Understanding Fashion: exploring social history through fashion
In 2015/6, the Enterprise of Culture project teamed up with the Marks and Spencer Company Archive to provide a free public programme of events to put fashion retailing within the broader social context and connect everyday styles to the idea of cultural encounters.
The Understanding Fashion programme offered participants the opportunity to look at different parts of the Marks and Spencer clothing collection to explore what fashion reveals about us and our society. In four different sessions, participants had the chance to see gems from the unique M&S Company Archive collection and start to see fashion in a whole new light! Each event also had experts from the fields of fashion, design and business history who illuminated the collection with tales from the retail world.
Fashion as social history
Tuesday 6 October 2015, 5.30pm
The opening session offered the opportunity to discover the M&S archive clothing collection, dating from the early 1920s, and considered ‘fashion for the masses’ as a cultural and economic phenomenon.
Speaker: Katharine Carter, M&S Company Archivist.
Light refreshments included.
More information can be found here.
History under wraps
Friday 20 November 2015, 12pm
Starting with the first M&S bra in 1926, this fascinating session explored changes in lingerie over time and showed how our smalls can help us to gain a bigger understanding of history.
Speakers: Katharine Carter, M&S Company Archivist, and Lorraine Hamilton-Smith, London College of Fashion.
Light refreshments included.
More information can be found here.
Understanding utility fashion
Thursday 4 February 2016, 12 noon
During World War Two a whole new look was born with the creation of Utility clothing. The Marks and Spencer Company Archive utility collection is among the best in the country. Participants were invited to join us to hear about this hidden story and find out how the war changed fashion forever.
Light refreshments included.
Selling not just Clothes but Fashion
Tuesday 10 May 2016, 12 noon
Our final event in the series took place in the Cinema in the School of Media and Communications, Clothworkers North Building, University of Leeds. Selling not just Clothes but Fashion is a unique opportunity to explore fashion advertising, featuring examples from the M&S archive collection including wonderful 1950s and 1960s cinema adverts.
Light refreshments included.
See here for information about the Marks and Spencer Company Archive.
Images:
Marks & Spencer Magazine, Christmas 1932 (Marks and Spencer Company Archive)
Utility clothing (Marks and Spencer Company Archive)
Bra and Girdle SMN Nov 1953 (Marks and Spencer Company Archive)