The Case of the “French Vardinggale”: A Methodological Approach to Reconstructing and Understanding Ephemeral Garments

Bendall, Sarah

doi:10.1080/1362704x.2019.1603862

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In the process of making and using thermal flashlights, Kenny et al (2019) note how the students became technoscientists. Bendall (2019 , p. 382) writes similarly about her personal transformation after reconstructing historic French undergarments: ‘Primarily, this experiment taught me to think more like an artisan and less like a scholar, often the result of learning from mistakes.’ For me, speculative sewing slowed down the research, thickened and enriched the findings, expanded my sewing skills and sharpened my ability to more closely read, interpret, and question texts and objects.…”

Section: Analysis – In the Office On The Stage And On The Bikementioning

confidence: 98%

“…Speculative sewing builds on a long history of reconstructions and replications in STS, history of technology, food sciences, textile studies, archaeology, and global Do-It-Yourself movements. Amongst others, researchers have cooked from archives ( Connell & Nicosia, 2015 ), reconstructed a range of iconic electromagnetic and electrochemistry experiments ( Cavicchi, 2006 ; Eggen et al, 2012 ), recreated textile arts ( Bendall, 2019 ; Kuchera, 2018 ), reproduced Faraday discoveries ( Höttecke, 2000 ; Tweney et al, 2005 ) and participated in hackathons and maker spaces ( Irani, 2015 ). These make up some of what has come to be known as ‘making and doing’ projects (see Downey & Zuiderent-Jerak, 2021 ; Kenny et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Reconstruction and Speculation In Stsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Speculative sewing: Researching, reconstructing, and re-imagining wearable technoscience

Jungnickel

2022

Soc Stud Sci

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This article contributes to Science and Technology Studies (STS) literatures on ‘making and doing’ by describing and analysing the practice of researching, reconstructing, and reimagining archival clothing patent data. It combines feminist speculation and reconstruction practices into what I term ‘speculative sewing’. This involves stitching data, theory and fabric into inventions described in patents and analysing them as three-dimensional arguments. In the case here, of 1890s British women’s convertible cycle wear, I examine how inventors used new forms of clothing to challenge socio-political restrictions on women’s bodies in public space and help them make alternate claims to rights and entitlements. I argue that translating text and images into wearable data renders lesser-known technoscience stories visible and (more) knowable and transforms clothing (back) into material matters of public concern.

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Section: Analysis – In the Office On The Stage And On The Bikementioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Reconstruction and Speculation In Stsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speculative sewing: Researching, reconstructing, and re-imagining wearable technoscience

Jungnickel

2022

Soc Stud Sci

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Labour of the Stitch

Dyer

2024

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The making of fashionable women's dress in Georgian England necessitated an inordinate amount of manual labour. From the mantuamakers and seamstresses who wrought lengths of silk and linen into garments, to the artists and engravers who disseminated and immortalised the resulting outfits in print and on paper, Georgian garments were the products of many busy hands. This Element centres the sartorial hand as a point of connection across the trades which generated fashionable dress in the eighteenth century. Crucially, it engages with recreation methodologies to explore how the agency and skill of the stitching hand can inform understandings of craft, industry, gender, and labour in the eighteenth century. The labour of stitching, along with printmaking, drawing, and painting, composed a comprehensive culture of making and manual labour which, together, constructed eighteenth-century cultures of fashionable dress.

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Structuring reconstructions: recognising the advantages of interdisciplinary data in methodical research

Malcolm-Davies

2023

Herit Sci

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A theoretical framework for reconstruction as an integrated scholarly research method across a range of disciplines is long overdue. This paper discusses the usefulness of reconstructed textiles and dress as a template for it. It also argues that there is a need to integrate methods from the arts and humanities with analytical techniques from the natural sciences. The aim is to show how interdisciplinary research not only enriches a reconstruction but provides the mechanism through which cross-disciplinary collaboration takes place. Experimental remaking of historical textiles and dress has tended to be undertaken on an ad hoc basis. For reconstruction to be scientific, it must systematically employ soundly researched evidence from a variety of sources. The triangulation of data—well established in natural and social science—rigorously cross references primary evidence using a range of investigative methods. It produces a firm fix on the material under scrutiny and more credible results than those reliant on only one or two sources. The challenge is that different types of evidence demand specialist approaches, including quantitative and qualitative methods, which are not the traditional tools of dress history. Accurate reconstruction also demands interdisciplinary collaboration: the interrogation of fibres at the molecular level; the collection of observational data at the micro level; and the study of how garments were made and worn at the macro level. This calls for new ways of working with integrated methodologies in pragmatic multidisciplinary teams, which include experts from the humanities, sciences and craft.

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The Case of the “French Vardinggale”: A Methodological Approach to Reconstructing and Understanding Ephemeral Garments

Cited by 3 publications

References 22 publications

Speculative sewing: Researching, reconstructing, and re-imagining wearable technoscience

Speculative sewing: Researching, reconstructing, and re-imagining wearable technoscience

Labour of the Stitch

Structuring reconstructions: recognising the advantages of interdisciplinary data in methodical research

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