ON-LINE ACORSO* EUROPEAN MUSEUM RESEARCH DAY:

TITLE: Five Curators Presenting Their 2023-25 European dress and textile history exhibitions in France, Belgium, England, Scotland, and Sweden.

Date: Saturday, JUNE 22nd 2024 11.00am-3.45 British Summer Time.

This Museum Research Day will bring together curators from across Europe to present their dress/textile history exhibitions of 2023-2025. This day offers a precious opportunity for comparative discussions and a unique chance to learn about exhibitions that many of us would otherwise be unable to visit.

FREE Tickets available from: TICKET SOURCE at:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/centre-for-design-history-university-of-brighton/t-lnmyglj

PROGRAMME:  

110.00am Introduction: ACORSO Director.

PART 1: 11.05-12.45.  Chair: Sarah Johnson

  Presentations from France, Sweden and Scotland, each of 20 minutes, with 5 minutes time for discussion.  

 11.10 – 11.35: ‘Tartan’ (1 April 2023 – 14 January 2024)  Curator: Kirsty Hassard, [kirsty.hassard@vandadundee.org]This takes a radical new look at an instantly recognisable textile and pattern. Set to be a major event in 2023’s cultural calendar, Tartan marks the 5th anniversary of Scotland’s design museum. Celebrating tartan and its global impact, the exhibition explores how tartan has connected and divided communities worldwide, how it has embraced tradition, expressed revolt, and inspired great works of art as well as playful and provocative designs. Tartan at V&A Dundee brings together a dazzling selection of more than 300 objects from over 80 lenders worldwide, illustrating tartan’s universal and enduring appeal through iconic and everyday examples of fashion, architecture, graphic and product design, photography, furniture, glass and ceramics, film, performance and art.

11.35- 12.00 : Musée de l'Education in Rouen: c/o Aude le Guennec.  A.LeGuennec@gsa.ac.uk S’Habiller pour L’Ecol. - Dressed for School is an interdisciplinary and international research funded by the French National Museum of Education (Munae, Rouen, France), in partnership with Heriot-Watt University and the Glasgow School of Art (UK), the Royal Society of Edinburgh and ACORSO. Dressed for School investigates clothing at School, from the beginning of the 19th century onwards, in France, with a comparative approach to the UK and countries where the school uniform is the norm. The impact of this multifaceted project addressing the vivid debate around school uniforms and secularity in France, demonstrates the importance of clothing as an educational and socialising tool, as well as a key feature of both school heritage and children material culture.   

12.00-12.25 : ModeMuseum Hasselt: Belgium, Fashion and Motherhood, June 2024 -Jan 20025, c/o [eve.demoen@hasslet.be] Co-curated by Eve Demoen and Karen Van Godtsenhoven. Historically, clothing concealed the changing bodies of mothers-to-be. However, from 1900 onwards, both in fashion and in society, there was a greater awareness of the cultural identity of mothers, which culminated in a real celebration of mothers and mother figures in 20th and 21st century fashion. .... From the Blessed Virgin to contemporary fashion experiments that debunk stereotypes to testimonies from non-binary parents, prospective parents and adoptive parents. From Christian Dior's New Look to the designs of Jacquemus and the stately "women who wear" of the South African Thebe Magugu: the mother figure as a source of inspiration and creativity in fashion is back... never been away?

General Debate :  12.25- 1.00pm .             Lunch break: 1.00- 2.00pm

Part 2:  2.00pm-3.45 British Summer Time.

Chair: Jenny Richardson

Presentations on Fashion and Fashion Textile designers from Sweden, France and the UK from the late 1920s, each of 20 minutes, with 5 minutes time for discussion.  

2.00-2.25: The Textile Museum, in the Textile Fashion Center  Borås, Sweden,  Clothes and Couture – on till August 2024. Curator,Viktoria Holmqvist [viktoria.holmqvist@boras.se] Clothes and Couture recounts how, during the 20th century, Parisian fashion was reinterpreted into useful clothes for women in Sweden. Here the Borås company Bröderna Magnusson Damkonfektionsfabrik AB is presented, which just like many others in the industry drew its inspiration from the capital of fashion – Paris. In the 20th century, manufacturing and trade in ready-made clothing developed into a Swedish base industry. Borås and its surroundings became the centre of the clothing industry in Sweden and the clothes sewn here were sold all over the country. One such company was Bröderna Magnussons, which produced women's clothing for a slightly higher price range, with advanced cutting and hand-sewn details. All the garments were created by the company's director, Ylva Segh, who regularly visited the couture shows in Paris.

 2.25 – 2.50 : Musée Réattu, Arles: Aziza Gril-Mariotte,  [Aziza.gril-mariotte@univ-amu.fr] and Daniel Rouvier and the Musee des Tissus, Lyon: Marion Falaise, Responsable du service scientifique et des collection [falaise@museedestissus.fr] Presentation by Marion Falaise:  Alfred Latour, Regard sur la Forme   APRIL 26 -OCTOBER 6TH 2024. 

• EXPOSITION "ALFRED LATOUR, REGARD SUR LA FORMEFermé pour travaux de rénovation, les oeuvres du musée des Tissus et des Arts décoratifs s'exposent au musée Réattu d'Arles, du 27 avril au 6 octobre 2024.Mettant en perpective dessins, gravures, peintures, photographies, maquettes textiles et tissus, "Alfred Latour, Regard sur la Forme" propose de découvrir sous un nouvel angle, le processus créatif et le langage artistique de cet artiste majeur du 20e siècle

Organised by the Musée Réattu, in partnership with the Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon and the Alfred Latour Foundation, this exhibition was born out of a wish to create a dialogue between Alfred Latour's photographic work and his practice as a designer of patterns for the textile industry. Here we discover a subtle interweaving of media: a print pattern designed for fashion originates from a photograph, while photographed still lifes inspire pencil drawings and produce the complex, repetitive shapes required for fabric printing.

     Alfred Latour (1888-1964) est un artiste aux multiples facettes ; peintre, aquarelliste, graveur, affichiste, graphiste et photographe. C’est en 1929 qu’il étoffe son art en tant que dessinateur textile, lorsque l’industriel lyonnais Charles Bianchini, l’invite à prendre la succession de Raoul Dufy pour créer des motifs imprimés pour la mode et l’ameublement au sein de la maison Bianchini Férier.

Alfred Latour (dessinateur), Brunet Lecomte (exécutant), Touareg, vers 1948, MT 2022.9.1
©Abbaye de Fontenay

2.50- 3.15 CONCLUSION to SESSION 2

Lou Taylor; Prof. Emerita, University of Brighton, (E.P.Taylor@brighton.ac.uk]  Exhibitions on the Known and the Unknown Fashion Textile Designer. Interest has grown, as this day has shown,  in exhibiting the work of fashion and textiles designed by fine artists or art school-trained designers, working for prestigious, design-aware businesses. One such is Shirley Craven at Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery, curated by Victoria Hartley. [ 6 April 2024 – 11 May 2025]. Craven was Director and Head Designer at the prestigious Hull Traders Company from 1929. In sad contrast, designs by thousands of UK mass market factory and free-lance designers remain largely un-researched. The University of Brighton has one such collection - by Walter Fielden Royle, a free-lance, self-employed Manchester print designer, working from the late 1920s – 1950s.

3.15 -3.45 pm: Final Debate  Chair: Suzanne Rowland ..and Closure.

*ACORSO is a major EU Research Project -Apparences, Corps, et Societé, founded in 2015. This shares, across Europe, an examination of the history and anthropology of clothing, fashion and appearance in Western societies, from the Renaissance to the present day.  Our basic intent is to encourage museum curators and university staff & post-grad. Students to research and publish together on joint, comparative trans-European research projects ACORSO has members from more than 30 European-wide museums and universities and several university-based, small  Research Interest Groups who run their own research programmes, with support from ACORSO.  Le GIS Apparences, Corps & Sociétés est hébergé par l’Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion (UMR ULille/CNRS 8529, Lille, France)

This event is organised by the University of Brighton ACORSO Research Interest Group, Tailoring for Women. c/o Lou Taylor [E.P.Taylor@brighton.ac,uk

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