Researchers Lea Vena and Ivana Čuljak (Center for Research of Fashion and Clothing - CIMO) participated with a paper Women in Struggle and Women's Emancipation, Savings Policies and Clothing Practices in the Post-War Period of Socialist Yugoslavia at the conference Fashion in the age of austerity which took place from 11 to 12.09.2015. at the Museum of London (UK). The conference dealt with austerity policies (1945-1951) in relation to clothing practices and fashion in the context of Western and Eastern Europe and in the United States.
Emphasis was placed on a case study of the analysis of the impact of austerity policy in Great Britain (Fashion in Ruins: Photography, Luxury and Dereliction in 1940s London, Popular British Responses to the New Look in 1948, British Fashion at the 'Britain Can Make It Exhibition', Austerity at Court: 1939-1958, Culture Clashes of Young Working-class Women's Dress in Post-war Lancashire, Hollywood Stars, Consumptions and the Negotiation of Female Desirability in Austerity Britain). The wider Western European context is captured through a case study analysis in Germany and France (The contrasted Recovery of French Fashion in the Post-war Years, as seen through Women's Magazines, 1945-1951 and Out of the Rubble: Fashion in Post-war Germany, 1945-1952, Cold War and New Look: The Reception of Christian Dior's Fashion in East and West German Film and Media) and through one example from the USA (Austerity and Charity: New York Designers and United States Army Surplus CARE Packages). The Eastern European perspective was captured by Agata Zborowska in her presentation Bazaars and Found Objects: Thing Culture in Post-war Poland.
The conference The Look of Austerity concluded with a discussion of the presented presentations summarizing them through a series of key words: desire, need, despite, effort, detail, morality, patronage, possibilities, quality and necessity.
https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/77139/look-austerity-conference-museum-london
* The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia for 2015
* Copyright © cimo - a center for research of fashion and clothing. All rights reserved.
* Photos: private archive t.v.
