Dressing The Past

Minoan ladies, Scythian warriors, Roman and Sarmatian merchants, prehistoric weavers, gold sheet figures, Vikings, Medieval saints and sinners, Renaissance noblemen, Danish peasants, dressmakers and Hollywood stars appear in the pages of this anthology. This is not necessarily how they dressed in the past, but how the authors of this book think they dressed in the past, and why they think so. No reader of this book will ever look at a reconstructed costume in a museum or at a historical festival, or watch a film with a historic theme again without a heightened awareness of how, why, and from what sources, the costumes were reconstructed. The seventeen contributors come from a variety of disciplines: archaeologists, historians, curators with ethnological and anthropological backgrounds, designers, a weaver, a conservator and a scholar of fashion in cinema, are all specialists interested in ancient or historical dress who wish to share their knowledge and expertise with students, hobby enthusiasts and the general reader. The anthology is also recommended for use in teaching students at design schools.

“An important, persuasive, and fascinating intervention in the literature on the American frontier." —Lisa Duggan, author of The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy “Peter Boag's Re-dressing America's Frontier Past does just that: it re-imagines the American West as a place where cross-dressing is abundant and its meanings are as varied as the individuals themselves. Vividly written and broad in scope, Boag's compelling narrative debunks the gendered myths of the west and writes hundreds of stories back into history.” —Nan Alamilla Boyd, author of Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 “Peter Boag’s Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past invites readers to reimagine fundamental ideas about sex, gender, and the history of the American West. Brilliant and perceptive, Boag rediscovers a past that once existed but that was forgotten as new ideas about sexuality emerged in the early twentieth century. Boag makes the lives of the West’s many cross-dressers central to his narrative, and the world they reveal gives us an opportunity to understand history in ways that are more comprehensive and humane. Boag's book sheds new light on the American frontier as well as the history of sex and gender.” —Albert Hurtado, author of Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender, and Culture in Old California “Peter Boag uncovers the rich and heretofore hidden history of cross dressers with wit and wisdom, humor and humanity. He adds another crucial layer to our understanding of the West's complicated gendered past and in the process demolishes the region's mythical identity as a virile, white, masculine, heterosexual frontier. The book illuminates the sources of that limited view and liberates us from it.” —Sherry L. Smith, author of Reimaging Indians: Native Americans Through Anglo Eyes, 1880-1940 “A fascinating excursion into a side of western life rarely acknowledged today but surprisingly open and remarked upon at the time. Boag's thoughts on the reasons for the historical blurring are as provocative as his stories are intriguing and often poignant.” —Elliott West, author of The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story “This book by the foremost historian of sexuality in the American West is a classic before its time. The history of Westerns cross-dressing is placed within numerous historical contexts, deeply researched, and presented with multiple nuances and thorough analysis. At the same time, we learn of the personal, of the many people who might never have had their significant stories. A stellar and stunning work!” —John R. Wunder, author of “Writing of Race, Class, Gender, and Power in the American West” in North America: Tensions and (Re)Solutions “Original and provocative—Boag finds ample evidence of women and men in western towns and cities who challenged familiar binaries of heteronormative manhood and womanhood through cross-dressing, same-sex intimacy, and trans-gendered identities. But the real story is how communities made meaning of these identities. Boag links sexologists’ promotion of heteronormativity with notions of a redemptive frontier, anti-modernism, and national identity. The results are entirely new perspectives on the imagined West and its place in American history.” —Dee Garceau-Hagen, editor of Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West

An understanding of textiles and the role they played in the past is important for anyone interested in past societies. Textiles served and in fact still do as both functional and symbolic items. The evidence for ancient textiles in Europe is split quite definitely along a north-south divide, with an abundance of actual examples in the north, but precious little in the south, where indirect evidence comes from such things as vase painting and frescoes. This volume brings together these two schools to look in more detail at textiles in the ancient world, and is based on a conference held in Denmark and Sweden in March 2003. Section one, Production and Organisation takes a chronological look through more than four thousand years of history; from Syria in the mid-third millennium BC, to Seventeenth Century Germany. Section two, Crafts and Technology focuses on the relationship between the primary producer (the craftsman) and the secondary receiver (the archaeologist/conservator). The third section, Society, examines the symbolic nature of textiles, and their place within ancient societal groups. Throughout the book emphasis is placed on the universality of textiles, and the importance of information exchange between scholars from different disciplines. A small book on finds First Aid for the Excavation of Archaeological Textiles is included as an Appendix.

From insidious murder weapons to blaze-igniting crinolines, clothing has been the cause of death, disease and madness throughout history, by accident and design. Clothing is designed to protect, shield and comfort us, yet lurking amongst seemingly innocuous garments we find hats laced with mercury, frocks laden with arsenic and literally 'drop-dead gorgeous' gowns. Fabulously gory and gruesome, Fashion Victims takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the lethal history of women's, men's and children's dress, in myth and reality. Drawing upon surviving fashion objects and numerous visual and textual sources, encompassing louse-ridden military uniforms, accounts of the fiery deaths of Oscar Wilde's half-sisters and dancer Isadora Duncan's accidental strangulation by entangled scarf; the book explores how garments have tormented those who made and wore them, and harmed animals and the environment in the process. Vividly chronicling evidence from Greek mythology to the present day, Matthews David puts everyday apparel under the microscope and unpicks the dark side of fashion. Fashion Victims is lavishly illustrated with over 125 images and is a remarkable resource for everyone from scholars and students to fashion enthusiasts.

Eighteenth-century women told their life stories through making. With its compelling stories of women's material experiences and practices, Material Lives offers a new perspective on eighteenth-century production and consumption. Genteel women's making has traditionally been seen as decorative, trivial and superficial. Yet their material archives, forged through fabric samples, watercolours, dressed prints and dolls' garments, reveal how women used the material culture of making to record and navigate their lives. Material Lives positions women as 'makers' in a consumer society. Through fragments of fabric and paper, Dyer explores an innovative way of accessing the lives of otherwise obscured women. For researchers and students of material culture, dress history, consumption, gender and women's history, it offers a rich resource to illuminate the power of needles, paintbrushes and scissors.

Includes Paul Poiret, Jeanne Paquin, Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix, Maison Lucile, Coco Chanel, Jacques Doucet, Jean Patou, Callot Soeurs, Jeanne Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet, Elsa Schiaparelli, Adrian, Christian Dior, Madame Gr{grave}es, Charles James, Crist{acute}obal Balenciaga, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Balmain, Pierre Cardin, Emilio Pucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Halston, Ralph Lauren, Kenzo, Christian Lacroix, Thierry Mugler, Yohji Yamamoto, Gianni Versace, Calvin Klein, Martin Margiela, and others.

Dress helps us fashion identity, history, community, and place. Dress has been harnessed as a metaphor for both progress and stability, the exotic and the utopian, oppression and freedom, belonging and resistance. Dressing with Purpose examines three Scandinavian dress traditions—Swedish folkdräkt, Norwegian bunad, and Sámi gákti—and traces their development during two centuries of social and political change across northern Europe. By the 20th century, many in Sweden worried about the ravages of industrialization, urbanization, and emigration on traditional ways of life. Norway was gripped in a struggle for national independence. Indigenous Sámi communities—artificially divided by national borders and long resisting colonial control—rose up in protests that demanded political recognition and sparked cultural renewal. Within this context of European nation-building, colonial expansion, and Indigenous activism, traditional dress took on special meaning as folk, national, or ethnic minority costumes—complex categories that deserve reexamination today. Through lavishly illustrated and richly detailed case studies, Dressing with Purpose introduces readers to individuals who adapt and revitalize dress traditions to articulate who they are, proclaim personal values and group allegiances, strive for sartorial excellence, reflect critically on the past, and ultimately, reshape the societies they live in.

The distinctive style of the Regency period is a source of endless fascination for fashion academics and historians, living historians, re-enactors and costume designers for stage and screen. Author and fashion historian Cassidy Percoco has delved into little-known museum hoards to create a stunning collection of 26 garments, many with clear provenance tied to a specific location, which have never before been published and never – or very rarely – displayed. Most of the garments have an aspect in their construction that has not been previously documented, from a style of skirt trim to the method of gown closure. This practical guide begins with a general history of the early 19th-century women's dress. This is followed by 26 patterns of gowns, spencers, chemises, and corsets, each with an illustration of the finished piece and description of its construction. This must-have guide is an essential reference for anyone interested in the fashions or the history of the period, or for anyone wishing to recreate their own beautiful Regency clothing.