Silk Routes Symposium Class: Mantua Makers and the Rise of the Female Dressmaker
When thinking of 18th-century clothing, images immediately come to mind of opulent silk gowns worn over panniers, heavily trimmed and embroidered. Such gowns were the work of female seamstresses, who for the first time in European History were legally working in guild structures. This class will explore the 17th century origins of such gowns, and how their widespread adoption assisted the rise of female dressmakers.
This is by no means a complete discussion of any or all of the topics covered (dressing gowns in the 17th and 18th century, for example, were not solely inspired by Kimonos, but also drew on garments worn in Turkey, India, and China, for instance), but hopes to inspire more thought into how European fashionable dress was inspired by the rest of the world.
For more information on Kimono, see Erika's Silk Routes video: Intro to Kimono. • Introduction to Kimono...
Primary Sources:
Arrival of the Europeans Screen - www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
Dutchman with Servant - www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
Robe (Kosode) with cherry blossoms and cypress fence www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
VOC Plate - www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
Secondary Sources:
Arnold, Janet, Patterns of Fashion 1, The School of Historical Dress, London, 2021
Arnold, Janet, Patterns of Fashion 5, The School of Historical Dress, London, 2018
Blaine, Dr. Ilana Singer, Kimono, Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art www.tmja.org.il/filesystem/KI...
Crowston, Clare, Engendering the Guilds: Seamstresses, Tailors, and the Clash of Corporate Identities in Old Regime France, French Historical Studies, Vol 23:2, Spring 2000, pp.339-371 read.dukeupress.edu/french-hi...
Crowston, Clare, Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France 1675-1791, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2001
Crowston, Clare, Women, Gender, and Guilds in Early Modern Europe, paper presented at The Return of the Guilds, Utrecht University, 5-7 October 2006 iisg.nl/hpw/papers/guilds-cro...
Doolan, Paul, The Dutch in Japan, History Today, Vol 50 (4), April 2000, pp.36-42
Glamann, Kristof, Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620-1740, Martinus Nijhoff's Gravenhage, Den Haag, 1981
Hill, Daniel D., History of World Costume and Fashion, Prentice Hall, New York, 2011
Joby, Christopher Richard, Dutch in Seventeenth-Century Japan: A Social History, Journal of Low Country Studies, Vol 42:2 2018, pp.175-196 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...
Koda, Harold, and Richard Martin. “Orientalism: Visions of the East in Western Dress.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000 - www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/orie... (October 2004)
Kramer, Elizabeth, and Akiko Savas, The Kimono Craze: From Exoticism to Fashionability, 2020 researchportal.northumbria.ac...
Mikhaila, Ninya, and Jane Malcolm Davies, The Typical Tudor, .....................
North, Susan, Indian Gowns and Banyans - New Evidence and Perspectives, Costume, Volume 54:1, pp.30-55
Satsuki Milhaupt, Terry, Kimono: A Modern History, Reaktion Books, London, 2014 www.perlego.com/book/777191/k...
Thornton, Peter, The 'Bizarre' Silks, The Burlington Magazine , Aug., 1958, Vol. 100, No. 665 (Aug., 1958), pp. 265-270
Thunder, Moira, Object in Focus: Man's Banyan, Word and Image Department, Victoria and Albert Museum www.fashioningtheearlymodern.a...
Thursfield, Sarah, Perfect Linens Plain and Fancy, 2006
Toyoshima, Masako, The Evolution of Japanese Women's Kimono from A.D.200 - 1960, Master's Report, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, 1967
Wahid, Abdul, The Dutch's 'Floating Life' on Deshima Island: A Gloomy Side of Dutch-Japan Relationship During the Tokugawa Periode, 1715-1790, Jurnal Kajian Wilayah, Vol. 6 No. 1, 2015. pp.1-16
Weibel, Adele C., A Silk Fabric of Bizarre Design, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts , 1957-1958, Vol. 37, No. 1 (1957-1958),
pp. 5-6
Van Veen, Ernst, VOC Strategies in the Far East (1605-1640), Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, Vol 3, Dec 2001, pp. 85 - 105 www.redalyc.org/pdf/361/36100...
V&A Museum, Japan's encounter with Europe, 1573 - 1853, www.vam.ac.uk/articles/japans...