Fashion Design Commons^™

Silk Velvets Identified As Byzantine: Were Warp-Looped Silk Pile Velvets Woven Under The Byzantine Empire?, Sumiyo Okumura

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper will examine the possibility of whether warp-looped pile velvets, made of silk, were woven during the Byzantine Empire. This study is a continuation of my research for “Velvet and Patronage: the Origin and Historical Background of Ottoman and Italian Velvets.” Research has been conducted under these five themes: 1. Byzantine silk industry; 2. The terminology of velvet in Greek; 3. Velvets in Byzantine written sources; 4. Historical background: the relation between Byzantines and Latin powers, Turks and the Middle East; 5. Latin trade in the Black Sea and 6. Velvet production in Anatolia in the Byzantine period.

Warp And Weft Twining, And Tablet Weaving Around The Pacific, Tomoko Torimaru, Kathryn Rousso, Laura Filloy Nadal, Alejandro De Ávila B

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Warp and weft twining predates loom-woven textiles in the archaeological record. Although it was displaced by other techniques to produce fabric in areas where it is recorded from early times, such as Egypt, this particular approach to building woven structures is still maintained in scattered areas around the world as part of local traditions with deep significance in ritual and festive life, as well in the heavy subsistence work of agricultural and hunting/fishing communities.

In this roundtable, we propose to describe, illustrate and compare warp and weft twined, and tablet woven textiles from Central America, Mexico, Canada, Alaska, China, Myanmar …

Sanquhar Gloves: An Exemplification Of Deep Local To Pan Global?, Angharad Thomas

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Hand knitted gloves with unique patterning have been produced in the small Scottish town of Sanquhar for probably 200 years. They continue to be produced there today, demonstrating a “deep local” presence spanning many generations. Meanwhile, knowledge of the gloves has spread globally, including the English-speaking world as well as Europe and Scandinavia. Aided by modern social media they have become “pan global” as exemplified in the author’s blog documenting “The Glove Project” (https:knittinggloves.wordpress.com/), the Ravelry group dedicated to Sanquhar knitting (http://www.ravelry.com/groups/sanquhar-knitting-group) and an ongoing online exhibition for the Center for Knit and Crochet USA (http://sanquhargloves.centerforknitandcrochet.org). …

Symposium 2018 -- Program & Information: The Social Fabric: Deep Local To Pan Global Textile Society Of America’S 16th Biennial Symposium

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The theme of TSA’s 16th Biennial Symposium is The Social Fabric: Deep Local to Pan Global. Located on the Pacific Rim, Vancouver offers a pertinent setting to probe the impact and influence of settlers and immigration on an already long-inhabited land, and how textile traditions have been influenced, changed, and/or adapted through and by cultural contact. In 2014 Vancouver city council unanimously voted to acknowledge that the city is on un-ceded Aboriginal territory, creating fertile ground for this conversation. We invite participants to examine textiles within the context of the “Deep Local,” defined as knowledge, beliefs, resources, and practices that …

Getting Located: Queer Semiotics In Dress, C. Zimmerman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

From the effeminate Macarconis of the 18^th century to the “future is female” shirts of 2017, the fashioned body has conveyed desire, signaled safety, and helped build affinity for queer people. This project will take the shape of a deep excavation and careful consideration of the historical precedence of queers encoding the nuances of dress with a multitude of identity affirming and identity challenging practices. Predominant research on unearthing how queer culture was (and is) expressed through dress had focused on the discernible gestures of normative gay male bodies; from ‘flagging’ (i.e. adorning the body with objects such as …

Of The Crickets, Kathryn Lien

Theses and Dissertations

Of the Crickets imagines the overlapping worlds of ethical ecological solutions to climate changed sustenance and the potential for collective excellence in female exclusive environments. Using garments, furniture, site-specific installation and directed performance, the project harnesses social and material sensitivity to mine solutions for idealized living.

Italian Bedfellows: Tristan, Solomon & “Bestes”, Kathryn Berenson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Two surviving late fourteenth-century quilted furnishings, the Coperta Guicciardini in the Museo Nazinale del Bargello, Florence, and the Tristan Quilt in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, depict scenes from the legend of Tristan, one of King Arthur’s knights. Both museums attribute the furnishings to a southern Italian atelier. Research to-date essentially treats these works as if, like Athena from the head of Zeus, they burst complete. Yet by the twelfth century Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Norman occupation and active trade with the Levant, all had contributed to the culture of southern Italy. Prime evidence is the mosaic floor, dated …

Whitework: The Cloth And Call To Action, Sonja Dahl

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the newly independent colonies of the American Northeast, styles of white-on-white quilting and embroidery became popular among women coming of age. Considered the epitome of their needleworking skills, whitework required patience, time, focus, precision, and a steady hand. Such detailed stitchwork on pure white cotton-then a booming industry in the American South-prepared these young women to make homes that were meaningful, full of symbolism and care. Drawing analogy between these historic textiles and current movements for decolonization and anti-racism, this talk expands the term Whitework to function as a call to action, for both myself and other white-identified scholars …

The Techniques Of Samitum. Based On A Reconstruction Of A Silk From The Oseberg Burial, Åse Eriksen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A collection of samitum was found in the Norwegian Viking burial Osebert (834 CE) in 2014. I got the opportunity to study some of the fragments and could reconstruct a nearly full pattern unit from six narrow bands, once cut from the same fabric. I wove a small piece of this fabric in my ordinary flatloom, using both modern dyestuff and fabric spun silk material. Fragments found in Egypt from 400 AD show that both tapestry and taquete were woven in the same fabric. When searching for the loom used for the original samitum fabric, I made a vertical warp …

Indian Basketry In Yosemite Valley, 19th-20th Century: Gertrude “Cosie” Hutchings Mills, Tourists And The National Park Service, Catherine K. Hunter

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Basketry is the highest art form of Native Americans in California. I will focus on Yosemite Valley starting in the 1850s when Native Americans adapted progressively to contact with miners, settlers, and tourists. As a Research Associate at the Peabody Museum, Andover, Massachusetts, I inventoried the Native American Basket Collection. The unpublished Hutchings Mills Collection, acquired by Gertrude ‘Cosie’ Hutchings in Yosemite prior to 1900, caught my attention. In 1986, the Department of the Interior requested the collection be loaned, exchanged, or purchased as “the single most important assemblage from that period.” The collection did not leave Andover; however, one …

Shepherds And Shawls: Making Place In The Western Himalayas, Jennifer Hoover

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Cars weave through the flocks of the Gaddi shepherds as they travel from the plains to high altitude deserts, winding along roads lined with shops selling Kullu shawls. In these ways and more, textiles are the face of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Yet dominant discourses position both the shepherds and weavers of the region as the last hold-outs of endangered traditions. These discourses continue colonial-era assumptions of rural artisans as “primitives” in need of either protection from encroaching industrialization or motivation to modernize. Academic writings, popular visual representations, and government policies also reinforce monolithic identities of herders …

Threads, Twist And Fibre: Looking At Coast Salish Textiles, Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Coast Salish textiles are: remarkable for their quality; unusual in the fibres used; notable in their designs; singular in the innovative processes used to manufacture them. Salish textiles were determined by geography, shaped by trade, and influenced by colonization. That the textile tradition has survived is a reflection of the prestige they hold and the importance of the textiles in the Coast Salish culture. Relatively unknown and underappreciated, the older textiles deserve to be looked at with fresh eyes and modern methods that bring to light the outstanding abilities of the Coast Salish women in the creation of these important …

Ancient, Indigenous And Iconic Textile Motifs In Contemporary Fashion Case Study: Defining Concepts Through Textile Designs: Appropriation, Collaboration, Provenance And Identity, Kristin Scheel Lunde

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper investigates the material and visual characteristics of certain ancient and historical textile motifs with roots in Chinese and African culture, and their sudden appearance in new geographical and cultural context. Appropriated into western contemporary textile and fashion trends, this paper examines the new roles of these designs in context of foreigness, identity, and hybridity. Their consumption and reception both within and beyond their original cultures is a central theme, and it is evident that their reception in both locations, although different, exhibits some similarities. Exploring the transcultural consumption and reception that occurs in various cultural locations this paper …

Nd’Awakananawal Babijigwezijik Wd’Elasawawôganôl: “We Wear The Clothing Of Our Ancestors”, Vera Longtoe Sheehan

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

When thinking of Native American people, a typical image is of tanned people with long dark hair wearing leather and furs in the distant past, but that is not an accurate depiction of the Abenaki people or their textiles. As an Abenaki scholar, artist, and educator, my research into the textile traditions of the Abenaki people includes archaeological evidence, primary resources, and oral history interviews. Abenakis themselves have different ideas of what it traditional because textile and fiber arts evolved over many millennia throughout N’dakinna, the Abenaki homeland which once encompassed Vermont, New Hampshire, northern Massachusetts, and parts of New …

Manipulating The Threads Of Culture: Contemporary Shibori Artist Yvonne Wakabayashi, Eileen Wheeler

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Deeply anchored in her practice of shaping and manipulating fibre are both the aesthetic integral to Yvonne Wakabayashi’s Japanese heritage and the inspiration of the natural environment she finds along the shores of her own birth place, Canada’s west coast. Wakabayashi’s journey to find her authentic voice in her varied textile works, engaged both historical craft practices of Japan and printmaking processes of the West. Most importantly, it led to the discovery of shibori with its ancestral links and innovative contemporary possibilities. This paper explores how an individual artist embraces her artistic cultural identity that also negotiates the upheaval wrought …

Bodylore And Dress, Amy K. Milligan

Women's & Gender Studies Faculty Publications

Bodylore includes the ways in which the body is used as a canvas for inherited and chosen identity. Bodylore considers the symbolic inventory of dress and hair, addressing a range of identities from conservative religious groups like the Amish and the Hasidim to edgy goth and punk devotees. The body is scripted in portrayals of race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, and politics, including such topics as tattoos, piercing, scarification, hair covering and styling, traditional and folk dress, fashion, and body modification. The central bodylore questions are whether individuals choose consciously or subconsciously to engage with their performative body, as well …

Gender Beyond Binary, Sidra Zubairi

Theses and Dissertations

Transgender individuals challenge the binary definition of gender accepted in Pakistani society and as a result, Pakistan’s transgender community is highly marginalized. Pakistani society regards transgender individuals as “abnormal,” because their physical appearance and behavior fail to conform with conventional expectations. Based on contextual research and interviews conducted with transgender individuals in Pakistan, my thesis explores the obstacles transgender individuals face in the course of everyday survival. My research responds to the physical realities of being transgender in Pakistani society and analyzes cultural norms associated with gender, which trigger harassment. By designing transformable apparel for these individuals, informed by primary …

The Classical Versus The Grotesque Body In Edith Wharton's Fiction, Joshua T. Temples

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In her landmark works The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920), Edith Wharton responds to earlier depictions of the classical, pure Victorian and Edwardian woman. Wharton's "inconvenient" women overturn popular stereotypes. Subsequently, they are barred from their social groups, but they are independent, unlike the complicit and obedient women of the classical body, most of whom ascribe to the trope of the "Angel in the House." The grotesque seeks to undercut the unrealistic expectations enforced by the classical through its embodiment of progression and humanity, and Wharton is drawn to …

Enhancing Handbag Design Through Anti-Counterfeit Technology, Kylie R. Carroll

Undergraduate Research Posters

In recent years, the presence of counterfeit goods has become a $600 billion global industry, encompassing markets ranging from designer luxury goods to pharmaceuticals. This paper identifies the threat that this increased counterfeit presence poses on the high-end handbag market. Increased counterfeit quality is significantly contributing to the deception of consumers when attempting to purchase authentic designer handbags. In response to this increased threat, numerous designer brands have begun to adopt anti-counterfeit technologies with both track-and-trace and authentication agendas, to enhance the security of their products against the counterfeit industry. Several variations of anti-counterfeit solutions exist, and this paper specifically …

Exploring Illusions Of Height In Suit Design, Michael P. Lee

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Objective: The goal of this research was to explore how the design of clothing, specifically the design of the suit, can create height illusions.

Background: Taller people enjoy many advantages, such as increased income and perceived attractiveness. These advantages motivate people to try to appear taller than they actually are, and clothing experts provide advice on how to accomplish this. However, there is little empirical evidence to validate the illusory effects clothing might have on overall height perception. The few studies that have explored illusions of body size created by clothing design have been limited in two important ways – …