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Dematerialized fashion and French couture subsidy (completed)

Which role did fashion play in French international relations and its interaction with America and the Common Market in the 1960s and 1970s?

A globe.
Photo: Juliana Kozoski, Unsplash

About the project

This project aimed 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 approach was meant to open the fields of fashion history and international relations history to each other. This was done through the analysis of the influence of women’s sartorial fashion on the American mass market as well as within the context of the EEC through the prism of the French authorities (industrial, governmental and diplomatic). This project brought the political perspective of international relations as a new approach to the study of the fashion industry.

Objectives

The project seeked to understand why a program of aid to couture was renewed at the end of the 1960s when women’s sartorial fashion had evolved to favor ready-made garments by integrating the interest of States to the analysis of the multilayered influence of immaterial and material cultural products of the creative industries.

This is of crucial importance in a globalized world where businesses fight for market shares and where States subsidize strategic industries in order to give them an edge in penetrating foreign markets. The study of the influence of a State program to subvention a creative industry by integrating the analysis of new diplomatic data, is of importance in order to understand the extent of the States’ toolkit to gain competitive advantages for their national industries.

Financing

This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 886026.

Events and activities

89th ACFAS Congress

La mode, un instrument d’influence pour la diplomatie : L’exemple français du plan d’aide à la couture des années 1960 et 1970

May 9-13, 2022


Creative IPR International Conference

February 17, 2022

Roundtable with Audrey Millet and Professor Véronique Pouillard

Abstract: Fashion’s Symbolic Value in Question: Dematerialization, Intellectual Property and Capitalism


"Qu'est-ce que la mode ?" Podcast

December 20, 2021

The podcast episode "CULTURE 44 La mode et la diplomatie française avec Vincent Dubé-Sénécal, chercheur" at the podcast "Qu'est-ce que la mode ?" (podcast.ausha.co).


FASHION IN IR Online Workshop: Fashion and Diplomacy

This two-day online public workshop focuses on diplomacy and the influence of fashion. It seeks to open a discussion at the crossroads of history, diplomacy, and fashion studies.

Time and place: Dec. 2, 2021 – Dec. 3, 2021, Zoom

Workshop Program

Thursday December 2nd
  • Vincent Dubé-Senécal (MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow, Universitetet i Oslo) 
    Welcoming with Madeleine Goubau.
    Presentation of the MSCA project FASHION IN IR: The Dematerialization of Fashion and France’s Couture Propaganda during the 1960s and 1970s
  • Hannah Morelle (Archives and Heritage Officer, Fondation Azzedine Alaïa): “A Century of Political Rivalry Through the Prism of Fashion: The Relationship Between France and England from 18th to 19th Century”
  • Chloé Rivière (PhD Student, Université d’Orléans): “Grasp the Invisible. Fashion and Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century: Texts’ Silence and Systematic Recording”
  • Natalie Nudell (Adjunct Assistant Professor, History of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY): “Fashion for Freedom? The Fashion Show, Politics and Diplomacy in Ruth Finley’s Fashion Calendar”
  • Charlotte Faucher (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Manchester): “Fashion and the Emergence of French Cultural Diplomacy in Anglophone Contexts, 1870-1945”
  • Valerie Steele (Director and Chief Curator of the Museum, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY): Keynote presentation: “The Geography of Fashion”
Friday December 3rd
  • Cynthia Cooper (Head of Collections and Research and Curator of Dress, Fashion and Textiles, McCord Museum): “Fashioning Nation: Expo 67 Hostesses”
  • Madeleine Goubau (PhD Student, Université du Québec à Montréal): “Conceptualizing Dress as a Tool for Public Diplomacy from a Communicational Perspective”
  • Roundtable Hosted by Madeleine Goubau:  “Future Perspectives for the Study of Fashion and Diplomacy”
  • Sarah Fee (Senior Curator, Global Fashion & Textiles, Royal Ontario Museum): “Weaving a Diplomatic Web: Silk Mantles from Madagascar”
  • Marie-Laure Archambault-Küch (PhD Student, Université Lumière Lyon 2): “An Attire for a Nation: The Hejazi, Syrian and Lebanese Delegations’ Sartorial Strategies at the Paris Peace Conference (1919)”
  • Andreas Behnke (Associate Professor, International Political Theory, University of Reading): Keynote presentation: “Fashion Diplomacy as Symbolic Acclamation”

The role of fashion in the interactions between nations is dealt with occasionally in the corpus of different academic fields.

Although these studies relate to fashion and diplomacy as a common general theme, their respective discipline-based methodological and conceptual frameworks make it harder for researchers to share knowledge and legitimize such a rich subject of study.

For this reason, this workshop seeks to initiate a discussion between researchers from various backgrounds such as history, communication, international relations, fashion studies, et cetera, to offer a platform to share the various methodological approaches exploring fashion and diplomacy.

In the context of this workshop, these two terms are defined broadly in order for them to be used as inclusive beacons around which all approaches can converge.

Defining the Notions of Fashion and Diplomacy

In line with the contributions of fashion studies, fashion is construed as both a material object – be it garments, accessories, jewellery, shoes, et cetera – and a sophisticated and universal sociocultural practice. It is also an industry ranging from raw materials to the finished product, which includes objects, experiences, images, and texts.

Fashion is therefore an object of study that is all together material, human and intangible.

Likewise, the notion of diplomacy encompasses all its variations: traditional, cultural, commercial, public, etc. This opens the door to related concepts such as “propaganda,” “place branding,” or “soft power.”

Aims of this Workshop

The workshop aims to present a framework for the analysis of fashion as a diplomatic tool for the state to gain commercial footholds abroad or sway public opinion at large beyond traditional diplomatic relations.

Papers will discuss the methodological relevance of the diplomatic perspective of international relations in the understanding of global phenomena that can serve national interests even if they do not emanate from international actors.

Papers will also question the nature of fashion’s influence to bridge the gap between past and present.

Indeed, with the dematerialization of fashion of the 1960s – through the booming of licenses and branding that lead to greater dissemination of fashion images favoured by the advent of mass media – fashion’s influence evolved accordingly.

That is why this workshop includes researchers beyond the field of history to integrate perspectives that observe the influence of fashion to this day.

This is meant to foster a transdisciplinary medium to discuss methodological tools to better reflect fashion and its influence through time.


New Diplomatic History Podcasts

November 26, 2021

The podcast episode "Fashion, Diplomacy and IR" at New Diplomatic History Podcasts (newdiplomatichistory.org/podcasts/) 


48th Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History

Panel "French History as Global History?" – The 1967-81 Aid-to-Couture Plan: French Fashion's Transnational Influence Bolstering France's Commercial Diplomacy.

October 28, 2021


2nd World Congress of Business History

Session A02: The Dematerialization of Fashion: Growing Diplomatic Fascination and Waning Textile Interest for Haute Couture in France, 1950s-1960s.

September 9, 2021


Creative IPR Seminar

La mode française. Vecteur d’influence aux États-Unis (1946-1960)

May 10, 2021


2021 Business History Conference Virtual Meeting

The Decoupling of the French Textile Industry and Haute Couture in the 1950s and 1960s

March 13, 2021


McCord Museum Public Lecture

Christian Dior: Couture and Diplomacy

February 17, 2021

Published Sep. 22, 2020 8:22 AM - Last modified Jan. 3, 2024 11:56 AM

Contact

Vincent Dubé-Senécal

Participants

  • Vincent Dube-Senecal Universitetet i Oslo
Detailed list of participants