Public programme with the Marks & Spencer Company Archive
Understanding fashion: exploring social history through fashion
The Leeds team collaborated with the Marks and Spencer Company Archive to provide a public programme of events to put fashion retailing within the broader social context and connect everyday styles to the idea of cultural encounters.
In four different sessions over 2015/6, participants had the chance to see different parts of the M&S clothing collection to explore what fashion reveals about us and our society. These events proved to be extremely popular (with up to 50 attendees at each) and on each occasion had to implement waiting lists for attendees.
Taking place in the Archive’s Michael Marks Room, the programme included sessions on the following themes, chaired by Regina Lee Blaszczyk: History under wraps (with speakers Katharine Carter, M&S Company Archivist, and Lorraine Hamilton-Smith, London College of Fashion); Fashion as social history (speaker: Katharine Carter) and Understanding utility fashion (speaker: Katharine Carter).
The final session, Selling not just clothes but fashion, took place in a dedicated cinema in the School of Media and Communication and offered a unique opportunity to explore fashion advertising, featuring examples from the M&S archive collection including 1950s and 1960s cinema advertisements. It was followed by a panel discussion with Blaszczyk, Carter and Claire Watson (Senior Teaching Fellow in the School of Design).
The sessions attracted students, academics and wider public audiences, many of whom were new to the project and subsequently engaged with other events organised by the Enterprise of Culture.