheritance, gifts, ownership, commodification
Actresses: depictions, correspondence, casting, performances
Details:
Contributions should be submitted in duplicate and produced according to MLA style. Please enclose a cover letter identifying your manuscript as a Forum submission. Also include return postage. One-page proposals or short (10-12 pages) essays.
Contact:
Susan M. Griffin, Editor
Henry James Review
Department of English
University of Louisville
Louisville, KY 40292
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By Monica Sklar,
July 17th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Uncategorized)
James St. James and Michael Alig
On World of Wonder they’ve been reliving the Club Kids days of the late 80s and 90s in NYC with some fabulous videos. Infamous and still-thriving club kid James St. James posted the Phil Donahue episode where the Kids were (unusually) in full bloom for daylight and daytime viewers. This is how many of us in the Midwest and other places around the country learned of this fascinating and vibrant culture, including all of its dress extremes.
Leigh Bowery at work sewing up an outfit
Philip Sallon-New Romantic pioneer in dress and nightlife
Contemporary clubber going to Misshapes (no longer running)
Certainly the kids’ ideas of dressing to-the-max for the clubs harkens back to Leigh Bowery and Taboo (a night club) in London in the mid 80s, and the New Romantic fashion and music scene in London in the early 80s. More recently inspiring Misshapes and other dance and see-and-be-seen nights around the country. Also one could say there is a relation to rave and party culture, but it’s more of a familial relationship than a direct lineage, especially when discussing dress habits. Same could probably be said of drag.
But the NYC Kids of that era took their night-life dress to a heightened level that seems to not have been reached again. No matter how much exhibitionism is explored online and how voyeuristic the web allows people to be.
Jenny Talia in a Calvin Klein ad (I had this ad pinned up for years!)
One of the younger NYC Club Kids, Jenny Talia, has recently resurfaced doing social welfare work with young girls in NYC, and St. James snagged a fun interview with her to recap some of their old exploits. It’s interesting to see how club kid dress, punk dress, body modification, and other subcultural styles have blended and transformed over the years.
Michael Alig-Club Kid icon and the center of the murder controvery
There’s not a ton of academic work on the dress of the Club Kids. (It’s fun project I’d love to explore one day). There are great books about the controversial murder that took place among major players in the scene, that also chronicle their dress behaviors as it was such a part of daily life. These include Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland
, its corresponding documentary Party Monster – The Shockumentary
, and the Macaulay Culkin, Wilson Cruz, Seth Green, Diana Scarwid, Chloë Sevigny Docudrama
of the same name staring Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green, and off screen fashionista Chloe Sevigny. There is another book entitled Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture
that is fairly popular that I haven’t read. Those are all popular press books and movies, and although there are more than a few pieces on drug and club culture in the journals of the past two decades, I’m surprised at how little there has been on the spectacular dress in the club world.
Leigh Bowery
Richie Rich and Heatherette cofounder Traver Rains
Francesca of Fashion Projects is doing her dissertation in part on Leigh Bowery, which is rad, and Ted Polhemus and others have written short pieces on club culture in books aimed toward fashion-focused acdemic readers. But more work certainly needs to grow in this area. There are a decent handful of pieces on Richie Rich, who went from club kid to running a fairly popular fashion line with Heatherette, but again, popular press pieces are great, but I’d like to read more academic stuff that goes even further into analysis.
I certainly was never really a club kid, although I did have a few fun times visiting friends and family in NYC as a teen and dressing up for the clubs with glitter, face paint (more than simple make up), shiny everything, platforms, etc. In fact, my platforms were a site to be seen as there was a little cobbler on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village that would take your sneakers (red patent leather Airwalks in my case) and glue layers of foam rubber to the bottom. So I got about 4 layers of black and white stripes. I’d take a picture but they are buried in my basement right now. I wore them everywhere when I returned to Detroit as they were a site to be seen and actually quite comfortable!
Anyway, the feeling was creative, exhilarating and somewhat escapist to get dressed for the clubs. And I was certainly only a dabbler in that scene. I cannot imagine doing it night after night, and I’d love to read those stories and see countles more images covered in dress scholarship. Let me know if you know of any good articles or books I should check out.
2 Comments
By Monica Sklar,
July 16th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Exhibitions)
Wolcott House Museum
“CORSETS TO CAMISOLES: FASHIONS OF THE FLAMING 1920s”
Through November 1
Wolcott House Museum [Maumee, OH]
This exhibit has several beaded and sequined Chanel-inspired chemises, lace and chiffon evening gowns, a luxurious opera coat and popular wrap-around styles.
Click here for details
“SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW: 200 YEARS OF BERKSHIRE BRIDES”
Through January 15
Museum of the Gilded Age [Lenox, MA]
This exhibition will display 50+ gowns by Worth, Priscilla of Boston and others, along with shoes, veils, gloves, invitations, photographs and more. It will recount fascinating Berkshire tales against the backdrop of beautifully restored bedrooms. There are memorabilia recounting the designing of wedding gowns for the daughters of two Presidents.
Click here for details
Thank you to the Costume Society of America for this info
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By Heather Vaughan,
July 15th, 2009 at 10:47 am
(Exhibitions, Uncategorized)
I again have the pleasure of introducing you to a guest reviewer – Rachel Morris Tu (a classmate of mine from the NYU: Visual Culture Costume Studies program). Rachel was also formerly with the Brooklyn Museum cataloging project (along with several of my former guest reviewers Katie and Jennifer). Back in May I promised you a review of ‘Model as Muse’, and Rachel has graciously provided one. Enjoy!
This past May 5th I indulged in a guilty springtime pleasure: Visiting Style.com to peruse red carpet snapshots of who-wore-what at the Costume Institute’s Party of the Year. The party was hosted in conjunction with the opening of The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion, an apropos exhibition topic that focuses less on fashion history than on the models who have inspired both fashion designers and photographers and have become icons of their generation since WWI.
Exhibition design-wise, The Model as Muse plays with the use of scale. Life-size blowups of iconic photographs and videos are the backdrops to the real costumes. These are presented with intimate biographies on important models of each decade and provide deeper insight into the women behind the beautiful pictures. The introductory vignette features a life-size reenactment of Richard Avedon’s 1955 Dovima with Elephants, complete with cardboard elephant cutouts and Christian Dior’s black evening gown with dramatic white sash.
Viewed 06 July 2009*
Opening with the post-WWI era, I was greeted like an old friend by a series of Charles James gowns with Cecil Beaton’s famous 1948 photograph for Vogue as the backdrop. In addition to Dorian Leigh -the only identified model in Beaton’s photograph- other featured models of the decade included Suzy Parker, Carmen Dell’Orefice and Sunny Hartnett just to name a few.
Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Dorian Leigh (fourth from left) and unidentified models in Charles James, Vogue, June 1948
Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s
© Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Pulsing with the Who’s “My Generation,” the centerpiece of the 1960s Youthquake gallery are three spinning aluminum dresses made by the Baschet brothers for William Klein’s satirical film Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? starring model Dorothy McGowan. As a whole, this gallery is the most successful in illustrating the developing relationship between model and designer and model and photographer. Unquestionably, Twiggy was the muse of her generation, but Donyale Luna and Naomi Sims were enormously significant. As the earliest African-American fashion models in print, they ushered in greater racial diversity to the fashion world.
Viewed 06 July 2009*
Richard Avedon
Donyale Luna in dress by Paco Rabanne, 1966
In the 1970s and early ’80s, models such as Jerry Hall, Lisa Taylor, Lauren Hutton and Brook Shields embodied new ideals of sexual freedom and the athletic body. The gallery, entitled “The Body Politic,” features Yves Saint Lauren’s Russian collection beside Halston’s minimalist gowns in a Studio 54-inspired setting.
Helmet Newton
Lisa Taylor in Calvin Klein, Vogue, May 1975
Viewed 06 July 2009*
The late 1980s’s saw the rise of the supermodel, with the likes of Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford becoming household names. Photographs from the period often include groups of models in similar ensembles, suggesting that the clothing is almost secondary to the women wearing it. Surprisingly, my favorite costume examples were a series of Gianni Versace’s Pop Art-inspired beaded jumpsuits and gowns that looked better in-person than they ever did in print alone.
Peter Lindbergh (German, born 1944)
Cindy Crawford, Tatjana Patitz, Helena Christensen, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Karen Mulder, Stephanie Seymour in Gianni Versace (Italian, 1946-1997), Autumn/Winter 1991-1992, Vogue, September 1991
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of Gianni Versace, 1993 (1993.52.4)
A special tribute is made to Kate Moss who arose as the most relevant model of her time with the anti-fashion/grunge movement of the late-1990s and has continued to stay relevant with her own sense of personal style. According to the creators of the exhibition, Moss is perhaps the most significant model in recent fashion history.
While conceptually the reenactment of fashion photography’s greatest hits in life-size form is an interesting idea, the resulting vignettes fall somewhat flat, with the costumes in general appearing lifeless and superfluous to the topic. The biographies on the models juxtaposed with magazine photographs (that viewers are more likely to be familiar with) are certainly an education in the history of modeling, but barely touched on their role as muses per se. In summary, the Model as Muse is an elementary introduction to models in fashion history, but a deeper exploration of the muse and her relationship with fashion makers had yet to be realized.
The Model as Muse, curated by Harold Koda and Kohle Yohannan, is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until August 9, 2009. The catalog for the exhibition
is also available from Yale University Press.
*Photographs of the exhibition were taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Flickr account and were taken by Alex Hills.
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By Monica Sklar,
July 14th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers, Uncategorized)
I liked this photo of this woman that I imagine is doing a fun piece on dress…
CALL FOR PAPERS (I’m considering this one for myself…)
2010 ORAL HISTORY SOCIETY ANNUAL CONFERENCE in association with the VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
Oral History in Art, Craft, and Design
Oral History Society Annual Conference
July 2-3, 2010.
Deadline: NOVEMBER 30, 2009
Held in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum London, National Life Stories at the British Library, Camberwell College of Arts (University of the Arts London), and the University of the West of England, Bristol.
Call:
Oral history has become a significant methodology for understanding the contexts of art and design practices. Interviews with individuals involved in creative practices as producers, consumers or mediators are providing access to undocumented and alternative histories in the arts. This international conference will bring together the global community of those working with oral history in the fields of architecture, art, craft and design (incorporating fashion, product design, photography, and new media).
Increasing numbers of community projects are now exploring their histories through testimony-based art, craft and design activities. And with the growing use of web-based communication, designers, artists, historians and other arts-based researchers are also engaging with the problem of creating appropriate environments in which oral histories can be stored and disseminated to different audiences and users. The relationship between content and form is one that researchers in art and design are particularly well-placed to explore.
Rather than privileging the authorial voice in the arts, the conference seeks to examine the meaning and function of oral history in creative practice. The conference will, therefore, focus on three major themes: History, Practice, and Interpretation.
History: The contribution of oral history to the documentation and preservation of creative practices; the creation of creative identities through oral history narratives; the interconnections between the individual practitioner and their wider cultural context; the narratives of creativity; the construction of alternative histories; memories of lost practices.
Practice: Creative practice using oral history and memory work; designers as mediators in oral history projects/works; ethical considerations in using individual memories for art/design work; the use of images as memory prompts; arts-based community oral history projects; oral history as visual narrative.
Interpretation: Oral history as producer of meaning; oral history and testimony in the museum and gallery; narrative research in the arts and oral history; oral history and arts education; the problem of oral history as biography; the border between orality, aurality, and visuality.
Details:
Proposals are invited of 200-250 words that address one of the three major themes of the conference for talks or presentations of 20 minutes, or panels of one hour. Proposals should clearly state how oral history has informed the project/work/research described, and how it will be used in the presentation.
Contact Email:
Belinda Waterman, conference administrator
Click here for details
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By Monica Sklar,
July 13th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Academic Research & Related, Uncategorized)
I get lots of email via Worn Through and personally about all things dress. Every morning, over my latte I scan through all of it, make some quick responses, and set aside the ones that need a little more time. Pre-latte going through my blood stream, I cannot respond with great thought, and so I need to contemplate for a few hours how to write back, how to help out, and what is the best response. FYI-I do eventually write EVERYONE back and this post was stimulated by the fact I am, as we speak, gathering a snail mail package of syllabi and reading lists for a reader.
A lot of the emails are about grad school and about fashion/dress/costume research. So, I thought I’d invite the WT readers to comment on some of the topics that come my way as it’d be best to have varied opinions.
Recently I was asked by two people about the best PhD programs and where a would-be student should consider going to grad school for apparel studies.
I wrote back about how few programs there really are as compared to undergrad programs; about how the programs all have their niche and their highs and lows; how programs around the country are shifting more toward retail and design and away from history/culture; and about how it really depends what you want to do post-graduation. I highlighted what I think are the best programs, based on word of mouth, publishing, who is teaching there, etc. I also wrote about the importance of funding, as that is a highly complicated matter. Funding of course is tied to how long the program will take to go through, which is another complicated matter.
I know my thoughts on all of these thing–and I’m curious of yours.
Please write a coment about where you think are the best places for aspiring grad students to consider applying and why.
Curious to see your opinions.
Cheers!
2 Comments
By Monica Sklar,
July 10th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Jobs, Uncategorized)
Contract Lecturer–Apparel Design and Construction, University of Alberta Job: The Department of Human Ecology, University of Alberta, invites applications for a full-time contract lecturer in Clothing/Apparel Design and Construction for a 3-5 year period. The central responsibility of the position is to teach undergraduate courses in apparel design/construction and fashion industries. The teaching assignment may also include other courses that align with the needs of the Department and the background preparation of the successful candidate. The teaching load will comprise 5-6 courses per year (fall, winter, intersession). In addition, there may be opportunities to provide support to research projects and Department committees. Qualifications:
- a Master’s degree or PhD in Design, Fashion Studies, or other relevant area
- experience teaching undergraduate apparel design and construction courses, with demonstrated expertise in flat pattern design, pattern grading, basic draping, and ideally, computer assisted design appropriate to apparel and basic communication design
- superior teaching ability at the undergraduate level
- a collaborative working style that is s good fit with the Department of Human Ecology
Details: The preferred start date is January 1, 2010. To apply, please submit a cover letter that describes your teaching interests and activities; CV; all university transcripts; a teaching dossier that includes evaluations of teaching performance; and the names and contact information for three referees. The deadline for applications is October 1, 2009. Inquiries may be directed to Lori Moran via email. The University of Alberta hires on the basis of merit. We are committed to the principle of equity in employment. We welcome diversity and encourage applications from all qualified women and men, including persons with disabilities, members of visible minorities, and Aboriginal persons. Interested applicants may apply to: Dr. Deanna Williamson, Chair Department of Human Ecology 302 Human Ecology Building University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2N1 Phone: 780-492-5770, Email
Click here for more details.
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By Monica Sklar,
July 9th, 2009 at 5:00 am
(Exhibitions)
“UNDERCOVER: THE EVOLUTION OF UNDERWEAR”
Through September 27
Fashion and Textile Museum [London, England]
This exhibition traces the evolution of underwear, exploring the interplay between outerwear and underwear and examining how bra design has been interwoven with social, cultural and economic changes throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.
Click here for details
“QUEEN & COMMONWEALTH: THE ROYAL TOUR”
Through September 28
Buckingham Palace [London, England]
This exhibit unites 27 dresses worn by Her Majesty on Commonwealth tours over the past six decades, including evening gowns and daywear by the royal couturiers Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies and Ian Thomas. The exhibition will include 100+ gifts presented to The Queen by the people of the Commonwealth, to mark the important principle of friendship that underlies Her Majesty’s visits. These will be set against a backdrop of archive material, photographs and film footage.
Click here for details
Thank you to Costume Society of America for this info
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