Fashion in the Age of Louis XIV

—a conference organized by Kathryn Norberg, University of California, Los Angeles; Sandra L. Rosenbaum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Michael J. Hackett, University of California, Los Angeles

co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies,
French Consulate of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The conference explores fashion during the reign of Louis XIV, when modern fashion was born through the widely circulated fashion print. At Versailles styles of dress changed constantly, and these changes were publicized through engravings disseminated throughout France and the rest of Europe.

In 2002 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art acquired a bound folio of 190 such engravings, which portray men and women dressed for a variety of venues (court, church, theater), and activities (fencing, writing letters, practicing instruments). Prints of French peasants, Parisian street vendors, and characters from Lully’s court operas are also included. The folio is the centerpiece of an exhibition, Images of Fashion at the Court of Louis XIV, curated by conference organizer Sandra L. Rosenbaum.

The conference celebrates the LACMA folio and explores the creation of fashion in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Scholars from a variety of disciplines (history, art history, anthropology, and literature) from Europe and the United States analyze how fashion was produced and publicized as well as how it altered the behavior of elites in France, England, and Germany. The conference concludes with a demonstration of a court dance organized by Michael J. Hackett and Emma Lewis Thomas, accompanied by musicians from Musica Angelica.

Program

Session 1: The Folio
Chair: Victoria Blyth-Hill, Conservation Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Sandra L. Rosenbaum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
“Introduction to the LACMA Folio”

Soko Furuhata, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
“The LACMA Folio”

with contributions by:

Victoria Blyth-Hill, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Marco Leona, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Chail Norton, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Marc Walton, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Marcia Reed, Getty Research Institute
“Fashion in Prints”

Kathleen Nicholson, University of Oregon
“Fashioning Fashionability in the Ancien Régime”

Session 2: Creation & Diffusion
Chair: Lynn Felsher, Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology

Paula Radisich, Whittier College
“Cris de Paris and Fashion”

William Ray, Reed College
“History, Identity, and the Concept of Fashion”

Françoise Tétart-Vittu, Musée Galliera, Paris
“What is a Fashion Plate in the Seventeenth-Century? Suggestions for Analysis and Hypothesis of Studies about This Not-Well-Defined Product”

Session 3: French Fashion Abroad
Chair: Patrice Marandel, Center for European Painting & Sculpture/Senior Curator, LACMA

Jutta Bäumel, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
“Kings as Models—Models for the King. French Fashion in the Royal Wardrobe, Riding Equipment, Coaches, and State Apartments of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733), Prince Elector of Saxony”

Jennifer Jones, Rutgers University
“Illegitimacy and Fashion in the Court of Louis XIV”

Hannah Greig, AHRB Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior, Royal College of Art, London
“The World of Fashion in London”

Session 4: Fashion in Literature & Opera
Chair: Kathryn Norberg, University of California, Los Angeles

Malina Stefanovska, University of California, Los Angeles
“The Fashion Run Seen from the Backstage: Saint-Simon’s Memoirs of the Versailles Court”

Susan McClary, University of California, Los Angeles
“Lully and the Fashioning of French Opera”

Session 5: Performing Fashion

Michael J. Hackett, University of California, Los Angeles
Emma Lewis Thomas, University of California, Los Angeles
Maxwell Barr, University of California, Los Angeles

with Musica Angelica

Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin
Janet Strauss, violin
Denise Briesé, viola de gamba
Charles Sherman, harpsichord

and

Susan Gladstone, dancer