Paula and Jane at work.

Last week we had the opportunity to present Refashioning the Renaissance project to YLE, Finnish broadcasting agency. We hosted the film crew at Aalto University, where Paula was interviewed for the TV news and web article, and Jane and Paula organised a mini-workshop on knitted caps. They showed how 16th century knitted caps were made, and processed to resemble velvet hats. The process includes fulling the caps by treading them in a soap water or beating them with wooden mallets, after which the nap is raised with tinsels.

Paula being interviewed.

After thew workshop Paula sat down with journalist Jonni Aromaa to chat about our project. She discussed renaissance dress, growing desire for new products and fashions, and our aims to develop new methods and experimental practices for research.

We are thrilled that YLE is interested in our project, and did – not one – but two thoughtful and well-made news stories about it. Unfortunately for international audience both the TV clip and web article are in Finnish, but at least you can all enjoy seeing Paula and Jane fulling.

Article published (in Finnish) at the YLE website.

To see what other media outlets have written about our project, have a look at the Media page.

Dinner with our advisory board.

On 18 December 2017, Refashioning the Renaissance Principal Investigator Paula Hohti and Project Administrator Piia Lempiäinen met the Advisory Board for the first time in London. After spending the autumn setting up practices, recruiting team members, and further developing theoretical framework of the project, end of the year was an excellent opportunity to present the project to the Advisory Board and hear their feedback for the project implementation and direction. Professor Evelyn Welch kindly hosted the meeting at King’s College London, with Professor Maria Hayward, Dr Susan North, Professor Ulinka Rublack, and Dr Tessa Storey present. Advisory Board members brought new insight, raised poignant questions, and shared their knowledge throughout the meeting. This inspiring exchange of ideas and concrete advice helped to strengthen our project structure and goals.

“Our Advisory Board, individually and as a group, has an amazing expertise across areas of early modern material culture and fashion, and we feel very privileged and lucky to be able work with them for the next couple of years.”
-Paula Hohti

After a fruitful meeting the Advisory Board continued discussions on Early Modern dress and fashion over dinner. “How blissful it is to sit together enjoying excellent food, and talk about how to sew ostrich feathers together”, Evelyn Welch sighed and voiced everyone’s thoughts.

The third Dressing the Early Modern Network conference, “All That Glitters…”: Visual Representations of Dress in the Early Modern and the Boundaries of Reliability was organised in Berlin on 14-15 September 2017. Refashioning Renaissance team, strengthened with our fresh doctoral candidate Anne-Kristine Sindvald Larsen, took part of the conference, which was held at Kunstgewerbemuseum. The conference catered a wide range of interesting papers that gave an opportunity to learn and reflect.

Kunstgewerbemuseum and the adjunct Lipperheidesche Kostümbibliothek offered an ideal setting for the conference. The Kunstgewerbemuseum houses an extensive collection of tapestries and a dress collection from 18^th century to present day, and it was a pleasure to get to know the collection on the intermissions of the conference. Lipperheidesche Kostümbibliothek consists of a wonderful collection of original source documents and secondary literature on clothing and fashion by Franz and Frieda Lipperheide.

Paula Hohti introducing Jane Malcolm-Davies.

The papers presented during the conference examined different aspects of visual representations of dress and brought forward intriguing questions and new approaches. Themes varied from the interpretation and reliability of visual images as source to case studies of specific garments, as well as depictions of the others. Our Principal Investigator, Professor Paula Hohti had a pleasure to chair a session that examined interestingly the different aspects of visual representations and how they can be challenged by new research that cross-references different sources. Dr. Jane-Malcolm Davies, who is going to be working in the Refashioning the Renaissance project as a Post-Doctoral Researcher, presented some of her research on knitted caps, and the felting process that was used on wool to mimic velvet. More information on Jane’s Knitting in Early Modern Europe can be found here.

Some examples of fulled caps presented by Jane-Malcolm Davies.

Our growing team, who now met for the first time, thoroughly enjoyed the stimulating discussions, the chances to connect with other scholars, and the sunny Berlin.