Fashion for God - symposium

With Dutch catholic vestments as a starting point, a wide variety of papers will provide an international context of ecclesiastical vestments and practices in other European countries and also expand our views into the world of secular fashion to discover parallels in both worlds.

Over the centuries vestments were very prominent and precious objects in the catholic liturgy and were produced with the utmost reverence, artisticity and skill. They were used and cherished at the same time, and typically had multiple lives as they were repaired, reused and sometimes repurposed. In the seventeenth century Dutch Republic, reuse of fragments and material was common, and reuse of past styles and iconographies created a holdfast for Catholics who harkened back to their glorious undisputed hegemony. In the eighteenth century, religious vestments were commonly sourced from ladies’ dresses. Donated to church these fashionable silk fabrics changed from the secular to the ecclesiastical realm and thus became a colourful centre at the altar.

The symposium language is English and the programme will include these speakers:

• Pim Arts (Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht)
• Richard de Beer (Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht)
• Mary Brooks (Durham University)
• Mireille Gilbert (UCLouvain)
• Marjolein Homan Free (lecturer Programme Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage specialisation Textiles, University of Amsterdam / textile conservator)
• René Lugtigheid (textile conservator, formerly Amsterdam University)
• Hélène Malice (UCLouvain)
• Gudrun Sporbeck (independent art historian, formerly Museum Schnütgen, Cologne)
• Helen Persson-Swain (independent art historian, formerly Victoria & Albert Museum)
• Jenny Tiramani (School of Historical Dress, London)
• and others