From 18 to 20 September, the Costume Museum and the Prado Museum will be hosting an International Congress focused on eighteenth fashion in Spain during the reign of the Hapsburgs. Around twenty experts from European and North American museums, universities and research centres will participate with presentations on their respective areas of expertise.
Organised by the University of Navarra, the Costume Museum and the Friends of the Costume Museum Association, in collaboration with the Prado Museum, Casa Velázquez and the Spanish Society of Eighteenth Century Studies, this congress is an opportunity for academics, teachers and students from Spain and abroad to present, debate and explore fashion in Spain during the Enlightenment, and the role it played in society, art, economy and industry.
It has been seventeen years since the first International Congress on Spanish Fashion during the reign of the Hapsburg dynasty was held in Madrid. Since then, there has been growing interest within several areas of knowledge in Spain in the study of clothing. For that reason, this year’s congress establishes continuity with the first edition held in 2007, completing its analysis of the period of the Hapsburg dynasty with the reign of the Bourbons.
It aims to explore the popularity and use of clothing in eighteenth-century Spain. The dresses and fashions of this time are unique in terms of the debate established between national fashions and those from abroad. The changes in clothing seen in the second half of the eighteenth century were a reflection of the transformation of society that, even with a modern style (Rococo), had begun to value comfortable and pleasurable intimacy and a new concept of sociability.
The main topics that will be addressed by the different speakers include: Evolution of fashion: Women's dresses; Men's suits; history and evolution; Underwear; shapes and styles; The dress and its accessories: footwear; headwear; fans and jewellery; Cosmetics and hygiene; and the Clothing industry and marketing.
The confirmed speakers taking part in the congress are Dr Aileen Ribeiro (Professor Emeritus at The Courtauld Institute of Art); Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros (Curator at the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris); Dr Laura Pérez Hernández (researcher at the University of Nottingham); Dr Catherine Lanoë (Professor at the University of Orléans); Saga Esedín Rojo (researcher at the Louvre School and the Complutense University of Madrid); Dr Lesley Miller (Professor at the University of Glasgow); José Manuel Matilla Rodríguez (Curator at the Prado Museum); Dr Elisabeth Gernerd (Professor at the University of Montfort in Leicester); Dr Denis Bruna (Curator at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris); and Anne-Cécile Moheng (Assistant Curator at the Museum of Zadkine in Paris), among many others.
