On 11th May 2019, around fifty people gathered at the
University Centre Shrewsbury to hear a variety of interesting talks based upon textiles
in relation to various key ceremonies in life. The topics discussed ranged from
a medieval trousseau to contemporary film, and spanned many art forms. This was
the seventh of such days organised by Professor Deborah Wynne.
The day
commenced with a talk by Sarah Thursfield, a professional pattern-cutter and
amateur textile historian, titled ‘The Trousseau of Isabella of France, 1307’,
which discussed the various items of clothing that it was made up of and the
role of the different textiles available at the time. The audience were also
interested by how the clothes were constructed and worn, and Sarah’s amazing display
of reconstructed examples helped her to demonstrate this. We were also able to
view images from this period in order to understand the role that clothing and
textiles played in society.
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| Isabella of France |
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Holly Kirby delivering her talk while wearing an authentic dress from
the 1890s.
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Holly explained that when the First World War broke out,
Teresa moved to London for a year and helped in translation due to her language
skills. Afterwards, she returned to Italy to work as a war nurse and Holly was
able to show us photographs of her from the time, and some of her remaining
uniform, which is in the Attingham collection. After the war, she married Lord
Berwick in Venice and moved to Attingham Park. We learned of her love of fancy
dress and viewed some of her fabulous costumes from this period, which were
often inspired by other cultures or time in history. As well as focusing on her
clothes, Holly also showed us various portraits of her, painted by her artist
friends, and some fabulous photographs which even appeared in Vogue! Following this enthralling talk,
the audience were delighted to hear that we could see these outfits in person
through a special tour of Attingham Park run by Holly Kirby.
Following
an exciting morning of talks, we all enjoyed a delicious vegan and vegetarian
buffet lunch provided by Stop café. This allowed us to discuss the morning with
each other and the speakers themselves, before the afternoon’s sessions.
First in
the afternoon was a short story by Dr Lisa Blower, an award-winning novelist
and short story writer, written especially for this event. We were very privileged
to hear how the theme for our day had inspired the story ‘Tink’, which is a
knitting term referring to a way of undoing stitches. She cleverly interweaved
the theme of celebratory outfits by recalling how her mother’s woollen wedding
dress was then “tinked” to become her and her sister’s Christening gowns.
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| Lisa Blower reading her story ‘Tink’, about unravelling and reknitting lives and wool. |
To continue with the theme of celebratory wear in fiction, Amanda
Ford discussed funeral wear in Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels, in particular in Mary
Barton. We learnt about the life of Elizabeth Gaskell and industrialism in
Manchester to provide a background to the book extracts and information about
mourning customs at the time. Everyone was shocked by just how long women had
to mourn for (13 months) and the etiquette surrounding mourning fabrics. Amanda
introduced us to new fabrics, such as aerophane, and the concept of and meaning
behind having somebody’s hair in a locket.
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| Victorian mourning jewellery |
The final talk of the day was
‘Four Weddings and a Funeral: Costume and Ceremony in Contemporary Film’ by Dr
Guilia Miller, who has published books and articles on film and adaptations.
She discussed the role of costume in film and whether it should be designed for
the character or actor, before moving on to look at examples. She discussed the
role that costume plays in the plot of Gone with the Wind by Victor
Flemming (1939), looking in particular at the wedding dress of Scarlett O’Hara
(played by Vivien Leigh). For The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor,
1940), Giulia talked about how the famous costume designer, Adrian, used
costume to convey character, whilst also designing it with Katherine Hepburn in
mind. For this film, we were also able to see the role that costume played in
black and white films.
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| Giulia Miller discussing costume design in film |
Giulia went on to discuss how
costume portrays character in the 1989 film Steel Magnolias directed by
Herbert Ross, looking in particular at occasion wear in the wedding and funeral
scenes. This film was interesting as the designer, Julie Weiss, chose to ignore
the fact that she was dressing stars such as Julia Roberts and Dolly Parton. We
then looked at the pastel colour scheme of Marie Antoinette (Sofia
Coppola, 2006), which won three awards, including an Oscar, for its costume
design by Milena Canonero. Giulia discussed how costume portrayed the character
of Marie Antoinette (for example, in the ball scene), whilst also maintaining
the film’s aesthetic and themes. We then looked at an example of how costume is
used in fantasy films, using The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (Bill
Condon, 2011), where it is used to distinguish between the wolves and vampires
and suggest character differences between the two. To continue with the theme
of celebration wear, Guilia discussed Bella’s wedding dress. To finish, Giulia
chose to look at costume in Ken Loach’s 2016 film I, Daniel Blake, which
is something that many of the audience had not thought about, as it is intended
to reflect the characters and seem as if it is something that they would buy
themselves, rather than be chosen by a costume designer. We looked at how each
of their individual styles are continued throughout the film and can be seen in
their funeral wear.
All in all, it was a very
interesting and informative day which was enjoyed by all. We can’t wait until
the next Textile Stories Day! The theme for that event will be 'Textiles in Action'.
We would like to
thank Matilda for writing this detailed account of the day and also Naomi Walker for
taking the photographs reprinted here.
