Refashioning the Renaissance is a scholarly podcast series about early modern fashion and experimental hand-on methods. In the series, researchers from the ERC-funded project “Refashioning the Renaissance: Popular Groups and the Material and Cultural Significance of Clothing in Europe 1550–1650” discuss with guests about the exciting ways history of fashion can be studied from new perspectives.

Episodes

6. Material fictions and the complexity of early modern splendour (with Timothy McCall)

In this episode, Refashioning Postdocs Sophie Pitman and Michele Robinson discuss imitation objects with Associate Professor Timothy McCall from Villanova University. What do we mean when we talk about imitations, fakes, and counterfeits, and how early modern audiences understood these material fictions? Read more about the workshop Imitation in Early Modern Clothes and Accessories here.

5. Tailoring processes and revelations (with Elizabeth Currie)

Dr. Elizabeth Currie, who is based at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art, is a dress historian specialised in early modern Italy. The Refashioning team invited her to join a doublet making course at The School of Historical Dress in London in 2019. In this episode she reflects the experience and her work on tailors together with Postdoctoral Researcher Sophie Pitman and Principal Investigator Paula Hohti Erichsen. You can read more about the doublet course here.

4. Making invisible colours visible (with Jo Kirby Atkinson)

In this episode, Principal investigator Paula Hohti Erichsen and Postdoctoral Researcher Michele Robinson sit down with Jo Kirby Atkinson, who made her career as a Senior Scientific Officer at the National Gallery specialising in pigments and dyes. Together they discuss Jo’s work, the study of historical dyes, and the workshop on early modern colours Jo planned with the Refashioning team in autumn 2019. You can read more about the workshop here.

3. Getting your hands dirty (with Tessa Storey And Flora Dennis)

Postdoctoral researchers Sophie Pitman and Michele Robinson chat with our Advisory board members Dr. Flora Dennis and Dr. Tessa Storey following an experimental workshop on early modern recipes for cleaning, dyeing, and scenting textiles. How does it feel to get your hands dirty and study your sources from a new perspective? Read more about the Dirty Laundry workshop here.

2. Knowing by making (with Pamela H. Smith)

Refashioning the Renaissance Principal Investigator Paula Hohti Erichsen and Postdoctoral Researcher Sophie Pitman talk about experimental methodology with Professor Pamela H. Smith, founder of the Making and Knowing Project at Columbia University. The discussion spans form the work done at the M&K project and the lessons learned, to different ways experiments can be approached and the future of reconstruction.

1. What does hands-on experimentation mean for historians? (With John Styles)

In the first episode of the Refashioning the Renaissance podcast, our Principal Investigator Paula Hohti Erichsen discusses with our Advisory board member Professor John Styles. They talk about hands-on methods and how experimental work can bring together different professionals and enthusiasts, and he reflects how experiments have opened new avenues for his own research.