Everyday Dress and the Reconstruction of Early Modern Material Culture, 1550–1650

ERC Refashioning the Renaissance Conference
10–11 September 2021
Online | Aalto University, Finland

This international conference develops new perspectives in early modern dress and fashion history by asking two interrelated key questions: How did fashion beyond groups of wealthy elites develop in early modern Europe, and how can we gain access to the culture of lower social groups when so few garments survive, and sources about clothes are fragmentary? Combining archival, material, and pictorial evidence with experimental hands-on work and reconstruction, this conference explores the key agents of fashion change at the lower social levels in Early Modern Europe, and investigates how experimental work, reconstruction,  and material-based approaches can help us understand and access early modern dress and material culture.

Conference Programme

Speakers and respondents: 

John Styles, Pamela H. Smith, Sven Dupré, Evelyn Welch, Amanda Wunder, Andrea Caracausi, Elizabeth Currie, Tessa Storey, Flora Dennis, Jenny Tiramani, Paula Hohti, Sophie Pitman, Stefania Montemezzo, Victoria Bartels, Anne-Kristine Sindvald Larsen, Piia Lempiäinen, Maarit Kalmakurki, Valerio Zanetti, Elena Kanagy-Loux, Jordan Mitchell-King, Miriam Pugliese. 

 

Experiment in focus: Dressing up an Early Modern Doublet with Sophie Pitman, Joanna Weckman, and Valerio Zanetti

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John Styles

Paula Hohti and Sophie Pitman