Fashion in History: A Global Look Tutor: Giorgio Riello Week 5 Tuesday 28 October 2008 ‘Worlds...

Fashion in History: A Global Look

Tutor: Giorgio Riello

Week 5

Tuesday 28 October 2008

‘Worlds with no Fashion? Fashion and Identity in Europe and Asia’

Time Space

Fashion Short time Large spaces

Costume Long time Short spaces

Simmel’s difference between ‘Fashion’ and ‘costumeSimmel’s difference between ‘Fashion’ and ‘costume

1.Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

1.Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

1. What were the conditions for Fashion to exist/emerge also outside Europe?

2. and secondly, if it existed, when did it exist?

1.Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

Braudel does not think that extra-European people did not have fashion because they are primitive

(Flugel/Simmel)

He thinks that their model is about ‘fixity’, rather than ‘fashion’ because they lack the context in which

fashion can emerge

“The Turks do not dress like us, in various fashions (guise), but all generally in one shape of garments”

Antonio Menavino about Turkey in the 1540s

1.Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

Critiques to Braudel’s position:

1. He observed a tiny minority of the population;

2. The information comes (mostly) from foreigners;

3. These observers were unable to comprehend the overall ‘clothing system’;

4. ‘Fashion’ might be defined by different rules

Craig Clunas compares sumptuary laws Craig Clunas compares sumptuary laws in China and Europe and concludes that in China and Europe and concludes that

China had thriving fashionChina had thriving fashion

1.Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

1.Personal Expression (‘Express yourself’)Tim Brook in his Confusion of Pleasures describes China as a dynamic and open society

2. The Urban Context o FashionThe largest cities in the world were located in Asia and had a complex and sophisticated social structure

3. Presence of intermediaries The Indian and Chinese Oceans were key places for commerce

One of the hypotheses on the ‘birth of fashion’ in Europe is that fashion was the result of an exposure to

luxury textiles coming from the Islamic culture, during the Crusades.

2. European Fashion and the Extra-European World

Marco Polo in the first printed edition of Il Milione

Is this really a viable hypothesis to explain the birth of fashion?

2. European Fashion and the Extra-European World

1. Only if the exotic, the foreign and the different is valued rather than dismissed. Georg Simmel thoughts that this is a characteristic of ‘higher civilizations’

2. It implies the importance of ‘encounters’. Fashion is not a national phenomenon but the result of connections across space.

3. Fashion is about ‘novelty’, something unexpected, rather than something luxurious.

Is this really a viable hypothesis to explain the birth of fashion?

CRITICISM

2. European Fashion and the Extra-European World

1. Unclear who engages with fashion: crusaders? Merchants? Women?

2. There is nothing inherently ‘fashionable’ in silks

3. Why didn’t fashion exist outside Europe?

3. How ‘Exotic’ was Extra-European Dress?

Silk turban, 1400-1450

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 24/1864

Silk velvet head dress, 1400-1450

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 24/1706

Liberale da Verona, ‘Death Standing in a Landscape’, in Book of Hours for Dominican Use, Italy, Siena, 1475 , 1445¡V1527/29 .

Andrea Mantegna, Adorazione dei Magi

Mantegna, Adoration

Anonymous Venetian painter, The Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus, Venice, 1511. Oil on canvas, 118 x 203 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Cotton Kaftan belonging to Sultan Mehmed II, c. 1470.

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 11/10

Silk and fur Kaftan belonging to Sultan Mehmed II, c. 1470.

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 11/20

Kaftan, figured silk brocade with metal threads, belonging to Sultan Selim I, c. 1515.

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 13/42

4. The Intensification of Contact

Albrecht Dürer, Rhinoceros, woodcut, 1515

The Portuguese in Japan in 1542

Matteo Ricci at 60, 1610.

Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II, dated 25 November 1480.

Oil on canvas; 65 x 52 cm. The National Gallery, London.

The portrait of Sultan Mehmet, the Conqueror, ascribed from Sinan Bey.

From Sarai Albums.Istanbul, end of fifteenth century.Hazine 2153, folio 10a.

http://www.geocities.com/anahita_whitehorse/ottofemcloth.html

“European illustrators used costume as a means to order an expanding an increasingly unruly image of the world… [by] condensing the world into images” (Wilson, p. 100).

5. Books of Costume

5. Books of Costume

The Johan van Lynden Book is the oldest ‘Album Amicorum' in the Netherlands.

It probably belonged to Johan van Lynden of Hattem and contains poems and song texts in Dutch, French, Latin of about fifty male and female individuals and students and twenty coloured hand-drawn coats of arms collected in Koln and Nijmegen between 1556 and 1578.

5. Books of Costume

http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/resources/collections/specdivision/botmjan07.shtml

Album Amicorum of Michael van Meer, early 17th century, early 17th century

5. Books of Costume

Published

40 books of costumes were published between 1560 and 1645 in Europe,

or if we count multiple editions there are over 50 costume books published in the period 1560 to 1610.

5. Books of Costume

Subject matter

1. PersonalThe ‘Tachtenbuch’ (The book of forms, shapes, fashions) of Matthaus Schwarz (b. 1497) is a collection of 137 drawings of the clothed that he wore during his life.

2. Single placesMost books however concentrate on specific localities as in the case of the books by Jorg Praun and Hans Niedermeyer, both from Innsbruck.

3. Large geographiesThe most famous is the book by Vecellio

5. Books of Costume

from Description De L' Univers, Contenant Les Differents Systemes Du Monde, by Allain Manesson Mallet, published by Jean david Zunner in Paris, 1685. Alain Manesson Mallet (1630 – 1706) was a French cartographer and engineer.. His major publications were Description de L'Univers (1683) in 5 volumes, and Les Travaux de Mars ou l'Art de la Guerre (1684) in 3 volumes

from Modern History: or, the Present State of all Nations, by

Thomas Salmon, published by Bettesworth & Hitch, London, 1739.

What did they represent?

1. CostumePublished books in particular are collections of costumes. They often present a static view of society

2. They are not photographsTheir ethnographic mission is often limited.

3. Moral ViewThey often provide a moral view of the world that they portray.

5. Books of Costume

How were they made?

1. They follow certain style conventions from previous published examples. 2. In certain cases, the artist’s knowledge could be either direct or informed by research. Vecellio:

“No one can imagine the difficulty that I’ve encountered in describing these costumes (habiti), many of which cannot have

certain knowledge, because of the distance of the place, because of unknown countries, some of which without commerce…”

3. In some cases they were re-printed and published in several languages. An example is Nicolay’s, Voyage into Turkey. 4. Certain images were copied from pattern books. These ‘prototypes’ must have been easily available from artists’ workshops and printshops5. They circulated and informed taste for future books.

5. Books of Costume

Married Greek woman from Pera/Galata.

Colored version (German edition). I believe the colorist has mistakenly portraid her as wearing stockings, rather than trousers.

Married Greek woman from Pera/Galata.

Colored version (German edition). I believe the colorist has mistakenly portraid her as wearing stockings, rather than trousers.

Married Greek woman from Pera/Galata.

Colored version (German edition). I believe the colorist has mistakenly portraid her as wearing stockings, rather than trousers.

Married Greek woman from Pera/Galata.

Colored version (German edition). I believe the colorist has mistakenly portraid her as wearing stockings, rather than trousers.

Married Greek woman from Pera/Galata.

Colored version (German edition). I believe the colorist has mistakenly portraid her as wearing stockings, rather than trousers.

Married Greek woman from Pera/Galata (French Edition 1568)

Colored version (German edition). It is believed the colourist has mistakenly portrayed her as wearing stockings, rather than trousers.(1585).(1585)

Nicolay, The Navigations, Peregrinations and Voyages Made into Turkey.

http://livingpast.com/europ.html

How were they made?

1. They follow certain style conventions from previous published examples. 2. In certain cases, the artist’s knowledge could be either direct or informed by research. Vecellio:

“No one can imagine the difficulty that I’ve encountered in describing these costumes (habiti), many of which cannot have

certain knowledge, because of the distance of the place, because of unknown countries, some of which without commerce…”

3. In some cases they were re-printed and published in several languages. An example is Nicolay’s, Voyage into Turkey. 4. Certain images were copied from pattern books. These ‘prototypes’ must have been easily available from artists’ workshops and printshops5. They circulated and informed taste for future books.

5. Books of Costume

What was their use?

1. Ann Rosalind Jones observes that these were not early modern copies of Vogue!

2. they could work as a souvenir

3. as a guide to a society

4. to compare one’s society

5. awareness of the world

5. Books of Costume