The Crafts of Fashion

Classifications and hierarchies have always informed our understanding of the long history of garment- and accessory-making. While featherworkers and jewellers still brilliantly represent this technical expertise in the creative field, many skills and tools remain little-known or undervalued. This book provides an inventory of these practices and proposes a reconsideration of certain techniques usually associated with the domestic sphere, such as mending, repairing, and altering.By examining the ways in which noble and amateur skills are passed on and acquired, and by considering the tensions and complementarities between hand and machine, the texts brought together here invite us to move beyond these often overly categorical oppositions and explore with fresh eyes the variety of skills that make up fashion – both ordinary and exceptional, from yesterday to nowadays.The contributions that make up this book were given in the form of lectures as part of the research seminar Chaire Chanel et le19M des savoir-faire de la mode at the Institut Français de la Mode.