Pocket, single, c. 1800, 60.504, Amgueddfa Cymru, Sain Ffagan, Caerdydd / National Museum Wales St Fagans, Cardiff. Part of the Pockets of History Collection.

The workshop on: ‘The Creation, Collection and Care of Textiles and Dress in Museums and Historic Houses:  Amateurs and Professionals’
will take place at the University of Wolverhampton
on 11 June 2015

The programme, together with abstracts, registration details and further information, can be found at:
http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6086/textiles2015.htm

The programme includes:

Brenda King, Chair – the Textile Society, ‘A big story in a small thing’

Vivienne Richmond, Goldsmiths, University of London, ‘Unpicking the History of Disability and Craftwork’

Ann French, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester ‘ “We are doing what seems to me the most scientific way of cataloguing an embroidery collection….” :   Reflecting on the collector’s legacy’

Katy May, ‘Revisiting the clothing of Mr and Mrs Tobitt (d.1987)’

Kathryn Rogerson, Harris Museum and Art…

11 September 2014

University of Wolverhampton, UK

CHORD invites proposals for papers that explore the work of retailing and /or distribution. All forms of work (paid and unpaid) in the retailing and distributive trades are of interest, from small shopkeepers, shop assistants, pedlers and market sellers, to large-scale entrepreneurs, wholesalers and distributors. We welcome all disciplinary perspectives and there are no limitations in terms of the historical period or geographical area covered.

Possible topics might include but are not limited to:

§  Strikes and workplace strife

§  Retail management, entrepreneurship and business practices

§  Workplace rituals and traditions

§  Marketing and salesmanship

§  Trade unions, trade associations and associational life

§  Representations of retail work and work-based identities

§  Training, skill, apprenticeships and guilds

§  Gender divisions of labour, respectability and status

§  Technologies, innovations and spatial strategies

To submit a proposal, please send title and abstract of c.300 to…

12 June 2014

University of Wolverhampton, UK

The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) invites proposals for papers that focus on any aspect of textile and dress ‘fragments’ held in museums, historic houses, archives or other repositories, including private collections.

We invite papers both from historians and scholars whose research makes use of fragmentary textiles and dress, and from museum professionals who are responsible for their care, interpretation and display.

We welcome both proposals that focus on the insights the ‘fragments’ provide on the history of textiles and dress, and proposals that consider their value and challenges as museum objects.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

§  Patterns and pattern books

§  Re-used and out of context textiles

§  Off-cuts, patches, threads and spare material

§  Incomplete and fragmentary dress

§  Scraps and scrapbooks

§ Representations and uses of textile fragments

§  Samples and swatches

14 May 2014

University of Wolverhampton, UK

The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) invites proposals for papers that explore the relationship between retailing, commerce and human bodies, in Britain and beyond. Any aspect of the commercial and retail practices practices that are connected to the business of exploiting, caring for, or ‘improving’ bodies would be welcome and there are no restrictions in terms of the historical period covered.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

§  Hairdressers, barbers and beauty salons

§  Undertakers and funeral parlours

§  Marketing, bodies and sexuality

§  Tattoo parlours and tanning salons

§  Grooming products, perfumery and toiletries

§  Measuring, fitting and ‘trying-on’

§  Massage parlours, Turkish baths and spas

§  Photography shops and portaiture

To submit a proposal, please send title and abstract of c.300 to 400 words to Laura Ugolini at l.ugolini@wlv.ac.uk by 21 February 2014.

The workshop…

The programme of the 2013 CHORD Conference, which will take place at the Marks and Spencer Company Archive, Leeds, on 5 September 2013, is now ready and registration is open.

9.30 – 10.00 Clare Backhouse, Courtauld Institute of Art, UK, ‘Broadside ballads, Dress and the Senses in Seventeenth-Century England’

10.00 – 10.30 Lucy A. Bailey, University of Northampton, UK, ‘An Assault on the Senses: Cultural Representations of the Victorian Village Shop’

 10.30 – 11.00 coffee

 11.00 – 11.30 Ben Highmore, Sussex University, UK, ‘Provençal Herbs and the Chicken Brick: Sensual Orchestration at the first Habitat Store’

11.30 -12.00 Ai Hisano, University of Delaware, US, ‘The Color of Taste: Selling Food in Clear Packages in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States’

12.00- 13.30 Lunch and Tour of the Archives

13.30 – 14.45A Touch of Cloth

Serena Dyer, University of Warwick, UK, ‘”Discomposing the Goods”: Sensory Shopping and the…