The printed version of our special issue “Mending Matters: Cultures and Contexts of Clothing Repair” has just arrived (in time to become my favorite Christmas gift)🤩
It features articles by @visiblemend , @juliashaped , @marta_konovalov and @kuuskkristi@historyalamode and @ledowningpeters , @saruzzza , @ellensampson and mine, as well as interviews by Kat Duffy and Jessica Hemmings.
Once again, an enormous thank you to my wonderful colleagues @liudmila_aliabieva and @gur0va_0lga . Working in this dream team has been such an enriching experience! Huge thank you to Editors-in-Chief @valerie_steele_fashion and Peter McNeil for supporting the idea; to all the authors for their contributions; to the anonymous reviewers and to everyone working on the production side of the journal (you know who you are 🤍).
My warmest Christmas wishes to everyone involved 🌲🎉🎁📚
New article in Fashion Theory just dropped! Based on my dissertation research, it’s part of a special issue on mending edited by @liudmila_aliabieva and I’m thrilled to be included alongside my stellar and inspiring colleagues @visiblemend and @ellensampson . This article is my second peer-reviewed research article for Fashion Theory - my first on sustainable fashion came out 17 years ago! 😳
My little brother lives in Stratford, coincidentally in the same building he stayed in when he was a Paralympian for the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. He’s now the coach for the Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby Paralympic team. But I’m digressing, as this post is really about the fact he lives a 10 min walk to the new @vamuseum storehouse! And so we checked it out today. As a visitor I loved it! And it was full of people who also seemed to love it. Visually it is stunning and overwhelming in a good way. Ever a design nerd, I got to see the Frankfurt Kitchen by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky! Picasso’s backdrop for Le Train Bleu! Balenciaga toiles!
As a museum professional, I’m ambivalent. So much within very close touch distance! So many light sensitive things exposed to light (although I presume they’ll regularly switch them out? But that then adds to staff workload, which is already likely tight). So much dusting that will have to happen. But yet the collection is now more accessible than ever and you can even order up an object! I love the labels and mini displays explaining how museum processes work. The conservation overlook drew gasps from other visitors, and I even got to see @hannahjoyceknits talking about her work on a video. So cool.
I’ve always loved the visible storage displays sponsored by the Luce Foundation in the US but this blows all of them out of the water. Overall, a splendid visitor experience, and I can’t wait to hear from my colleagues in few years’ time how it is all working out.
It was fifteen years ago that Francesca Granata and I opened the first ever sustainable fashion exhibition in New York City, “Ethics + Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion.” Amid the Great Recession, 2009 was a heady time for sustainable fashion in the USA – so many great designers, artists, and activists exploring what it meant for fashion to be sustainable. Our exhibition had three themes: Reduce, Reuse, and Rethink. While the first two themes focused on designers like Loomstate, Alabama Chanin, Suno, Uluru, and SANS who were using recycled, deadstock, organic and novel materials and fair-trade labor practices, our Rethink section highlighted alternate models of production and consumption and included designers/artists like Mary Ping from Slow and Steady Wins the Race, Susan Cianciolo, Andrea Zittel, and Kelly Cobb. It was an honor to partner with Pratt Institute including Jon Otis’s exhibition design MA students on an exciting low-carbon footprint exhibit design and with Nick Battis, the director at Pratt Manhattan Gallery who championed our exhibition. I was ever grateful for the opportunity to work with Francesca, who is a genius fashion scholar and treasured colleague to this day. For me, it was the second exhibition that I had ever curated and the first that I installed without mannequins! Although my career has shifted away from solely focusing on fashion, I will always advocate for a more sustainable fashion future!
Sometimes writing just pours out. I didn’t even mean to write this but when I saw that the @costumesocietyamerica peer-reviewed journal #dress had a special issue about fashion and museums, I knew I had something to say. This article pulls together a lot of what I’ve been researching and thinking about and reflects what I’ve been trying to do throughout my career, which is to break down barriers and foster communication and understanding between the curatorial and conservation fields. I’m thrilled that @einavrfox and @pslinks accepted it and I’m grateful for the critical feedback I received from the peer reviewers and other colleagues I shared a draft with. I have a few gift links so DM me if you would like an eprint. Otherwise, link to article in bio! @conservators
I had a great time chatting vintage fashion, conservation, and my thoughts on the upcoming Costume Institute exhibition with @emilymstochl of #prelovedpodcast I also give a few tips at controlling the clothes moth population that is active this time of year! Link in bio!
I’ve been focusing so much lately on my additional chief curator duties at work that I haven’t yet sat with the joy at seeing some of my oldest, newest, and most challenging writings be published. Here are three recently released publications that I’m grateful to see in print!
1-4: I was asked to write the forward to the second edition of the core text Textile Conservation: Advances in Practice. I was nervous as I really wanted to do the state of our field justice, and I hope I captured, somehow, its vibrancy and promise. I also had the opportunity to write about conservators curating exhibitions for the new edition.
5-8: my first fashion writings almost 20 years ago were for @francescacarolinagranata incredible zine @fashionprojectsjournal ❣️ I will always be grateful for her generosity and am so proud to see this new book celebrating the 15-year-long project.
9-10: I’m as much a historian as a conservator and curator, and this article about Victorian mourning crape allowed me to flex my history skills in a multi-methodological approach including technical analysis and a critical reading of materiality, affect, and gender.
It was a week ago that I landed in Madison for three days of incredible experiences at the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection at UW-Madison. Invited to give the Ruth Ketterer Annual Lecture, I spoke on my dissertation topic about the professionalization of textile conservation. Thank you to @textilehistorian for the invitation and the opportunity to work with you and your colleagues in the collection, showing me one of my favorite kinds of textiles - Hmong pleated skirts - and talking about all those special collections management and preservation issues that fashion and textiles have. I also loved visiting classes to speak to students about their work and how fashion archiving, curation, and conservation can enhance thinking about designing fashion. Truly food for the soul, and a goal achieved. And to top it off, we also celebrated @textilehistorian incredible exhibit #remakingtherenaissance featuring wonderful objects and exciting reproductions like the doublet in photo six by the #schoolofhistoricaldress as well as the most incredible cookies.
