Conferences
The Fund organises a series of
one- and two-day conferences (generally in collaboration with
other bodies).
If you have ideas for future conference themes which might be developed in
collaboration with the Fund do please contact Pat Hudson: HudsonP@Cardiff.ac.uk
The Fund also finances workshops via themed workshop grants. For details of recent workshops see the relevant section of the grants page.
CONFERENCE NEWS
A next Pasold Conference will take place in September 2010 on the subject of 'Textile Distribution Networks, 1700-1900'. It will be held in conjunction with the Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) at the University of Wolverhampton. A call for papers is in process. The lead organiser is Dr Laura Ugolini of CHORD: l.ugolini@wlv.ac.uk
There will be a further Pasold Conference on April 6-8th 2011 at the University of Exeter on the theme of 'Fabricating the Body: Textiles and Human Health in Historical Perspective'. The conference will be supported jointly by the Pasold Research Fund and the Wellcome Foundation. A call for papers will commence shortly. The lead organiser is Professor Jo Melling, University of Exeter: j.l.melling@exeter.ac.uk
The last Pasold Conference was held
in January 2008 in collaboration with University College,
London, on the subject: 'Clothing childhood, fashioning society: children's clothing in the 20th century'. As always with Pasold Conferences, the aim was to
facilitate critical dialogue across disciplinary boundaries
and between academic and other practitioners, particularly
those from archive, museum and conservation fields. Until now,
studies of contemporary clothing and textiles have focussed
on adults and ‘youth’, while studies
of children’s wear have concentrated on the Victorian and
earlier eras. This was the first conference to examine the twentieth
century – a period of unprecedented social, economic and
technological change – through the material culture of
childhood. A major question behind the conference was: What do
children’s clothes and textiles, the fortunes of the industry
and companies that produced them, and the childhoods they fashioned
say about society in our time?
The keynote speaker was Professor Daniel Thomas Cook (Rutgers-Camden University, USA) whose talk was entitled '
Fashion for Whom? Display, Ambiguity
and the Performing Child'. Other speakers and topics were:
Dr Clare Rose (University of Brighton):
Democratic Design and Edwardian Children’s Clothing
Dr
Katrina Honeyman (University of Leeds): Suits for
the Boys: The Leeds Multiple Tailors and the Making of Boy’s
Wear 1900-1940
Alison Carter (Hampshire County Council
Museums and Archives): From the Liberty Bodice to the 28AA
Bra: Revealing Stories
in the Girls’ ‘Underwear Department’, 1908-2000
Professor Stanley Chapman (University
of Nottingham): Pasolds Limited, 1930-1970: The Strategies
of the Leading British Manufacturer of Children’s Wear
Dr Kaori O’Connor (University College, London): Ladybird:
Cultural Icons and the ‘Golden Age’ of British
Childhood
Dr Bramwell Rudd (Formerly with Courtaulds Textiles
Plc): Manufacturing and Distributing Children’s Wear in
a Changing Retail Scene, 1970-2000
Professor Sandy Black (London College of Fashion): Home Knitting
for Children: Fashioned with Love
Ann Wise (Warner Textile
Archive): Knitting for Janet and John: 1920-1960
Dr Mary Clare Martin (University of Greenwich), Class, Childhood and Clothing: Puritanism, Pleasure and
Home Production in Professional Families,
1900-1975
Anna Konig (London College of Fashion): Home-made
Children’s
Clothing since 1945: From Items of Necessity to Objects of Desire.
Noreen Marshall (V&A Museum of Childhood):
Bargains for the Kiddies: Children’s Clothing from Selfridges
Bargain Basement, 1925-1935
Dr Hilary Young (University of Manchester): Clothes and the Modern Boy and Girl: Fashion Pages in Girl and
the Boy's
Own Paper in the 1950s and 1960s
Paul Seaton (Woolworths
and Ladybird Archivist, and author of the Woolworths Virtual
Museum): Chinese Whispers: Long Life and Igloos to the Eskimos
Pennie Alfrey (University of Loughborough): Little Devils Wear Denim: Fabricating Childhood
Annebella
Pollen (London College of Communication, University of the Arts,
London): Mass-produced Dressing Up Costumes and the Commodification
of the Imagination
Professor Alison J. Clarke (University of
Applied Arts, Vienna): Brand Values: Clothing the Second-Hand
Designer Child in the late 20th Century
There was also a panel discussion entiled Pointers to sources
and future research in which the conference organisers (Kaori O'Connor and Pat Hudson) were joined, amongst others, by:
Hilary Davidson (Museum of London) on The Children's Clothing Collections at the Museum of London
Aude Le Guennec (Cholet Museum) on The Textile Museum, Cholet, France and their Children's Clothing
Project
Katherine Baird (Manager of Archives and Special Collections,
London College of Fashion) on the Emap Archive, the Woolmark Archive
and other Resources at the London College of Fashion
A fuller account of the papers and discussion at the conference, written by Kaori O'Connor, can be accessed by clicking here.
In 2009-10
conferences will be held on on Textiles and Health and on Textile
retailing and distribution. Plans are also being developed
for a conference on the links between the natural and the social
history of textiles. These will be publicised shortly on this
website.
The 2006 PASOLD CONFERENCE
was on the theme:
Textiles for Interiors : Furnishing the Home from the
Renaissance to Inter-War Britain
if was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Organisers : Professor Chris Breward and Miss Clare Browne
This one day symposium was
organised by the Victoria & Albert
Museum , in partnership with the Pasold Research Fund. The programme
was developed by Chris Breward, Deputy Head of Research and Clare
Browne, Curator of Furnishing, Textiles and Fashion both of the
V & A. Their choice of six speakers provided an exceptional
programme of varied and stimulating insightful papers, that explored
the production, distribution, consumption and culture of household
textiles from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries.
Giorgio Riello ( London School of Economics)
presented a paper on ‘The Material Culture of Textiles and the Life of the
Home in Early Modern Europe’. This combined exceptional
picture research and multidisciplinary approaches. He traced
the relationship between textiles, textile objects and our understanding
of images of the household. The wide ranging study captured the
shifting nature of material culture as a reflection of wealth
and taste through time and space.
Tricia Allerston (National Galleries of
Scotland ) presented on the subject: ‘Renting Furnishings for the Venetian Renaissance
Home- Typical Behaviour’. She interpreted the considerable
level and variety of rented furnishings in Venice in the 17th
century using the records of Jewish rental merchants. She showed
that the considerable level of commercial activity around rental
reflected cultural attitudes toward textiles. Textiles were a
symbol of wealth and prestige and, by looking at what visitors
to Venice chose to rent much was revealed about attitudes to
furnishings and to the importance of household presentation.
David Mitchell ( London ) spoke
on ‘Colour preference
in English furnishings’ in the early modern period. He
compared changing fashions in bed and wall hangings to examine
the influence of colour and its reflection in furnishing fashions
over time. Drawing upon probate inventories, David Mitchell’s
detailed analysis by value, and by fabric type and colour revealed
much about the meaning of, and reaction to, colour and changes
in dyeing fashion and technology.
Margaret Ponsonby, (University
of Wolverhampton ) presented a paper covering ‘Making the Home, 1750-1850: Textiles
in use, Display and Storage’. She focused on urban and
rural households in the West Midlands . The paper considered
window and bed curtains in particular and showed showed how textiles
recorded in inventories were very much a reflection of the changing
priorities of domesticity.
Mary Brooks, (Textile Conservation
Centre, University of Southampton )spoke on ‘Conservation and Context: Insights into a Chippendale
Bed Cornice’. This paper gave an unusual insight into the
way in which revelations from the conservation process can facilitate
an understanding of the cultural context of textiles. The piece
of bed cornice in question came from Harewood House in Yorkshire
. Mary Brooks showed the way in which conservation analysis and
archival research altered the understanding of the biography
of the object and the design of home furnishings.
Sarah Cheang's paper on ‘Dragons in the Drawing Room:
Chinese Embroideries in British Homes, 1860-1940’ showed
how embroideries from Chinese clothing were sold through department
stores to adorn household furnishings. Her study demonstrated
how this practice projected narratives of colonial conquest into
homes. A major source was her study of the furnishings at Quex
House in Kent .
A wide range of common themes emerged from the symposium including
the interplay between material objects, culture and consumption,
the importance of visual images in understanding the shifting
position of textiles in daily life, and the relationship between
economic, social and historical forces in understanding textile
design. This excellent day also highlighted the importance of
multidisciplinary symposia of this kind where textile conservators,
museum curators and academic historians can share a range of
perspectives on a carefully specified theme.
A particularly valuable element
of the conference was the three lunch time break- out sessions.
These introduced the visual database of the Arts and Humanities
Research Council (AHRC) Centre, the Museum’s Word and
Image Study, and the Textile Store of the V & A.
The session on the visual database of the AHRC Centre for the
Study of the Domestic Interior (co-hosted by the V&A, the
Royal College of Art and Royal Holloway) was led by Liz Miller,
Flora Dennis and James Hall. Delegates were offered an overview
of the way that the database had been researched and constructed
and advice on how its content might be used by researchers in the field of
textile history.
The sessions on the Museum's
Word and Image Study Room, led
by Mor Thunder, and Textiles Store, led by Clare Browne, gave
delegates a chance to view examples of textiles, and textile
designs, relating to the day's papers. These ranged from
Renaissance Italian lace pattern books, and designs for printed
cotton furnishings by the late 18th century pattern-drawer William
Kilburn, to 17th century bed valances of 'wrought dimity', and
Norwich worsted furnishing damasks.
Other recent conferences have included:
October 2004
Business Networks in Textile Industrial Districts, University of Nottingham,
International Business History Institute
September 2003
Clothing for Extremes, jointly sponsored by KIMMlite and organised in collaboration
with Mountain Heritage Trust.
April 2002
Textile Matters: Object Based Research. The Contribution of Conservation to Textile
History and Research, Textile Conservation Centre, Winchester Campus, University
of Southampton
October 2001
Textiles and the Arts and Crafts Movment, Centre for North West Regional Studies,
Lancaster University
March 2000
Textile Mill Building and Architecture in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Masson
Mill, Matlock Bath
March 1999
The Legacy of Hosiery, in collaboration with Leicester City Museum Service.
April 1998
Linen in Europe, Lisburn
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