Workshop One

Replicas, Reconstructions, and Recreations

Defining Terms of Historical Making

Saturday 2nd September 2023 | Trinity House, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Currently, there is little cohesion or even field-wide acceptance of key terms and methods relating to making practices in dress history. Terms range from ‘experimental history’ (here borrowing from archaeology) to ‘reconstruction’, ‘remaking’ and ‘re-creating’ to name a few. This workshop will define these methodological approaches in dress history and develop a field-wide consensus on how we should discuss experimental making practices.  

Programme

9.30 - Registration and Coffee 

9.50 - Welcome
Serena Dyer and Sarah Bendall

10 - Keynote - Hilary Davidson
Expanding the Embodied Turn: Issues and Directions in Remaking 
Chair: Serena Dyer 

11 - Tea Break 

11.30 - Panel One: Defining Making Methods 
Chair: Sarah Bendall

Hannah Wroe 
Maker first: Reflections on my research toolkit  

Eleanor Gilchrist  
How to Crochet like it’s 1837: Educated guesses and trial and error as a research method  

Amanda Nichols 
Repeat, Replay: Replicating methods from the past to inform contemporary fashion and costume practices 

Catriona Fisk & Sarah Bendall 
Recreating Maternity Stays: Creative Experiments and Lessons in Failure 

12.45 - Lunch 

13.30 - Keynote -  Jane Malcolm-Davies
Structuring reconstructions: Taking a systematic approach to scholarly experimentation
Chair: Sarah Bendall 

14.30 - Tea Break

15.00 - Panel Two: Terms, Fields, and Possibilities
Chair: Serena Dyer 

Nathalie Schiffer 
Bridging The Gap: The role of reproduction in deciphering unknown words 

Elise Maynard 
Experimental Archaeology in the Rediscovery of Lost Costume 

Scarlett Butler 
Fit for a queen: A Fat Studies approach to early modern dress reconstruction 

Peigi Anna Urquhart 
Reconstructing the Essence 

Claire Batt 
Kimono from a Different Angle 

16.15 - Roundtable
Serena Dyer, Sarah Bendall, Hilary Davidson, Jane Malcolm Davies 

17.00 Close