Abstract
The study of fashion in an historical perspective was traditionally the preserve of cultural historians until, in the 2000s, business historians also appropriated the historiography of fashion by analyzing the production of fashion “through the interactions of commerce, culture and consumer.” (R.L. Blaszczyk, 2008, 1.) Within this historiographical context, histories of high fashion and its afferent branches in a globalized world boomed in the last decade through the new business history which merges both cultural and business approaches by focusing “on relationships among enterprise, society, and culture” while acknowledging “that there is no such thing as a ‘free market’[…].” (R.L. Blaszczyk and V. Pouillard, 2018, 9.) In short, the historiography of fashion currently sits at the junction between business and culture. The book La mode française. Vecteur d’influence aux États-Unis (1946-1960) (Québec: PUL, 2020; Paris: Hermann, 2021) adds a third outlook to this dyad by integrating the diplomatic perspective of the history of international relations to the study of fashion as an instrument of influence of states in their international relations.
Vincent Dubé-Senécal is a MSCA postdoctoral fellow in history at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History (IAKH) at the University of Oslo, connected to the ERC project Creative IPR, led by professor Veronique Pouillard. His project aims to study the role of French women’s sartorial fashion in France’s international relations with a focus on both its interaction with the European Economic Community (EEC) and its influence on the American mass market during the 1960s and 1970s. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 886026.
Practical Information
This event is open for everyone to attend and will be held on zoom. Join us on Monday the 10th of May at 16:00 CET.
