Stuard to Explore Origins of Fashion in Europe
in Michael Powell Memorial Lecture Wednesday

The emergence of fashion in Europe will be the topic of an illustrated lecture by eminent historian Susan Stuard next Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 8 p.m. in Thomas Great Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.  

"On the Heels of the Fashionable: Luxury and Fashion in 14th-century Italian Cities" will be the second in a series of lectures dedicated to the memory of Michael Powell, a Bryn Mawr professor of medieval history and culture who died in 2004 at age 42.

Stuard, a Haverford professor emerita of history, has written and edited numerous highly influential works on women in medieval Europe, including Women in Medieval Society, a staple of college history and women's studies curricula whose introduction has been anthologized in two textbooks.

Her latest book, Gilding the Market: Luxury and Fashion in 14th Century Italy, "investigates a major shift in patterns of consumption at the height of medieval prosperity, which, more remarkable, continued through the subsequent era of plague, return of plague, and increased warfare."

In her lecture, Stuard will examine some gendered patterns of consumption that might be surprising to observers of the contemporary fashion scene.

"Men were the fashionable sex in the 14th century; that is, the first century of European fashion," says Stuard. "They were also the first dedicated shoppers for fine goods."

According to Stuard, indications of the new consumer behavior that marked the beginnings of the world of fashion in Europe are scant in the written record of 14th-century Italy. She cites a book published a century later as the first "written notice" of the fine art of persuading buyers to purchase luxury goods.

"By contrast, the Italian painter's acute eye dates consumer sales promotion to the early 14th century. Painters, on occasion trained as goldsmiths and perhaps members of goldsmith's guilds, easily captured men's enthusiasm for spending on luxuries in Italy's cities."

Merchants weren't marketing luxury goods to women, Stuard says: "Sumptuary laws targeted women for their attempts to be fashionable and set limits on their consumption of fine goods, leaving men largely unrestricted in spending and in dress. Why did a disparity in gender expectations characterize the emergence of European fashion?"

Powell, who held advanced degrees in divinity and music as well as a Ph.D. in history and medieval studies, brought an interdisciplinary approach to courses dealing with court culture, Christianity, the rise of urbanism, homosexuality and food in medieval Europe. Colleagues praised the creativity of his scholarly work, which drew on his multiple areas of expertise to provide an unusually rich and complex understanding of medieval European culture. He was equally admired for his energetic, engaging approach to teaching, and in 2003 he earned the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award.

The lecture is sponsored by the Class of 1902 Lecture Fund, the History Department, the Center for Visual Culture, the Katherine Houghton Hepburn Center, the Growth and Structure of Cities Program and the Bi-College Program in Gender and Sexuality.

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