Diapositiva 1

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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
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1. Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

Simmels difference between Fashion and costume
Time Space
Fashion Short time Large spaces
Costume Long time Short spaces
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1. Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

• What were the conditions for Fashion to
  exist/emerge also outside Europe?
• 2. and secondly, if it existed, when did it
  exist?

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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
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1. Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

• Critiques to Braudels position
• 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 in China and
Europe and concludes that China had thriving
fashion
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1. Did Fashion Exist outside Europe?

• Personal Expression (Express yourself)
• Tim Brook in his Confusion of Pleasures describes
  China as a dynamic and open society
• 2. The Urban Context o Fashion
• The 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

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2. European Fashion and the Extra-European World
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.
Marco Polo in the first printed edition of Il
Milione
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2. European Fashion and the Extra-European World
Is this really a viable hypothesis to explain the
birth of fashion?
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.
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2. European Fashion and the Extra-European World
Is this really a viable hypothesis to explain the
birth of fashion? CRITICISM
1. Unclear who engages with fashion crusaders?
Merchants? Women?
2. There is nothing inherently fashionable in
silks
3. Why didnt fashion exist outside Europe?
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3. How Exotic was Extra-European Dress?
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Silk velvet head dress, 1400-1450 Topkapi
Palace, Istanbul, 24/1706
Silk turban, 1400-1450 Topkapi Palace, Istanbul,
24/1864
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Liberale da Verona, Death Standing in a
Landscape, in Book of Hours for Dominican Use,
Italy, Siena, 1475 , 1445V1527/29 .
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Andrea Mantegna, Adorazione dei Magi
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Mantegna, Adoration
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Anonymous Venetian painter, The Reception of the
Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus, Venice, 1511.
Oil on canvas, 118 x 203 cm. Musée du Louvre,
Paris
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Silk and fur Kaftan belonging to Sultan Mehmed
II, c. 1470. Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 11/20
Cotton Kaftan belonging to Sultan Mehmed II, c.
1470. Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 11/10
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Kaftan, figured silk brocade with metal threads,
belonging to Sultan Selim I, c. 1515. Topkapi
Palace, Istanbul, 13/42
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4. The Intensification of Contact
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Albrecht Dürer, Rhinoceros, woodcut, 1515
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The Portuguese in Japan in 1542
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Matteo Ricci at 60, 1610.
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Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II,
dated 25 November 1480. Oil on canvas 65 x 52
cm. The National Gallery, London.
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The portrait of Sultan Mehmet, the Conqueror,
ascribed from Sinan Bey. From Sarai
Albums.Istanbul, end of fifteenth
century.Hazine 2153, folio 10a.
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http//www.geocities.com/anahita_whitehorse/ottofe
mcloth.html
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5. Books of Costume
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).
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5. Books of Costume
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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.
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5. Books of Costume
Album Amicorum of Michael van Meer, early 17th
century
http//www.lib.ed.ac.uk/resources/collections/spec
division/botmjan07.shtml
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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.
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5. Books of Costume
Subject matter 1. Personal The 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 places Most books however concentrate on
specific localities as in the case of the books
by Jorg Praun and Hans Niedermeyer, both from
Innsbruck. 3. Large geographies The most famous
is the book by Vecellio
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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
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from Modern History or, the Present State of all
Nations, by Thomas Salmon, published
by Bettesworth Hitch, London, 1739.
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5. Books of Costume
What did they represent? 1. Costume Published
books in particular are collections of costumes.
They often present a static view of society 2.
They are not photographs Their ethnographic
mission is often limited. 3. Moral View They
often provide a moral view of the world that they
portray.
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5. Books of Costume
How were they made? 1. They follow certain style
conventions from previous published examples. 2.
In certain cases, the artists knowledge could be
either direct or informed by research. Vecellio
No one can imagine the difficulty that Ive
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 Nicolays, Voyage into Turkey. 4.
Certain images were copied from pattern books.
These prototypes must have been easily
available from artists workshops and
printshops 5. They circulated and informed taste
for future books.
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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.
Nicolay, The Navigations, Peregrinations and
Voyages Made into Turkey.
http//livingpast.com/europ.html
Colored version (German edition). It is believed
the colourist has mistakenly portrayed her as
wearing stockings, rather than trousers.(1585)
Married Greek woman from Pera/Galata (French
Edition 1568)
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5. Books of Costume
How were they made? 1. They follow certain style
conventions from previous published examples. 2.
In certain cases, the artists knowledge could be
either direct or informed by research. Vecellio
No one can imagine the difficulty that Ive
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 Nicolays, Voyage into Turkey. 4.
Certain images were copied from pattern books.
These prototypes must have been easily
available from artists workshops and
printshops 5. They circulated and informed taste
for future books.
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5. Books of Costume

• What was their use?
• 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 ones society
• 5. awareness of the world