Making Historical Dress is an AHRC-funded network which explores how picking up a needle and thread can enhance our knowledge of the past. Through recreative methods, it is possible to reverse engineer how garments were constructed, recover lost skills, and test instructions and diagrams. Recreative methods push back against the narratives of professionalised and masculine production, which dominate the archive, and offer a mouthpiece to makers.

Over 2023 to 2025, the Network will hold a variety of in-person and virtual events, as well as a mentorship scheme and opportunities for publication, bringing together scholars, curators, and makers to consider how we can best work together to uncover and share this making knowledge. 

Workshop 2 on 18 September 2023 will explore ways that knowledge about historical dress gained through re-creative making practices can be captured, translated and communicated effectively to wider audiences.

Keynote speakers: Bernadette Banner, Michelle Barker, Samantha Bullat and Ninya Mikhaila

A further 10 speakers including myself will contribute shorter papers within the workshop theme of "Translating Making Knowledge: Communicating Embodied Experience".

My paper is entitled:  The 'Gown in a Week(end)' Model: Translating Historical Dressmaking Practice as a Demonstrable Process

I know you will not want to miss this event!

While it is not possible for non-speakers to attend in person, the good news is that it will be livestreamed on the day if you wish to catch any part of it in person. (Please note: Recordings will be available later of only the portions of the programme where speakers have agreed in advance that their talks can be recorded. Mine will be.)

See the full programme and reserve your place in the virtual audience (Microsoft Teams) here:
https://makinghistoricaldress.dmu.ac.uk/Workshop-Two.html