FIELDSTUDY 4
FIELDSTUDY 4
FIELDSTUDY 4
A L I STAIR O NEILL N I C K CLEMENTS S ANDY BLACK C HLOE VEALE WA R R EN NEIDICH K AT H ERINE BAIRD J AN FARRELL A M Y DE LA HAYE O R I OLE CULLEN ST E L L A MITCHELL R O G E R HARGREAVES M A R K E TA UHLIROVA D E R EK RIDGERS S U ZI VAUGHAN A L I S ON SHREEVE C A R OL TULLOCH
Top: Jan Farrell Summer balmoral boot c1905 Cordwainers shoe collection left: Alistair O’Neill Wolf Suschitszky, Man having his shoes shined, Charing Cross Road, London. c1937 Front: Derek Ridgers Theresa, Hell 1980
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A L I STAIR O NEILL N I C K CLEMENTS S ANDY BLACK C HLOE VEALE WA R R EN NEIDICH K AT H ERINE BAIRD J AN FARRELL A M Y DE LA HAYE O R I OLE CULLEN ST E L L A MITCHELL R O G E R HARGREAVES M A R K E TA UHLIROVA D E R EK RIDGERS S U ZI VAUGHAN A L I S ON SHREEVE C A R OL TULLOCH
Top: Jan Farrell Summer balmoral boot c1905 Cordwainers shoe collection left: Alistair O’Neill Wolf Suschitszky, Man having his shoes shined, Charing Cross Road, London. c1937 Front: Derek Ridgers Theresa, Hell 1980
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This issue of Fieldstudy is a record of the Photography and The Archive research Centre’s second study day. Unfolding the Tissue, held at London College of Fashion in December 2004, was an exploration and a celebration of the fashion archive. From photographs to embroidery, from the 19th century to the 1980s, from oral history to re-enactments, the fashion archive is central to our understanding of the past. In the museum, costume collections attract more interest than cases of roman coins on the street; vintage dress is a magnet for both the fashion conscious and for the design industry.
UNFOLDING THE TISSUE: THE FASHION AND THE ARCHIVE STUDY DAY VAL WILLIAMS
The fashion archive is everywhere, from theatrical costumiers to our own attics. We keep clothes because they remind us of what was or what might have been, they are the containers of memory. In the excavation of mass graves in the Balkans in the Nineties, victims were often identified by scraps of clothing, fragments of shoes. A favourite scarf or a pair of high- heeled shoes become clues, identifiers. The relationship between the study of fashion design and the interrogation of fashion history is a complex one. Fashion design looks forward- each collection is a new beginning; while fashion history venerates the past. The archive, as Katherine Baird showed when she spoke at the study day, is a central and vital part of the London College of Fashion. It gives breadth and depth and history to an institution which might otherwise always be linked the ‘the new’. This archive reminds us that ‘fashion’ was once dressmaking and needlework. Amy de la Haye’s research has uncovered beguiling notes left by an English aristocrat on her carefully packed away garments, messages which gives us tantalising information about the wearer and the times she lived in- personal diary entries with an edge of melancholy. The study day uncovered archives, some well known, others yet to be so. Marketa Uhlirova’s contribution of oral history to The London Look exhibition made the carefully hung garments come to life. Jan Farrell talked about the Cordwainers shoe collection, true vernacular objects which continue to influenced shoe design. Photographer Derek Ridgers stood outside London clubs in the early Eighties waiting to photograph the gaudy, extravagant costumes of the New Romantics, creating a record referred to time and time again by historians and designers. The History of Advertising Trust Archive is a cornucopia of messages- advising us what we should buy, how we should look, describing fabrics and lifestyles to a mass audience. Wedding photography, as examined by Roger Hargreaves, is a crossing point between the family snapshot and the fashion image, telling stories, creating fictions. And when the artist encounters the archive, mysterious events are in store- Warren Neidich invents a new and perplexing history for us to study, an authenticity soon denied. From the popular culture of Stella Mitchell’s private museum to the estates of fashion photographer Guy Bourdin, from Black British style to the simple smock of 19th century Australia from Mods to knitwear, from Charing Cross in the Thirties to Heaven, Blitz and the Camden Palace- the way we store, remember and examine the fashion archive is remarkable, important and always open to question.
Stella Mitchell Land of Lost Content The National Museum of popular Culture
F I E L D ST U DY 4
This issue of Fieldstudy is a record of the Photography and The Archive research Centre’s second study day. Unfolding the Tissue, held at London College of Fashion in December 2004, was an exploration and a celebration of the fashion archive. From photographs to embroidery, from the 19th century to the 1980s, from oral history to re-enactments, the fashion archive is central to our understanding of the past. In the museum, costume collections attract more interest than cases of roman coins on the street; vintage dress is a magnet for both the fashion conscious and for the design industry.
UNFOLDING THE TISSUE: THE FASHION AND THE ARCHIVE STUDY DAY VAL WILLIAMS
The fashion archive is everywhere, from theatrical costumiers to our own attics. We keep clothes because they remind us of what was or what might have been, they are the containers of memory. In the excavation of mass graves in the Balkans in the Nineties, victims were often identified by scraps of clothing, fragments of shoes. A favourite scarf or a pair of high- heeled shoes become clues, identifiers. The relationship between the study of fashion design and the interrogation of fashion history is a complex one. Fashion design looks forward- each collection is a new beginning; while fashion history venerates the past. The archive, as Katherine Baird showed when she spoke at the study day, is a central and vital part of the London College of Fashion. It gives breadth and depth and history to an institution which might otherwise always be linked the ‘the new’. This archive reminds us that ‘fashion’ was once dressmaking and needlework. Amy de la Haye’s research has uncovered beguiling notes left by an English aristocrat on her carefully packed away garments, messages which gives us tantalising information about the wearer and the times she lived in- personal diary entries with an edge of melancholy. The study day uncovered archives, some well known, others yet to be so. Marketa Uhlirova’s contribution of oral history to The London Look exhibition made the carefully hung garments come to life. Jan Farrell talked about the Cordwainers shoe collection, true vernacular objects which continue to influenced shoe design. Photographer Derek Ridgers stood outside London clubs in the early Eighties waiting to photograph the gaudy, extravagant costumes of the New Romantics, creating a record referred to time and time again by historians and designers. The History of Advertising Trust Archive is a cornucopia of messages- advising us what we should buy, how we should look, describing fabrics and lifestyles to a mass audience. Wedding photography, as examined by Roger Hargreaves, is a crossing point between the family snapshot and the fashion image, telling stories, creating fictions. And when the artist encounters the archive, mysterious events are in store- Warren Neidich invents a new and perplexing history for us to study, an authenticity soon denied. From the popular culture of Stella Mitchell’s private museum to the estates of fashion photographer Guy Bourdin, from Black British style to the simple smock of 19th century Australia from Mods to knitwear, from Charing Cross in the Thirties to Heaven, Blitz and the Camden Palace- the way we store, remember and examine the fashion archive is remarkable, important and always open to question.
Stella Mitchell Land of Lost Content The National Museum of popular Culture
F I E L D ST U DY 4
left: Carol Tulloch Ernest Dyche Birmingham Central Library top: Amy de la Haye Collection of Anne, Countess of Rosse The Messel Family Dress Collection 1865-2005
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left: Carol Tulloch Ernest Dyche Birmingham Central Library top: Amy de la Haye Collection of Anne, Countess of Rosse The Messel Family Dress Collection 1865-2005
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previous: Warren Neidich From American History Reinvented, 1991???
Katherine Baird Joan Sheridan Archive
Katherine Baird London Log Archive
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previous: Warren Neidich From American History Reinvented, 1991???
Katherine Baird Joan Sheridan Archive
Katherine Baird London Log Archive
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“AN ORAL RECORDING IS THE VOICE, ITS COLOUR AND TONE, THE ACCENT, THE DICTION. IT IS THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF SPEAKING SUCH AS THE REPETITION OF CHARACTERISTIC EXPRESSIONS, SLIPS OF TONGUE, THE SPEEDING OVER PASSAGES CONSIDERED UNIMPORTANT OR INTRUSIVE, AND THE SLOWING DOWN WHEN IT’S FELT AN EMPHASIS IS NEEDED. IT’S THE IMPATIENCE IN THE SPEAKER’S VOICE, SOMETIMES VERGING ON AGGRESSION, OR THE COOPERATIVE, BENEVOLENT GESTURE OF RETELLING TRIVIAL MEMORIES. IT’S THE SHORT SILENCES AND THE LONG PAUSES MADE TO FORMULATE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS, TO FIND WORDS, TO FIND THE RIGHT WORDS, TO ACTUALLY REMEMBER SOMETJING FROM THE PAST OR TO ADD PATHOS AND GRAVITAS. IT’S THE LAUGHING OR THE MUFFLED CHUCKLING, THE HOWLING, THE DEEP BREATHING (WHEN AUDIBLE), THE RUSTLING, THE NERVOUS COUGHING OR THROAT CLEARING.”
Oriole Cullen Installation photograph from London Look exhibition, Museum of London, 2004
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Suzi Vaughan Daniel Lightfoot, Gold silk evening dress from the eCHO prorect, 2003
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Marketa Uhlirova Notes on life and soul of oral history Over the summer Marketa conducted 25 interviews with people who work in fashion or are in some way relevant to the fashion scene in London in the past 50 years. Short excerpts of these recordings, each lasting approximately 3 minutes, were exhibited in the Museum of Londons London Look exhibition.
“AN ORAL RECORDING IS THE VOICE, ITS COLOUR AND TONE, THE ACCENT, THE DICTION. IT IS THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF SPEAKING SUCH AS THE REPETITION OF CHARACTERISTIC EXPRESSIONS, SLIPS OF TONGUE, THE SPEEDING OVER PASSAGES CONSIDERED UNIMPORTANT OR INTRUSIVE, AND THE SLOWING DOWN WHEN IT’S FELT AN EMPHASIS IS NEEDED. IT’S THE IMPATIENCE IN THE SPEAKER’S VOICE, SOMETIMES VERGING ON AGGRESSION, OR THE COOPERATIVE, BENEVOLENT GESTURE OF RETELLING TRIVIAL MEMORIES. IT’S THE SHORT SILENCES AND THE LONG PAUSES MADE TO FORMULATE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS, TO FIND WORDS, TO FIND THE RIGHT WORDS, TO ACTUALLY REMEMBER SOMETJING FROM THE PAST OR TO ADD PATHOS AND GRAVITAS. IT’S THE LAUGHING OR THE MUFFLED CHUCKLING, THE HOWLING, THE DEEP BREATHING (WHEN AUDIBLE), THE RUSTLING, THE NERVOUS COUGHING OR THROAT CLEARING.”
Oriole Cullen Installation photograph from London Look exhibition, Museum of London, 2004
F I E L D ST U DY 4
Suzi Vaughan Daniel Lightfoot, Gold silk evening dress from the eCHO prorect, 2003
10 11
Marketa Uhlirova Notes on life and soul of oral history Over the summer Marketa conducted 25 interviews with people who work in fashion or are in some way relevant to the fashion scene in London in the past 50 years. Short excerpts of these recordings, each lasting approximately 3 minutes, were exhibited in the Museum of Londons London Look exhibition.
top: Alison Shreeve Smocks, from the eCHO prorect, 2003 right: Roger Hargreaves Mrs Wilson, 1941
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top: Alison Shreeve Smocks, from the eCHO prorect, 2003 right: Roger Hargreaves Mrs Wilson, 1941
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left: Nick Clements Bath, 1958 right: Sandy Black Hardy Amies Woolmark, 1961 London College of Fashion
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left: Nick Clements Bath, 1958 right: Sandy Black Hardy Amies Woolmark, 1961 London College of Fashion
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TH E S P E A K E R S Katherine Baird Head of Learning Resources at the London College of Fashion; before joining LCF she was Librarian at St Martins School of Art. She spoke about: London College of Fashion Archives - size matters: The story of the digitisation programme; successes and failures. Sandy Black Reader in Knitwear and Fashion at LCF. She has published extensively as a knitwear designer and more recently as a researcher on design, technological and cultural aspects of knitwear and knitted textiles used in artworks, performance and interiors. Her presentation highlighted the Woolmark archive at LCF which is a rich resource for visual information on fashion from many perspectives, including fashion design, tailoring, textiles, styling, photography and promotion. She also spoke about the importance of design archives and images used to illustrate her recent book, ‘Knitwear in Fashion’. Gillian Brewer Gillian is a curator in the Uniform Department of the National Army Museum. She spoke about archive material and the Sealed Pattern Collection. Nick Clements Fashion photographer working in the UK and internationally. He spoke about his work on the visual re-creation, through photography, of British working class youth culture 1955 – 1965. Charlotte Cotton Charlotte Cotton was a Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2004 she joined the Photographers Gallery, London as Programme Director. She now works with Art and Commerce in New York. At the V&A she curated the exhibitions Imperfect Beauty and Guy Bourdin, and her book The Photograph as Contemporary Art was published in November by Thames and Hudson. She spoke about curating the Guy Bourdin exhibition, which was drawn from the archive of the Bourdin Estate and discussed the implications of retrieving an historical archive for contemporary re-evaluation. Oriole Cullen Museum of London curator, worked on the exhibition ‘The London Look: Fashion from Street to Catwalk’ She discussed the process and development of an exhibition based primarily around an archive.
THE RESPONDERS Jan Farrell Lecturer at Cordwainers College (now a part of LCF) since 1991 and currently researching the Cordwainers Collection. She discussed the LCF Cordwainers Historic Footwear collection, which was given to the college by the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers. She gave an overview of the collection, using key items from the earliest, circa 1670, to the latest Jimmy Choo donation in 2000.
Roger Hargreaves Photography Programme Manager at the National Portrait Gallery. He has curated a number of exhibitions including The Beautiful and the Damned, whose accompanying book was winner of the 2002 Kraszna-Krauss Photography Publishing Award. He has lectured widely on photography and is a regular contributor to Photoworks magazine. His book, Photography and Trafalgar Square was published in 2005 and To Have and to Hold: The Wedding Portrait Photograph is forthcoming. Amy de la Haye Fashion/dress curator and Senior Research Fellow at LCF. From1991-1998 she was Curator of 20th Century Dress at the V&A, and curated the exhibitions Streetstyle (1994) and The Cutting Edge (1997). Amy is teaching on the new Curating Fashion MA at LCF. She spoke about Text and the Fashion Archive , focusing upon the hand-written notes that Anne, Countess of Rosse pinned onto the garments and packaging in her archive. This research is based upon her role as Co-Curator (with Eleanor Thompson and Professor Lou Taylor) of Fashion & Fancy Dress: the Messel Family Dress Collection 1865-2005, which opens at Brighton Museum in 2005. Stella Mitchell Museum Director who has been collecting for thirty-three years and owns The Land of Lost Content: The National Museum of British Popular Culture, in Shropshire. Stella is a dedicated collector of everyday objects and memorabilia, with fashion playing an important part in her collections. Warren Neidich Artist in Residence and ACE AHRB Fellow in Computing at Goldsmiths College London. His work has been exhibited internationally at venues which include the ICA London, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Ludwig Museum and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. He is the author of many books including American History Reinvented and more recently Blow-up: Photography, Cinema and the Brain published by DAP and the University of California, Riverside. He spoke about American History Reinvented: How Process and Tissue Create Specified Viewing Contexts .
From 1986 to 1991 he worked on American History Reinvented (Aperture) in which a parody of photographic history as it is written through an evolution of technique is inscribed.: Photographic history is not a linear genealogy in which one event proceeds from another but rather a series of fits and starts, bushwacks and interruptions, that together create a mapping of moments of intensity. American History Reinvented utilizes photographic process and historic costume and dress to dissuade viewer and gaze from the normal course of the reading of the image. In doing so, that reading becomes metonymic for a rereading of the photographic archive itself, which in its duration of becoming, g has too many times been a space of the politicization of the image. For American History Reinvented is a simulated archive of difference and dislocation in which the dispossessed have been re-represented into powers of ownership that, until recently state archives have failed to notice. Alistair O Neill Research Fellow at London College of Fashion. In 2003 he curated the Harry Jacobs exhibition at the Fashion Space Gallery at LCF. He discussed the relationship between the archive, fashion and photography in the exhibition Wolf Suschitzky: Charing Cross Road in the 1930s Derek Ridgers Photographer, who for many years has documented the club and music scene in the UK. He studied at Ealing Art School in the Sixties and worked as an advertising agency art director until, in 1981, he became a full time freelance. He has worked for The Face, Time Out, Sunday Telegraph, NME, The Independent on Sunday and Loaded. His solo shows include Punk Portraits ICA 1978; Skinheads, Chenil Studio Gallery 1980.; The Kiss, Photographers Gallery 1982. One Man Show, City Centre Art Gallery, Dublin 1990. He spoke about the photographs which have emerged from his archive of work from the 70s and 80s and which appear in the book When We Were Young: Club and Street Photographs by Derek Ridgers 1978-1987. Alison Shreeve Principal Lecturer at London College of Fashion. Her first degree was in embroidery. She has a major interest in textiles and their place in society and in research into learning and teaching in the creative industries. She spoke about the collaborative project, eCHO, and its impact. Dan Sinclair Dan graduated from the University of Southampton and now works for Aardman Animations. He presented his short film Charity Shop, following the everyday life of a small shop as told by its two managers, intertwined with the narratives of their own personal histories.
Carol Tulloch Senior Research fellow at Chelsea College of Art and Design and Camberwell College of Design, co-curator of the V&A exhibition Black British Style and editor of the book Black Style (V&A Publications, 2004). Articles on the dress culture of the African Diaspora include: Strawberries and Cream: Dress, Migration and the Quintessence of Englishness (2002); That Little Magic Touch: The Headtie and Issues Around Black British Women’s Identity (2000); There’s No Place Like Home: Home Dressmaking and Creativity in the 1940s to 1960s (1999), and My Man, Let Me Pull Your Coat to Something: Malcolm X. She edited the special edition of the journal Fashion Theory, ‘‘Fashion and Photography’. Exhibitions on black culture include: Picture This: Representations of Black People in Product Promotion (2002);’Tools of the Trade: Memories of Black British Hairdressing (2001), and Day of Record event Nails, Weaves and Naturals: Hairstyles and Nail Art of the African Diaspora cocurated with Shaun Cole (2001). She also curated The March of Women: Suffragettes and the State (National Archives, London, 2003) and Grow Up!: Advice and the Teenage Girl (The Women’s Library, London 2003). Marketa Uhlirova Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins College, and a freelance researcher and writer in the areas of art and fashion. She talked about her involvement in creating a fashion-oriented segment of the Museum of London’s oral history archive for the exhibition The London Look. Suzi Vaughan Course Director for Fashion and Acting Deputy Dean of the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She studied fashion design at Central St Martin’s and worked as a designer in the UK and in Hong Kong before beginning her teaching career at LCF. Suzi instigated the eCHO project in which LCF was a collaborative partner. Chloe Veale Curator of the History of Advertising Trust Archive (HAT) since 2001. An art historian and specialist in fine and decorative art, Chloe curated the costume and textile collection at Ipswich Borough Museums & Galleries for fourteen years. She is interested in out-reach and networking across archives, libraries, museums and higher education to make HAT’s unique and valuable resources available to wider audiences. The History of Advertising Trust Archive contains a wide range of fashion marketing material, including C&A Modes 1922-2000, Selfridges Archive 1908-2004 and Jaeger from the 1930s-2004. The archive gives access to changing styles of 20th century fashion across the social spectrum, from the most expensive haute couture to the cheapest clothing for men, women and children. www.hatads.co.uk
Helen Thomas Director of Research at LCF. Before joining, she was Convenor of Postgraduate Research in Sociology at Goldsmiths College from 2001-04, Director of Interdisciplinary Research Centre on the Body and Performance (Goldsmiths 20034)) and became Professor of Sociology of Dance and Culture at Goldsmiths in 200 Mark Haworth-Booth Mark was, until his recent retirement, Senior Curator of Photographs at the V&A and is currently working on several major research projects including an exhibition of the work of Lee Miller . He is the author of many books and exhibition catalogues on photography and has been a key figure in the V&A’s promotion of the fashion image. Mark is now a University of the Arts London Visiting Professor. Ed Barber As well as pursuing his own practice, Ed is Course Director of BA Fashion Photography at LCF, and was a key figure at Camerawork Gallery in the 1980s. He exhibited his new series of large format Polaroid photographs of London teenagers at the Fashion Space Gallery at LCF in 2003.
C O N V E NO R S Val Williams Writer and Curator and Director of the UAL Photography and The Archive Research Centre. Appointed UAL Professor of the History and Culture of Photography in 2004. Curator of exhibitions which include Who’s Looking at the Family? (Barbican Arts Gallery) 1994; Look at Me: Fashion and Photography 1950- (British Council touring 1998- ) and Martin Parr: Photographs 1970(Barbican Art Gallery and touring) 2002She is the author of many books and catalogues about photography and its history and writes regularly for Photoworks magazine, Eye magazine and the Independent. She was awarded the Dudley Johnson Medal for curatorship by the Royal Photographic Society in 2004. Lorna Crabbe Administrator of the Photographyand the Archive Research Centre. Trained in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University and is a member of the band Finlay.
right: Chloe Veale Off Duty Dresses, 1942 History of Advertising Archive back: Amy de la Haye
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TH E S P E A K E R S Katherine Baird Head of Learning Resources at the London College of Fashion; before joining LCF she was Librarian at St Martins School of Art. She spoke about: London College of Fashion Archives - size matters: The story of the digitisation programme; successes and failures. Sandy Black Reader in Knitwear and Fashion at LCF. She has published extensively as a knitwear designer and more recently as a researcher on design, technological and cultural aspects of knitwear and knitted textiles used in artworks, performance and interiors. Her presentation highlighted the Woolmark archive at LCF which is a rich resource for visual information on fashion from many perspectives, including fashion design, tailoring, textiles, styling, photography and promotion. She also spoke about the importance of design archives and images used to illustrate her recent book, ‘Knitwear in Fashion’. Gillian Brewer Gillian is a curator in the Uniform Department of the National Army Museum. She spoke about archive material and the Sealed Pattern Collection. Nick Clements Fashion photographer working in the UK and internationally. He spoke about his work on the visual re-creation, through photography, of British working class youth culture 1955 – 1965. Charlotte Cotton Charlotte Cotton was a Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2004 she joined the Photographers Gallery, London as Programme Director. She now works with Art and Commerce in New York. At the V&A she curated the exhibitions Imperfect Beauty and Guy Bourdin, and her book The Photograph as Contemporary Art was published in November by Thames and Hudson. She spoke about curating the Guy Bourdin exhibition, which was drawn from the archive of the Bourdin Estate and discussed the implications of retrieving an historical archive for contemporary re-evaluation. Oriole Cullen Museum of London curator, worked on the exhibition ‘The London Look: Fashion from Street to Catwalk’ She discussed the process and development of an exhibition based primarily around an archive.
THE RESPONDERS Jan Farrell Lecturer at Cordwainers College (now a part of LCF) since 1991 and currently researching the Cordwainers Collection. She discussed the LCF Cordwainers Historic Footwear collection, which was given to the college by the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers. She gave an overview of the collection, using key items from the earliest, circa 1670, to the latest Jimmy Choo donation in 2000.
Roger Hargreaves Photography Programme Manager at the National Portrait Gallery. He has curated a number of exhibitions including The Beautiful and the Damned, whose accompanying book was winner of the 2002 Kraszna-Krauss Photography Publishing Award. He has lectured widely on photography and is a regular contributor to Photoworks magazine. His book, Photography and Trafalgar Square was published in 2005 and To Have and to Hold: The Wedding Portrait Photograph is forthcoming. Amy de la Haye Fashion/dress curator and Senior Research Fellow at LCF. From1991-1998 she was Curator of 20th Century Dress at the V&A, and curated the exhibitions Streetstyle (1994) and The Cutting Edge (1997). Amy is teaching on the new Curating Fashion MA at LCF. She spoke about Text and the Fashion Archive , focusing upon the hand-written notes that Anne, Countess of Rosse pinned onto the garments and packaging in her archive. This research is based upon her role as Co-Curator (with Eleanor Thompson and Professor Lou Taylor) of Fashion & Fancy Dress: the Messel Family Dress Collection 1865-2005, which opens at Brighton Museum in 2005. Stella Mitchell Museum Director who has been collecting for thirty-three years and owns The Land of Lost Content: The National Museum of British Popular Culture, in Shropshire. Stella is a dedicated collector of everyday objects and memorabilia, with fashion playing an important part in her collections. Warren Neidich Artist in Residence and ACE AHRB Fellow in Computing at Goldsmiths College London. His work has been exhibited internationally at venues which include the ICA London, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Ludwig Museum and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. He is the author of many books including American History Reinvented and more recently Blow-up: Photography, Cinema and the Brain published by DAP and the University of California, Riverside. He spoke about American History Reinvented: How Process and Tissue Create Specified Viewing Contexts .
From 1986 to 1991 he worked on American History Reinvented (Aperture) in which a parody of photographic history as it is written through an evolution of technique is inscribed.: Photographic history is not a linear genealogy in which one event proceeds from another but rather a series of fits and starts, bushwacks and interruptions, that together create a mapping of moments of intensity. American History Reinvented utilizes photographic process and historic costume and dress to dissuade viewer and gaze from the normal course of the reading of the image. In doing so, that reading becomes metonymic for a rereading of the photographic archive itself, which in its duration of becoming, g has too many times been a space of the politicization of the image. For American History Reinvented is a simulated archive of difference and dislocation in which the dispossessed have been re-represented into powers of ownership that, until recently state archives have failed to notice. Alistair O Neill Research Fellow at London College of Fashion. In 2003 he curated the Harry Jacobs exhibition at the Fashion Space Gallery at LCF. He discussed the relationship between the archive, fashion and photography in the exhibition Wolf Suschitzky: Charing Cross Road in the 1930s Derek Ridgers Photographer, who for many years has documented the club and music scene in the UK. He studied at Ealing Art School in the Sixties and worked as an advertising agency art director until, in 1981, he became a full time freelance. He has worked for The Face, Time Out, Sunday Telegraph, NME, The Independent on Sunday and Loaded. His solo shows include Punk Portraits ICA 1978; Skinheads, Chenil Studio Gallery 1980.; The Kiss, Photographers Gallery 1982. One Man Show, City Centre Art Gallery, Dublin 1990. He spoke about the photographs which have emerged from his archive of work from the 70s and 80s and which appear in the book When We Were Young: Club and Street Photographs by Derek Ridgers 1978-1987. Alison Shreeve Principal Lecturer at London College of Fashion. Her first degree was in embroidery. She has a major interest in textiles and their place in society and in research into learning and teaching in the creative industries. She spoke about the collaborative project, eCHO, and its impact. Dan Sinclair Dan graduated from the University of Southampton and now works for Aardman Animations. He presented his short film Charity Shop, following the everyday life of a small shop as told by its two managers, intertwined with the narratives of their own personal histories.
Carol Tulloch Senior Research fellow at Chelsea College of Art and Design and Camberwell College of Design, co-curator of the V&A exhibition Black British Style and editor of the book Black Style (V&A Publications, 2004). Articles on the dress culture of the African Diaspora include: Strawberries and Cream: Dress, Migration and the Quintessence of Englishness (2002); That Little Magic Touch: The Headtie and Issues Around Black British Women’s Identity (2000); There’s No Place Like Home: Home Dressmaking and Creativity in the 1940s to 1960s (1999), and My Man, Let Me Pull Your Coat to Something: Malcolm X. She edited the special edition of the journal Fashion Theory, ‘‘Fashion and Photography’. Exhibitions on black culture include: Picture This: Representations of Black People in Product Promotion (2002);’Tools of the Trade: Memories of Black British Hairdressing (2001), and Day of Record event Nails, Weaves and Naturals: Hairstyles and Nail Art of the African Diaspora cocurated with Shaun Cole (2001). She also curated The March of Women: Suffragettes and the State (National Archives, London, 2003) and Grow Up!: Advice and the Teenage Girl (The Women’s Library, London 2003). Marketa Uhlirova Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins College, and a freelance researcher and writer in the areas of art and fashion. She talked about her involvement in creating a fashion-oriented segment of the Museum of London’s oral history archive for the exhibition The London Look. Suzi Vaughan Course Director for Fashion and Acting Deputy Dean of the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She studied fashion design at Central St Martin’s and worked as a designer in the UK and in Hong Kong before beginning her teaching career at LCF. Suzi instigated the eCHO project in which LCF was a collaborative partner. Chloe Veale Curator of the History of Advertising Trust Archive (HAT) since 2001. An art historian and specialist in fine and decorative art, Chloe curated the costume and textile collection at Ipswich Borough Museums & Galleries for fourteen years. She is interested in out-reach and networking across archives, libraries, museums and higher education to make HAT’s unique and valuable resources available to wider audiences. The History of Advertising Trust Archive contains a wide range of fashion marketing material, including C&A Modes 1922-2000, Selfridges Archive 1908-2004 and Jaeger from the 1930s-2004. The archive gives access to changing styles of 20th century fashion across the social spectrum, from the most expensive haute couture to the cheapest clothing for men, women and children. www.hatads.co.uk
Helen Thomas Director of Research at LCF. Before joining, she was Convenor of Postgraduate Research in Sociology at Goldsmiths College from 2001-04, Director of Interdisciplinary Research Centre on the Body and Performance (Goldsmiths 20034)) and became Professor of Sociology of Dance and Culture at Goldsmiths in 200 Mark Haworth-Booth Mark was, until his recent retirement, Senior Curator of Photographs at the V&A and is currently working on several major research projects including an exhibition of the work of Lee Miller . He is the author of many books and exhibition catalogues on photography and has been a key figure in the V&A’s promotion of the fashion image. Mark is now a University of the Arts London Visiting Professor. Ed Barber As well as pursuing his own practice, Ed is Course Director of BA Fashion Photography at LCF, and was a key figure at Camerawork Gallery in the 1980s. He exhibited his new series of large format Polaroid photographs of London teenagers at the Fashion Space Gallery at LCF in 2003.
C O N V E NO R S Val Williams Writer and Curator and Director of the UAL Photography and The Archive Research Centre. Appointed UAL Professor of the History and Culture of Photography in 2004. Curator of exhibitions which include Who’s Looking at the Family? (Barbican Arts Gallery) 1994; Look at Me: Fashion and Photography 1950- (British Council touring 1998- ) and Martin Parr: Photographs 1970(Barbican Art Gallery and touring) 2002She is the author of many books and catalogues about photography and its history and writes regularly for Photoworks magazine, Eye magazine and the Independent. She was awarded the Dudley Johnson Medal for curatorship by the Royal Photographic Society in 2004. Lorna Crabbe Administrator of the Photographyand the Archive Research Centre. Trained in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University and is a member of the band Finlay.
right: Chloe Veale Off Duty Dresses, 1942 History of Advertising Archive back: Amy de la Haye
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Fieldstudy is published regularly by the University of the Arts London Photography and the Archive Research Centre at the London College of Communication. ISBN 0-9542833-1-7 This issue reflects the content of the Centre’s second study Day: Unfolding the Tissue: Fashion and the Archive, held at London College of Fashion in December 2004.
London College of fashion MA Fashion Curation. London College of fashion has developed a unique new masters course in fashion curation that offers specialist development in a new area of research and practice of fashion study. No other course in the world can offer such a specialised programme in collaboration with major international museums at University of the Arts London. The course examins critical and theoretical approaches to fashion curation within the wider realms of cultural practice and production and offers specialist training and experience in practical aspects of curating, display and exhibitions. It also examins the policies, programming and practice of exhibitions, and commissioning in museums, institutions and emering territories. For further information: t: +00 44 (0)20 7 514 7344 e mail: enquiries@fashion.arts.ac.uk www.fashion.arts.ac.uk
The Research Centre acts as catalyst for, and initiator of, research projects which explore the many-layered relationships between photography, archives and cultural history. For more information on all the Centre’s projects, including events listed here, see the website at: www.photographyresearchcentre.co.uk info@photographyresearchcentre.co.uk Partnered with organizations which include Photoworks UK and the V&A Museum, the Centre is active in its support of artists and scholars from across the university, including Neil Cummings, Peter Cattrell, Pam Skelton, Alistair O Neill and John Tchalenko. Centre based projects are also being developed with artists/historians including Alison Marchant, Shirley Read and Clare Strand.
Director: Professor Val Williams v.williams@lcc.arts.ac.uk Centre Administrator: Lorna Crabbe l.crabbe@lcc.arts.ac.uk Photography and the Archive Research Centre University of the Arts London London College of Communication Elephant and Castle London SE1 6SB UK t: +00 44 (0)20 7 514 6625 /6919 f: + 00 44 (0)20 7 514 6535 e: info@photographyresearchcentre.co.uk
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