The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-Based Research in Fashion

by Ingrid Mida and Alexandra Kim

The Dress Detective is the first practical guide to analysing fashion objects, clearly demonstrating how their close analysis can enhance and enrich interdisciplinary research. This accessible book provides readers with the tools to uncover the hidden stories in garments, setting out a carefully developed research methodology specific to dress, and providing easy to use checklists that guide the reader through the process.Beautifully illustrated, the book contains seven case studies of fashionable Western garments – ranging from an 1820s coat to a 2004 Kenzo jacket – that articulate the methodological framework for the process, illustrate the use of the checklists, and show how evidence from the garment itself can be used to corroborate theories of dress or fashion.This book outlines a skillset that has, until now, typically been passed on informally. Written in plain language, this book will give any budding fashion historian, curator or researcher the knowledge and confidence to analyse the material in front of them effectively.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, History, Fashion History, Sewing, Reference, Costume History

Paperback

First published December 17, 2015

Reviews

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can we just talk about The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-Based Research in Fashion? This book, released in 2015 by curators, scholars, and historians Ingrid Mida and Alexandra Kim, is so far up my alley it might actually be in my courtyard. I read this thing like a page-turning novel.

Simply put, this book is a guide for analyzing historical garments for scholarly research. Whether your purpose in doing so is within the context of a larger project, or if the analysis itself is the end in and of itself, Mida and Kim outline a practical three-pronged approach involving observation, reflection, and interpretation. They've included checklists in their appendices and detailed explanations for how to use them as tools to aid in a garment analysis, which demystify the process of object-based research.

Seven case studies using extant archival garments are incorporated as well, which serve as practical examples of how the methodology can be deployed to serve various researchers' means/goals. I loved reading these chapters, not only for their value as working examples of analytical process, but also for the minutiae of object detail: the dimensions and documentaion of a hidden watch pocket in a working-class woman's bodice, or the potential reasoning behind the stitching up of a pocket in a beautifully-decorated pelisse.

I should note that if you are seeking practical guidance about artifact storage--sourcing archival/acid free containers, collection database development, safe handling practices, etc--this guide does not address any of that. Still, I couldn't be more enthusiastic about the book as a whole because it's such a concise, clear handbook for a range of readers--whether you are connected to an archive/costume stock/storage collection or are a scholar visiting one as part of your research, this will help you organize your thoughts about the garments from antiquity which have survived.

[E2d2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid example of how to read the physicality of a garment to understand what it is and extrapolate how it was worn in what kind of contexts.

[Katrina Sark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jean L. Druesedow, Foreword, pp.7-8

p.7 – The difficulty of understanding the dress artifact increases the further removed the researcher is from the time and place of the object’s creation.

With bespoke examples of Western fashion the decisions of the client and dressmaker or tailor together determine the garment. Was the client conservative or avant-garde? Was the maker attuned to the fashion of the time? What were the political, social and economic considerations?

Introduction, pp.10-13

p.11 – The close analysis of dress artifacts can enhance and enrich research, providing primary evidence for studies that consider fashion and clothing from perspectives such as history, sociology, psychology, and economics.

Material culture analysis is a research methodology that considers the relationship between objects and the “ways in which we view the past and produce our narratives of what happened in the past” (Pearce 1992: 192).

p.12 – The study of material culture has a long history as a discipline, especially in the fields of anthropology and art history.

2 – How to Read a Dress Artifact

p.27 – The process of conducting object-based research in dress can be divided into three main phrases, including:

Observation: capturing the information from the dress artifact
Reflection: Considering embodied experience and contextual material
Interpretation: Linking the observations and reflections to theory

5 – Interpretation

p.76 – Interpretation is the process by which a researcher links together all the evidence gathered during the other phrases of research and offers an analysis as to its meaning. As one of the most challenging steps of object-based research, it is difficult to articulate the course of action definitely, since the goals of each researcher are different. The process is both imaginative and highly creative, requiring the researcher to assimilate the knowledge gathered in the other phases in the process, to find patterns, make conjectures, and draw conclusions.

Translating evidence gathered during the observation into a nuanced argument that can be used to intersect with and enrich theories of fashion, dress and material culture, cannot be prescriptive, since fashion is itself an interdisciplinary field that draws from a broad range of theoretical perspectives. A single dress artifact can be used to illustrate, and interpret a wide range of topics in fashion, including aspects of technology, social history, art history, sociology psychology, anthropology, design history, cultural theory, cycles of production and consumption, as well as economics.

p.78 – The journal Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body, and Culture, which defines fashion as “the cultural construction of embodied identity,” was launched in 1997, to offer a forum for critical analysis and scholarship.

Theory – the set of ideas or the framework used to explain a particular phenomenon – can seem highly abstract and impenetrable. At the core, theory is speculation, and represents one learned person’s opinion that has come to be generally accepted by other scholars over time. Theory comes in and out of parlance, as scholarship develops over time. At this juncture, undergraduate and graduate students in fashion are expected to be conversant with a range of key theorists, from Karl Marx to Michel Foucault.

Knowing which theorist to draw upon is highly dependent on the research project at hand, and cannot be prescriptive. However, if the researcher remembers that theory is in and of itself reflective of cultural beliefs, it makes the process seem much less intimidating. When theory can be used to complement the interpretation of evidence, it is suggested that a thorough literature review be conducted to identify the key theorists, since any list of scholars or cultural theorists will be incomplete.

[Haylie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lists provided at the end of the chapters (like the formal analysis checklist), are incredibly helpful for object based research. I've personally used two of the lists for my own specific fashion research and they are effective in getting you to really dig deep about an object. However, I find Kim and Mida's interpretation and reorganization of Jules Prown's object research method to be unnecessary.
Their new categories just seem to be subsets of Jules Prown's.
For example, Prown uses Description, Speculation, and Deduction. Comparatively, Kim and Mida suggest Observation, Reflection, and Interpretation. To me, these all seem to be things you do within the three sections as stated by Prown. You would already be observing as you are describing, you would be reflecting as you are speculating, and so on and so forth. So that section doesn't seem necessary to me. I think Prown as effectively covered that. However, I did enjoy the book for helping organize myself and my research for in depth direct object based analysis.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit this was a quick, recreational read rather than an in-depth tutorial but I really enjoyed the tips and analyses in this book.

[Ella]

Read for THE154: Reading Dress.

[Sar · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title, incredibly practical and thorough without being overwhelming.

[grace :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

textbook for my historical fashion class!