The Global Trade of Textiles and Clothing in the Early Modern Period: Exchange, Meaning and Materialities
International PhD and Postdoctoral Conference
Organised by the CCCC – The Danish National Foundation's Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen, and the Global History and Culture Centre, University of Warwick
Convenors:
Karolina Hutkova and Giorgio Riello, in collaboration with CCCC/Paula Hohti
Date:
November 27th and 28th, 2014
Venue:
Global History and Culture Centre
Department of History
University of Warwick
United Kingdom
In the early modern period the trade of textiles, dress and other fashionable materials reached a global scale. Cotton textiles were the backbone of the trade of the European East India Companies in Asia, but also between Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. They followed the global success of the silk trade and the several attempts to transplant silk's cultivation from China to southern Europe and then to Northern Europe and the Americas.
Woollens became key to the Atlantic trade and linens structured long-distance trade within Europe, China and India. One should not forget the trade in mix fabrics, in beaver hats, lace, feathers and other decorative items as well as the exchange of ready-made garments, of types of fashionable garments, of designs, of raw materials such as dyes and fibres, and of technologies.
This workshop brought together PhD and Postdoctoral students to reflect on transnational, comparative and connective histories of the early modern exchange of textiles, dress and clothing. We encouraged in particular the submission of papers exploring new topics and methodologies, ranging from the quantification of trade, to technological transfer, to the use of material culture methodologies in research.