PRECONFERENCE

300 YEARS OF FASHION HISTORY – A WALK
THROUGH THE KUNSTGEWERBEMUSEUM
MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE ARTS, KGM

Thursday, 14 September 2023 – 3:00 - 5:00 PM  – @KUNSTGEWERBEMUSEUM

KATRIN LINDEMANN (GERMANY)

Together with the curator Dr Katrin Lindemann, you will embark on a time travel through the fashion collection of the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts, KGM). The path will take you from the magnificent robes of the Rococo period to the colourful crinoline dresses of the 19th century and the current designs of contemporary designers. In addition, you will have the opportunity to take a close look at a model by Jeanne Lanvin, to explore details of materials, workmanship, and construction. The Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts, KGM), founded in 1867, is the oldest museum of its kind in Germany; it is part of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz). The KGM is dedicated to the applied arts and man's relationship
to his designed environment. It collects, researches, and communicates the processes of design, production and the application or appropriation of designed objects that go hand in hand with a high artistic standard.

Meeting point for the guided walk is at the lockers in the entrance area of Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts, KGM)

Modegalerie des Kunstgewerbemuseums © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum / Achim Kleuker

Dr. Katrin Lindemann is an art historian. After holding positions at the University of Paderborn and the
German Textile Museum in Krefeld, she has been a research assistant and curator at the Museum of the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SMPK)) since 2020. Her dissertation,
completed in 2018, focused on figurative cotton printed fabrics of the 18th century and how to make this material genre visible again today. As curator for fashion, textiles and jewellery, she organizes exhibitions at the Museum of Decorative Arts and
works on and researches the fashion archive

PRECONFERENCE

FASHION IMAGE COLLECTION – LIPPERHEIDE COSTUME LIBRARY KUNSTBIBLIOTHEK KULTURFORUM

Thursday, 14 September 2023 – 9:00AM - 4:00PM  – @KUNSTBIBLIOTHEK

The Lipperheide Costume Library is the world’s largest library and collection of graphic works on the history of clothing and fashion. The library comprises original source documents, magazines and secondary literature on fashion, dance and theatre, sports and games, festivities and ceremonies, as well as dining culture, travel and caricature. A further highlight is the extensive collection of graphic art, comprising drawings, prints, photographs, and 900
portrait and genre paintings on related subjects. The entire collection contains about 40,000 books and magazines fro the 16th century to the present day, as well as paintings, manuscripts and 100,000 drawings, prints and photographs.

WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU WEARING?
Friday, 15 September 2023 – 11:30AM - 1:30PM (CEST – STREAMED from New Zealand

Jennifer Whitty & People from the future (New Zealand)

A voyage of discovery for all wearers of clothing. Join us on a playful, immersive, and interactive guided walk that blurs the lines of reality. Be coaxed beyond the confines of your imagination and journey through unexpected doors to the past, present, and future. Together, we will weave stories, unpick perspectives, and open alternative paths for what we often take for granted: the materials that protect, warm, hinder, transport, transform, express, and enhance our bodies ... Sashay this way!

Jennifer Whitty (Muintir na hÉireann) is an Associate Professor of Design. She has worked globally as a designer, researcher, and educator in companies and institutions in the USA, Europe, Australasia, and Asia. Her work aims to usher in a new era of deep systemic change for fashion design that is expensive and diverse. Rooted in social and environmental justice but also coming from a place of joy, care, and playfulness.

TEACHING DESIGN THROUGH CRAFT: A STUDIO TOUR AT THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FASHION TECHNOLOGY, NEW DELHI
Friday, 15 September 2023 – 11:30AM - 1:30PM (CEST – STREAMED from India

Nayanika Thakur & Matthew Raj Webb (India)

This live studio tour will introduce participants to socially-engaged design pedagogical strategies developed at India’s National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New Delhi. Since founding in 1986, a core part of NIFT’s mission has been to create a platform for student designers to learn about and collaborate with people from craft/artisan communities (Jha and Narang 2014). In the context of recent conversations about “decoloniality,” “de-growth,” and “slow-” and “co-production,” we will showcase design collections by recent NIFT graduates, exploring how each engages with national heritage-associated craft techniques and practitioners. This will be followed by an informal discussion among NIFT students, faculty, artisans, and guests about the contemporary inequalities, value differences, and cultural aspirations at the design-craft nexus.

Credits:
Ihaab Syed

Matthew Raj Webb is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at New York University (Program in Culture & Media) and Visiting Research Scholar at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi. His current research and filmmaking practice investigates the evolution of design education in India, foregrounding questions about generational values, creative ethics, and inclusive standards-making.

#CIRCULARTEXTILEMISSION - LOCAL TEXTILE LOOPS, MATERIAL AND SOCIAL CARE

Friday, 15 September 2023 – 2:00 - 5:00 PM  Start @STR 


Ana Stamenkova & Berlin City Mission / Textilhafen - Materialpool (Germany)

Join us on our visit at TEXTILHAFEN, the textile hub of Berlin City Mission. All textile donations from the donation collection end up here, are sorted by hand and then primarily come to our Kleiderkammer at the main station, which cares for up to 170 homeless people every day. What we can't use there, because it's not suitable for dressing homeless people seasonally, goes to our four second-hand shops. Broken textiles made of high-quality materials end up in the Materialpool, our Eldorado for upcycling designers and textile enthusiasts. Social sustainability and the sensible reuse of textile resources are our central issues.

This walk starts at STR at the main entrance.. The walk lasts about three hours including time for commuting between conference venues and tour site by public transport. Participants will return to the conference location CONCERT HALL, Hardenbergstr. 33. 10623 Berlin.

A valid ticket for public transport zone AB is required. Tickets are available at the station. Participants wishing to attend directly at site will meet at 2:45 PM at Textilhafen (Berlin City Mission), Storkower Str. 139D, 10407 Berlin.

Credits:
Luoise Grotenhöfer

Ana Stamenkova is the Creative Director of the upcycling label WaterToWine. She builds the brand with a strong focus on recycling garments into new creations and enabling others to participate through workshops. Her background is a master’s degree in Fashion Design on designing for circularity. Creating durable textile products with an appreciation for resources in a social environment is what drives her.

DECONSTRUCTING SPACES AND PLACES OF COLONIALITY: A LOCAL DESIGN PEDAGOGY WALK

Saturday, 16 September 2023 – 11:30 - 1:30 PM  Start @STR

Tanveer Ahmed (UK)

How does coloniality thinking impact the designs that shape our surroundings? To explore this question and others we will undertake a derive walk – an unplanned walk around Berlin to uncover how coloniality continues to underpin how design is conceived, taught, and practiced. Starting from the Haus Bastian, the Centre for Cultural Education we will collectively question how our environment, from the trees planted and weeds destroyed to the shape of rooms and local shops, have been designed through a colonial lens and how that creates norms that continue to impact design education.

This walk starts at STR, meeting point in front of the main entrance. The walk lasts about 90 minutes. Participants will return to the conference location STR, Strasse des 17. Juni 118.

Credits:
Coco Wu

Tanveer Ahmed is a practice-led fashion design researcher and anti-racist educator exploring ways to expose and re-think how dominant Eurocentric racial hierarchies are used as part of the fashion design process. I am a Senior Lecturer in Fashion and Race at Central Saint Martins working across the fashion program to support decolonial fashion perspectives.

IMPORT/ EXPORT

Saturday, 16 September 2023 – 11:15 - 3:00 PM – Start @CONCERT HALL

Marte Hentschel & Diana Weis (Germany)

A curated walk in Dong-Xuan-Center, Germany's largest Asian wholesale market in Berlin, connects Hollywood glamour, GDR's workers' history, and Vietnamese markets, exploring the global textile industry. Fashion theorist Prof. Dr. Diana Weis examines consumer practices, starting from nail supply wholesalers run by Vietnamese women. Marte Hentschel, Professor for Sustainable fashion at BSP Berlin discusses sustainable fashion amidst mass-market imports reflecting a take-make-waste economy. Minh Nguyen Huu, son of a Vietnamese worker, offers guided tours. Despite being deemed unsustainable, Dong-Xuan reveals overlooked contradictions in consumerism and sustainability, emphasizing the need for inclusive change. The walk concludes with a meal at Dong-Xuan, facilitating discussions on the insights gained.

This walk starts at CONCERT HALL, meeting point for participants in front of the main entrance. The walk lasts about three hours including time for commuting between conference venues and tour site bypublic transport and a lunch break at the tour site. Participants will return to the conference location STR, Strasse des 17. Juni 118. 

A valid ticket for public transport zone AB is required. Tickets are available at the station. Participants wishing to attend directly the tour from the site at Berlin-Lichtenberg will meet at 12:15 PM at the Thüringer Bratwurst Snack bar / center square.

Credits:
Daniel Gebhardt Photography

Marte Hentschel is a serial entrepreneur & fashion supply chain expert in platform creation and responsible sourcing with long-term experience in co-creation formats, change processes, and applying digital technologies to industries in flux. She is a professor of sustainable fashion at BSP Berlin, CEO at Sqetch, and Co-Initiator of VORN - The Berlin Fashion Hub.

Credits:
Simone Gilges

Dr. Diana Weis is a fashion theorist and author. She researches the topics of body norms, beautification and self-representation techniques in social media. In 2020, her book Modebilder (Fashion Images) was published by Wagenbach Verlag. Since 2019, she is a professor of fashion journalism at BSP Business & Law School Berlin.

BEYOND MALLS AND SKYSCRAPERS: A FASHION WALK THROUGH KAMPONG GELAM

Saturday, 16 September 2023 – 11:30 - 1:30 PM  – STREAMED from Singapore

Daniela Monasterios-Tan & Pixie Tan & Weiqi Yap (Singapore)

Explore Kampong Gelam, Singapore's historic quarter, with preserved shophouses, trendy boutiques, and concept cafes. Formerly assigned to Sultan Hussein Mohammad Shah in 1822, this vibrant neighborhood blends heritage with contemporary coolness. It has attracted the likes of independent record stores, guerrilla pop ups and vintage stores-a hub of cultural fusion. Immerse yourself in the unique atmosphere of heritage and new businesses selling textiles, baju kurong, carpets, and batik, shaped by centuries of Asian migration. Join this captivating virtual tour, merging history, culture, and contemporary fashion. ect.

Daniela Monasterios-Tan is a fashion researcher and educator at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Her work is often multidisciplinary and collaborative in nature and delves into the performative aspect of dress. In 2012, she co-founded the fashion collective Mash-Up with Nat Ng and Shaf Amis’aabudin. In 2019, she began a fashion podcast In The Vitrine with Dr. Nadya Wang and experimental collective A Stubborn Bloom with artist Stephanie J Burt.

Pixie Tan is an Art Director and Educator from Singapore. Her practice takes a collaborative approach to question the conditions of labour. Drawing from her experience in fashion and advertising, she designs sustainable and socially minded solutions for artists and cultural groups. She is the co-founder of Stranger(‘s) Touch, and a founding volunteer of Don’t Mind If, a ground-up initiative designed with the hopes of uplifting, celebrating and advancing the local communications design industry, community and profession.

Credits:Ethan Lai

Weiqi Yap is an independent fashion writer, researcher, and curator. In May 2022, she opened Fashion On Display, an independent fashion curation studio, and experimental gallery dedicated to exhibiting fashion and everyday dress. Her writing has been published in Vogue Singapore, Harper’s Bazaar Singapore, FEMALE Singapore, The International Journal of Fashion Studies, and Fashion & Market. Weiqi also lectures at the School of Fashion Studies at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Fashion at Lasalle College of the Arts.