Refashioning the Renaissance project is based in Aalto University, housing the schools for science and technology, business, and art, design and architecture. This multidisciplinary environment enables our project to engage with different areas of research and find new perspectives for our research, but it also means that most of the people in Aalto are not familiar with historical research.
Exhibition at the Väre FE lobby.
We came up with the idea of an exhibition, as a way to showcase our project to our colleagues and Aalto students, who necessarily do not know about our time period or about the research we do in the project, and also to kick off the experimental hands-on phase of our project. As reconstructions and hands-on experiments are important research methods for us, we wanted ‘making’ to be in the heart of the exhibition. Sixteenth-century tailors and their craft seemed like a natural choice, especially since it opened up a dialogue with contemporary fashion studies taught in Aalto.
The “Tailor’s workshop” exhibition on 7 January–8 February in Väre FE lobby recreated a sixteenth-century tailor’s workshop, modelled after early modern images, such as a fresco of drapers in Castello di Issogne, Italy. Different tools and materials used by early modern tailors were laid on the two tables, and finished garments are hanging on a rack. Many of the early modern tailor’s tools are same as the ones still used today—like scissors, thread, needles, and thimbles—whereas others are specific to the time period and not used anymore, like pinking tools that were used to cut fashionable slashes in fabric.
Recreating this workshop helped us to communicate a vital material aspect of our research; how does it feel to us these tools, such a sew with a bronze or iron needle instead of industrially made high carbon steel needle. It also helped us to discuss how historical and modern techniques differ and correlate. For example, laser cutting fabric can be seen as a modern take of the renaissance technique of slashing fabric.
As a ‘stage’ for our project, the exhibition allowed us to talk about our project and activities, and disseminate information about 16th-century fashion, clothing and tailoring practices. As part of the exhibition, we also organised a lunch talk event, where we invited people to talk about early modern fashion and tailoring practices with our researchers. Some came to visit Aalto specifically to take part of this event, and it was wonderful to see how many people were interested in our project, and how these centuries-old tools and techniques combined with modern research methods resonated with them.
Sophie Pitman and Michele Robinson presenting the exhibition.
Piia Lempiäinen demonstrating how a 16th century doublet was attached to breeches.
Né buone, né finte o false: Fakes, Fabrication and Imitation in Early Modern Dress
Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2–4 April 2020
Panel submission deadline: 15 August
Traditionally, historians of dress have argued that those at the lower end of the social hierarchy did not independently engage in fashion, but rather sought to imitate the clothing and style of the elite.
And there was indeed the appropriation of fabrics, garments, trims and accessories normally ascribed to the wealthy by the lower social orders, hence part of the need for sumptuary laws. But people were not just looking up for fashion inspiration; they also looked across social groups, cities, regions and even to distant continents where they found new fibres, textiles, colours, production methods and styles of garments. Goods from afar were imported into different European cities for local consumption, but there were also attempts to replicate or imitate foreign materials, fabrics and finishes. These attempts often resulted in new and novel products, which spurred revisions to sumptuary laws and the need to stipulate that some items, regardless of whether they were ‘good or feigned or fake’, were intended to be off limits to all but a few.
This panel seeks studies of the use and function of fakes, fabrications and imitation in dress and fashion in the early modern world (c. 1500-1700). Papers that consider non-elite dress practices are especially encouraged, as are those by late-stage PhD students and early career researchers. Submissions may consider some of the following questions:
What role did imitation and/or appropriation play in terms of how, where, when and by whom trends were circulated throughout and beyond neighbourhoods, cities, rural areas, regions and continents in the early modern world?
What were the social, cultural, financial and/or political motivations behind mimicking the dress of others, whether from different social groups, cities or regions?
How did the desire to reproduce the look and feel of imported textiles/dyes/materials or to replicate the results of foreign production practices shape local dress and fashion?
What new and novel products, techniques or dress concepts emerged through attempts to imitate or make substitutions for more costly or difficult to obtain goods?
How did sumptuary laws, guild regulations and other types of rules and legislation encourage or deter fakes and imitations in relation to the production of textiles, garments and accessories?
What were the social perceptions of ‘fakes’ (i.e. precious metals, gems, luxury textiles, colorants) and how did these perceptions inform their use in clothing and accessories?
How can replicas and reconstructions of early modern textiles, dyes, garments, trims and other components of dress support academic research?
If you wish to apply, please send the following items to Michele Robinson (michele.robinson@aalto.fi) by 9 August 2019:
Paper title (15-word maximum)
Abstract (150-word maximum)
Curriculum vitae (.pdf or .doc upload, no longer than 5 pages)
Man’s doublet, possibly Italian, c. 1550-60. Red satin lined in canvas, trimmed with handmade silk buttons. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.
The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh boasts a wonderful collection of clothing and textiles, like the Italian doublet pictured above. This made it the perfect venue for the New Research in Dress History Conference, which took place on Friday the 24th of May. This is an annual event organised by the Association of Dress Historians, and this year it featured seventeen presentations on research spanning the late medieval period to today, and covering North and South America, Europe and Asia.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present my paper, ‘Books of Secrets and Artisans’ Dress in Italy, 1550–1650′, in the first panel of the day. The paper brought together my research on recipe books and the results of the workshop that the Refashioning the Renaissance project hosted in April. I spoke about the considerable investment that average people living in early modern Italy had to make in order to obtain clothing, drawing on examples from the inventories of artisans’ household that Stefania has been gathering and transcribing over the last 18 months. I then presented some ideas about ways that people might have cared for their clothes – to keep them in good condition and to help them keep their value – based on evidence from recipe books. I then spoke about the project’s ‘Dirty Laundry’ workshop, where we recreated different recipes for stain removers, simple dyes and a perfume for linen chests. As I explained at the conference, recreating the recipes helped us to ask new questions about artisans’ dress, look at things from new perspectives and recognise the importance of socialising and relationships in shaping the ways that people cared for their clothing.
A slide from my presentation showing our team admiring the results of our efforts at the workshop alongside an image of washing day from a German manuscript. Both show the importance of collaboration. Photo copyright Refashioning the Renaissance Project.
I was on the same panel as Astrid Pajur, a PhD student that the Refashioning the Renaissance team met on our trip to Uppsala University last year. In her paper, ‘Clothes, Practices, and Social Relations in Seventeenth Century Tallinn, Swedish Baltic Empire’, Astrid also spoke about the importance of social networks in relation to dress. She presented the wonderful example of an organ builder who did not feel he was provided with the outfit ‘in the latest fashion’ that he had requested from a local tailor and decided to take action against him. This resulted in a long and complicated dispute between the two men, each leaning on their colleagues and fellow townspeople for support. As Astrid demonstrated, the value of the clothes also had a social aspect, as the organ builder felt he would face ridicule and damage to his honour if he wore the unfashionable outfit provided by the tailor.
A slide from Astrid Pajur’s presentation. Photo copyright Refashioning the Renaissance Project.
The panels in the afternoon featured presentations on a range of interesting topics, including the female suppliers of clothing and accessories to the nineteenth-century French court, metallic bobbin lace from Sweden’s royal wardrobe, dress for cycling in the First Brazilian Republic and the problem of women’s hats in late nineteenth-century American theatres. I was quite intrigued by Eliza McKee’s paper, ‘Landed Estate Clothing Societies in Rural Ulster, Ireland, 1830–1914′, which explored the dress of the poor through evidence around clothing clubs. As part of these clubs, the wives and daughters of wealthy landowners brought together donations that provided their impoverished tenants with clothing, especially for winter. The details of these garments and lengths of fabrics were captured in detailed account books and registers kept by the club members, monitoring this important aspect of their tenants’ lives.
Eliza McKee presenting her research. Photo copyright Refashioning the Renaissance Project.
I also saw some interesting connections between my paper and that of Leren Li, titled: ‘Japanese Boro and the Designing of Frugality in Contemporary Fashion’. Leren explained the Japanese terms boroand boroboro, which refer to tattered garments and soft furnishings. In the past, when many Japanese people lived in rural areas with very little money, women mended and created new garments clothing through the recycling of pieces and patches from other textiles.
Robe worn by a Japanese peasant or fisherman and pieced together with indigo-dyed cotton, c. 1850-1900. Cotton, 115x120cm. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Today, at least in urban centres in Japan but also Europe and North America, garments are still patched up in this way, but for reasons of fashion rather than poverty. For instance, the jacket pictured below, which features hand-stitched ‘boro’ patchwork, can be purchased for just under 1400 Euros on Etsy! Leren also spoke about workshops that teach people to mend their clothing in the borostyle, and in some instances, participants bring new t-shirts with purposely cut holes, which they patch with vintage fabric.
Although the papers presented at the conference were many and diverse, they were unified by the importance all placed on how meaningful dress is and was in the past. Each paper, in its way, highlighted the multiple ways that different people and groups develop or derive meaning from clothing – whether their own, that for their families, friends or customers and through production, consumption or even just spectatorship. Most importantly, as each paper demonstrated, clothing takes its multiple, complex meanings from the social realms in which it lives.
