Liveblogging Kalamazoo (Sunday 10:30-12)
May. 10th, 2009 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjThe last session, although I'll probably do a wrap-up post later this evening.
Session 595: Dress and Textiles IV: Long Ago and Far Away
Merovingian Fashion: Asking the Buried about What They Wore (Sarah-Grace Heller, Ohio State Univ.)
We start off with a dismissal of the generalization that clothing didn’t change throughout the Dark Ages, then a discussion of fashion theory and how it might be expressed (see yesterday afternoon’s panel discussion). In fact, so far the talk has been almost entirely a recap of yesterday’s introduction to theory of fashion. Now the content:
5-7th century provides rich grave goods. Unfortunately many grave contents have been lost or scattered due to plundering or carelessness. Some information about collections of grave goods and gender are based on highly interpreted composite interpretations. More recent finds have been more carefully extracted with greater attention to textile remains. Great variability in the richness of graves (although publicity has been on rich ones). Note that the existence of rich grave goods means that these goods have been taken out of social circulation while still in a useable form, requiring the living to create new goods for their own use. In the context of burials, the existence of “mass produced” moulded plaster sarcophagi supports a hypothesis of personal choice based on variation of superficial appearance – a characteristic of a fashion system.
A peplos style garment had continued in use in northern Europe while having been replaced by the tunic in the Mediterranean. But during the Merovingian period the tunic became more common while the use of brooches – athough now less functional for fastening clothing – remained common, suggesting that they had become fashion accessories. Brooches of cheap material only begin appearing in the 6th century, indicating a shift in which class wore them and what they signified. (The “democratization” of styles is another symptom of a fashion system.) The use of cut garnets in metal settings decreases and paired brooches decrease in favor of a single, central brooch (7th c.). Decorative garter fasteners (for women) begin appearing, with less decorated ones higher on the leg where they would be hidden from view.
At least 5 of the criteria of a “fashion system” can be discerned in the Merovingian data, although the intensity of the evidence is certainly less than that seen in the high middle ages or modern era.
Wefts and Worms: Silk Weaving and Sericulture in the West before 1200 CE (Rebecca Woodward Wendelken, Methodist Univ.)
Investigation of the production of silk as a raw material (as opposed to the production of silk textiles from existing thread) in the West. First pre-requisite is the culture of white mulberry trees, which take ca. 15 years to mature. Growth requirements mean that silk production was possible only in a relatively narrow geographic band which, fortunately, included much of southern Europe. Review of the physical and environmental requirements of the silkworm life cycle. Wild vs. cultured silk characteristics. Reeling vs. spinning. Gradual spread of silk culture westward. Arrived in Persia, Syria by ca. 2nd c. BCE to 5th c. CE. By 3-4th c., silk was available in Rome as a luxury good, but a commonly used one. Silk was being woven in Byzantium but from imported raw materials, creating a shortage. By the 8th c. the Islamic expansion had taken in all the traditional silk-producing regions in the West and culture moved further west into Greece and Cyprus, but primarily weavers use raw materials imported from now-Islamic regions. In 8-12th c., sericulture introduced to Venice and other parts of Italy and some attempts further north. Further expansion in Islamic regions as well (e.g., expending to Egypt and Yemen). Transfer of skilled silk workers due to warfare and invasion, e.g., from Byzantium to regions further West. Sericulture introduced to southern Spain. (Pretty slide-show of early silk fabrics.) [me: This presentation is pretty much a basic historic background on the history of silk production in regions affecting Europe, rather than argumentation towards any particular thesis.]
Imagined Fashion: Four Fifteenth-Century French Artists and Their Travel-Book Pictures (John Block Friedman, Kent State Univ.)
The manuscripts will be identified as P, C, M, and P2. The text is known as Secrets d’Histoire Naturelle. Two contributing descriptive texts were combined and moralized in a later version, but later on the moralization was stripped out and turned into something of an armchair travelogue. The illustrations are highly interpreted by the various artists and may be localized to the culture of their consumers or exoticized to emphasize the foreignness of the contents. Ms. P’s artist is clearly working directly from the text (or a good summary of it) and corresponds in interesting details. Ms. C copies the illustrations from P, possibly even by tracing in some cases. The illustrations correspond closely in layout and composition, but details are often “updated” to contemporary fashions and artifacts. Ms. M is fuller and more luxurious with some added text. It may have been made for Rene d’Anjou by the same artist as C. The illustrations may have been copied directly form P rather than C as some of the older details are retained, but there is a more sophisticated treatment of the details. Ms. P2 seems unrelated to the others and many of the illustrations are idiosyncratic. The illustrations focus more on women, possibly due to it being made for a female patron.
Question: how do the artists use clothing in support of Western ethnocentricity?
Stereotypical exotic “Eastern” styles, familiar from Biblical illustrations of Jewish or Saracen figures are used for non-European figures. Headgear is a special focus of identity representation. Turban-like headgear or headbands and “Jewish hats” are used indiscriminately to signify foreignness. Nakedness or non-textile clothing was a signifier of primitive or barbaric societies.
Session 595: Dress and Textiles IV: Long Ago and Far Away
Merovingian Fashion: Asking the Buried about What They Wore (Sarah-Grace Heller, Ohio State Univ.)
We start off with a dismissal of the generalization that clothing didn’t change throughout the Dark Ages, then a discussion of fashion theory and how it might be expressed (see yesterday afternoon’s panel discussion). In fact, so far the talk has been almost entirely a recap of yesterday’s introduction to theory of fashion. Now the content:
5-7th century provides rich grave goods. Unfortunately many grave contents have been lost or scattered due to plundering or carelessness. Some information about collections of grave goods and gender are based on highly interpreted composite interpretations. More recent finds have been more carefully extracted with greater attention to textile remains. Great variability in the richness of graves (although publicity has been on rich ones). Note that the existence of rich grave goods means that these goods have been taken out of social circulation while still in a useable form, requiring the living to create new goods for their own use. In the context of burials, the existence of “mass produced” moulded plaster sarcophagi supports a hypothesis of personal choice based on variation of superficial appearance – a characteristic of a fashion system.
A peplos style garment had continued in use in northern Europe while having been replaced by the tunic in the Mediterranean. But during the Merovingian period the tunic became more common while the use of brooches – athough now less functional for fastening clothing – remained common, suggesting that they had become fashion accessories. Brooches of cheap material only begin appearing in the 6th century, indicating a shift in which class wore them and what they signified. (The “democratization” of styles is another symptom of a fashion system.) The use of cut garnets in metal settings decreases and paired brooches decrease in favor of a single, central brooch (7th c.). Decorative garter fasteners (for women) begin appearing, with less decorated ones higher on the leg where they would be hidden from view.
At least 5 of the criteria of a “fashion system” can be discerned in the Merovingian data, although the intensity of the evidence is certainly less than that seen in the high middle ages or modern era.
Wefts and Worms: Silk Weaving and Sericulture in the West before 1200 CE (Rebecca Woodward Wendelken, Methodist Univ.)
Investigation of the production of silk as a raw material (as opposed to the production of silk textiles from existing thread) in the West. First pre-requisite is the culture of white mulberry trees, which take ca. 15 years to mature. Growth requirements mean that silk production was possible only in a relatively narrow geographic band which, fortunately, included much of southern Europe. Review of the physical and environmental requirements of the silkworm life cycle. Wild vs. cultured silk characteristics. Reeling vs. spinning. Gradual spread of silk culture westward. Arrived in Persia, Syria by ca. 2nd c. BCE to 5th c. CE. By 3-4th c., silk was available in Rome as a luxury good, but a commonly used one. Silk was being woven in Byzantium but from imported raw materials, creating a shortage. By the 8th c. the Islamic expansion had taken in all the traditional silk-producing regions in the West and culture moved further west into Greece and Cyprus, but primarily weavers use raw materials imported from now-Islamic regions. In 8-12th c., sericulture introduced to Venice and other parts of Italy and some attempts further north. Further expansion in Islamic regions as well (e.g., expending to Egypt and Yemen). Transfer of skilled silk workers due to warfare and invasion, e.g., from Byzantium to regions further West. Sericulture introduced to southern Spain. (Pretty slide-show of early silk fabrics.) [me: This presentation is pretty much a basic historic background on the history of silk production in regions affecting Europe, rather than argumentation towards any particular thesis.]
Imagined Fashion: Four Fifteenth-Century French Artists and Their Travel-Book Pictures (John Block Friedman, Kent State Univ.)
The manuscripts will be identified as P, C, M, and P2. The text is known as Secrets d’Histoire Naturelle. Two contributing descriptive texts were combined and moralized in a later version, but later on the moralization was stripped out and turned into something of an armchair travelogue. The illustrations are highly interpreted by the various artists and may be localized to the culture of their consumers or exoticized to emphasize the foreignness of the contents. Ms. P’s artist is clearly working directly from the text (or a good summary of it) and corresponds in interesting details. Ms. C copies the illustrations from P, possibly even by tracing in some cases. The illustrations correspond closely in layout and composition, but details are often “updated” to contemporary fashions and artifacts. Ms. M is fuller and more luxurious with some added text. It may have been made for Rene d’Anjou by the same artist as C. The illustrations may have been copied directly form P rather than C as some of the older details are retained, but there is a more sophisticated treatment of the details. Ms. P2 seems unrelated to the others and many of the illustrations are idiosyncratic. The illustrations focus more on women, possibly due to it being made for a female patron.
Question: how do the artists use clothing in support of Western ethnocentricity?
Stereotypical exotic “Eastern” styles, familiar from Biblical illustrations of Jewish or Saracen figures are used for non-European figures. Headgear is a special focus of identity representation. Turban-like headgear or headbands and “Jewish hats” are used indiscriminately to signify foreignness. Nakedness or non-textile clothing was a signifier of primitive or barbaric societies.
