The Fashion Chronicles with Amber Butchart
Member Exclusive Lectures
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1h 12m
From Eve's fig leaf to Joan of Arc's armour, the way we choose to clothe our bodies can carry layer upon layer of meaning. Across cultures and throughout history people have used clothing to signify power and status, to adorn and beautify, even to prop up or dismantle regimes.
This talk is taken from 'The Fashion Chronicles: Style Stories of History's Best-Dressed' (Mitchell Beazley, 2018). Amber Butchart crosses continents and over 5000 years to illuminate the importance of communication through clothing. Featuring 100 people from Sappho to Tutankhamun, Karl Marx and Michelle Obama, the book subverts the ‘best dressed’ trope and uses it to uncover sartorial stories from prehistory to the present. From aesthetics to activism, The Fashion Chronicles is a manifesto for fashion history, illuminating how the study of clothing can act as a portal to the past.
Amber Butchart is a curator, writer and broadcaster who specialises in the cultural and political history of textiles, dress and design.
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