FASHION, CELEBRITY AND CULTURES OF THE GEORGIAN COURT
Kensington Palace, London 5-6 Sept 2023
Organisers: Polly Putnam (HRP), Claudia Acott Williams (HRP), Hannah Greig (University of York)
‘Pray put on your best suit of Cloaths you ever had in your life and take the first opportunity of going to court’ (Josiah Wedgewood, 1765)
From 5 April to 29 October 2023, Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) will be presenting a major new exhibition ‘Crown to Couture’ at Kensington Palace, exploring the similarities between the red carpet and the Georgian royal court. This symposium will provide an opportunity for academics, practitioners, and the public to come together to discuss and examine some of the exhibition themes in more detail.
Keynote and panel speakers will include, Dena Giannini, Style Director of British Vogue, fashion designer Edward Crutchley and Hannah Grieg.
In recent years scholarship has challenged the assumption that the Georgian Court (1714-1820) was one in fundamental decline, revealing instead a pattern of major investment. Both Hampton Court and Kensington Palace underwent significant refurbishment, and the royal court hosted an annual calendar of major entertainments and events. The Georgian court became a glittering stage for sartorial display. Crowds flocked to the palaces to glimpse the people who attended and see what they wore. The clothes worn at court were frequently recorded in detail by newspapers giving birth to the fashion press, as well as appearing in fashion plates, magazines and contemporary letters. Clothes, carriages, conduct, architecture, space and gesture were all subject to endless scrutiny.
Today, celebrity rather than royalty has become the nucleus of fashionable and cultural influence, and the red carpet is now the most important modern stage for sartorial display. Themes, dress codes and behaviour remain strictly regulated; political messages, career ambitions and social networks are woven into dress as visibly as they were in the corridors of royal power, and performance on the red carpet can make or break a career – for wearer or designer. The Kensington Palace exhibition will bring these two spheres of display, Georgian and modern, into close and meaningful comparison.
The symposium will provide an opportunity to focus on all aspects of Georgian court culture, and the organisers would welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes on the following themes and related topics:
• Dress and undress (including court dress, uniform, other forms of fashion, the toilette and the dressing room)
• The west end and royal life (including palaces, town houses, shops, services, transport)
• The court made public (including news, gossip, scandal)
• Material culture of the court (including objects associated with colonies and empire, luxury goods, ephemeral objects, interiors and exteriors)
• Events and entertainments (court balls, drawing rooms, dancing, music, fireworks, commemorations and public holidays)
• Bodies and gesture (the clothed body, embodied sociability, gesture and unspoken communication)
• Royal households (courtiers, servants, supplies and provisioning)
• Diverse pasts (non-European courtiers and visitors, legacies of empire)
• Georgian celebrity (within or beyond the court; power of celebrity; Georgian ‘red carpet’ moments)
• Opposition courts and new republics (political or social opposition groups; countercultures; subaltern communities; international revolution and republics)
In order to submit a proposal for a 20-minute paper, please send a paper synopsis of no more than 300 words and a short biography of no more than 100 words to c2cconference@hrp.org.uk by 2 December 2023. We welcome proposals from researchers and students at all stages of their career.