Contributor - Liz
Liz's recent posts
National Identity and Dress: Thinking about Brazil
I’ve been thinking recently about the ways in which dress and fashion connect to ideas about national identity. It all began when I started to question what ‘Brazilian dress’ might be. Is there any such thing as a national form of dress within Brazil? Simplistic outsider reactions might suggest the bikini or Havaiana flip-flops, possiblyRead more
Introduction to the Courtauld History of Dress Journals Archive
The conference Reading Fashion Magazines may be over, but our display of 9 items from the collection is still available to be viewed outside the Courtauld Library vitrines. Please come and visit, before it closes in August. In order to tempt you, you can read the introduction to the display, and our conference, below, availableRead more
Reading Fashion Magazines: Celebrating the Courtauld’s History of Dress journals archive
Fashion magazines provide a space for escapism and fantasy, but this imaginative realm of image and text is centred on the very real interactions that viewers have with these material objects. How does it feel to read a fashion magazine? Do you read it dutifully, from cover to cover? Or do you flip through moreRead more
Near and Far: Connecting Clothing, Body, Image & Object in Views of the Estrada de Ferro Madeira e Mamoré, Amazonas & Matto Grosso, Brazil
During the MA study trip to New York that I co-ordinated in December, I was able to sneak away one afternoon to work on some of my own research in the conservation facility of the New York Public Library, which is located in Queens. I wanted to take a closer look at a bound photographicRead more
Welcome to our New MA History of Dress students!
The new term has started and it is time to welcome our new group of History of Dress MA students to the Courtauld! Our course is entitled ‘Documenting Fashion: Modernity, Films and Image in America and Europe, 1920-1960’ and over the next 9 months we will be exploring fashion within an interdisciplinary framework – asRead more
Georgiana Houghton’s Spirit Drawings
I’ve recently been giving a couple of talks on Sunday afternoons in the gallery; it’s a great way of meeting some interesting people, and having a lively discussion about the works on display. My recent topic of conversation has been the Georgiana Houghton exhibition, a collection of 21 watercolour drawings that the British artist producedRead more
5 Minutes with…Jessica Akerman
We caught up with Jessica Akerman – artist and research forum events co-ordinator – to discuss her wardrobe. In her spare time, Jessica has been dressing for London Fashion Week (Mary Katranzou last year, Paul Smith and Topshop this year), helping the models with the quick turnaround in between shows. She obviously has an avidRead more
Fashion and Impressionism in the Courtauld Gallery
In 1863 Charles Baudelaire declared in the French newspaper Le Figaro: ‘Modernity is transitory, fleeting, contingent’. He instructed contemporary artists not to ‘scorn or forgo this transitory, fleeting element that undergoes such frequent metamorphoses. By removing it, you lapse into the void of an abstract, indefinable beauty.’ The Impressionists wanted to capture the beauty and excitement of modern life in and around Paris, the capital of modernity, prior to andRead more
Brazilian self-fashioning: Zee Nunes
I’m currently writing an article about fashion photographers working in Brazil for the next Photoworks annual on Fashion and Style Politics [https://photoworks.org.uk/project-news/open-submission-photoworks-annual-issue-23/]. I’m really thrilled to have been asked, and in preparation I’ve been researching some really innovative image-makers, such as Jacques Dequeker, Paulo Vainer, Guy Paganini and Henrique Gendre. Sao Paulo-based photographer Zee NunesRead more
An Auto-Ethnographic Text: Cara Delevigne for Vogue Brasil, February 2014
Cara Delevigne dominated the front cover of the February 2014 edition of Vogue Brasil, which was shot by the internationally-acclaimed Brazilian fashion photographer Jacques Dequeker. Dressed in a sparkly blue minidress by the Brazilian brand Bo.Bo., and accessorised with heavy gold jewellery designed by Lanvin and Dior, she is framed, hands on her hips, againstRead more