Wed, Oct 21
|Online event
Historical Dress
Curious about historical dress? This speaker series invites you to dive deeper into the world of historical fashion with our featured scholars. Join us online for our Historical Dress Speaker Series as we learn from the clothing of the past!
Time & Location
Oct 21, 2026, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ADT
Online event
About the event
This Speakers Workshop features 3 speakers and is followed by a 30 mins. Q & A session. We are pleased to announce that our speakers for this event are Elena Vanden Abeele, Birthe Wijkamp and Hilary Doda.
Elena Vanden Abeele- Belgian Fashion History (1830-1914)
Abstract:
History’s focus on Paris as the ‘capital of fashion’ has overshadowed the study of peripheral fashion centres in nineteenth-century Europe. This is also true of Belgian fashion history, which only attracted attention after the Antwerp Six in the 1980s, fostering the assumption that Belgium had no significant fashion industry in the nineteenth century. Yet, the substantial number of Belgian-made garments in museum collections in Belgium and the Netherlands indicates the existence of a prosperous and unique fashion industry. This presentation outlines a study of more than one hundred historical Belgian garments, offering insight into fashion in Belgium from the country’s foundation in 1830 until the First World War. Examined as sources of valuable information in themselves and as guides for further visual and textual archival research, these garments demonstrate the efficacy of integrating the close analysis of material objects within a comprehensive cultural-historical framework.
Bio:
Elena Vanden Abeele is an art historian specialising in nineteenth-century fashion. She works at Ghent University in Belgium as a PhD student on the project 'Fashion in Belgium (1830–1914): Garments, Organisation, Gender, Class and Nationalism', supervised by Prof. Maude Bass-Krueger (Ghent University) and Dr. Wendy Wiertz (Utrecht University).
Birthe Wijkamp- Historical Wardrobes as Ego Documents: Using Clothing as Primary Source for Biographical Information
Abstract:
The Dutch term ego document is traditionally used for a range of written sources that express the self. This study takes on a wider interpretation and considers physical wardrobes as a material biographical source in order to discover what clothing tells us about their wearer. Object-based garment analysis is used as a basic methodology. Adding other sources, including photographs, oral history and inventories, offers a rich and nuanced view of women’s lives as seen through clothing.
Making visible how historical wardrobes document changes in personal lives as well as societal changes shows how a wardrobe is a remnant of a range of chosen expressions. Contrary to the study of single garments, a wardrobe is more aligned with the lived experiences of wearing clothing on a daily basis, the different roles a woman played in society and the complexities of female identity.
Bio:
Birthe Weijkamp (1990) is an art historian specialized in fashion history and museology. Coming from a museum background she is interested in contextualizing material fashion objects. She currently combines PhD research into historical wardrobes with lecturing on fashion and working as a freelance curator.
Hilary Doda- Late-18th-Century High-Waisted Style Flowered Silk Brocade Gown
Abstract:
In 1993, the teaching collection at Dalhousie University’s Costume Studies Program acquired a flowered silk brocade gown in a late-18th-century high-waisted style. The gown shows signs of having been recut and altered at least three times, and an ink inscription reading "E Cockcrham” is on the inside of the bodice.
The story of this dress takes us on a journey from the silk weavers of Spitalfields to the tobacco plantations of Virginia, and gives us insight into methods of repurposing valuable textiles, the life cycle of expensive garments, and women’s lives in eighteenth century Virginia.
Bio:
Hilary Doda is the Project Coordinator at the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy, and teaches global dress history at Dalhousie University’s Costume Studies program. She holds an Interdisciplinary PhD from Dalhousie, and her research focuses on the material culture of dress and textiles in the early modern Atlantic. Her first book, Fashioning Acadians (2023), examined the shaping of colonial identity in pre-deportation Acadia, and was shortlisted for the Canadian Historical Society’s “Best Book in Canadian History” prize in 2024. Her current project is an exploration of garment remaking in colonial families.