Patrik Steorn, stockhom University

2010-2016 (ended in 2014)

The project's objectives, taken from the approved application:

"The project aims at an examination of the role of fashion in the transnational communication of Swedish national imagery in the U.S., by analysing the export of fashion. The project will focus on fashion's capacity to add symbolic value and agency to material clothes, in this case to propagate an image of 'Swedishness'. The transnational perspective implies that Swedish initiatives will be studied in relation to American activities so that the launching and outwards spread from the Swedish side will be combined with the dissemination and reception in the U. S."

The project was terminated prematurely when the project manager Patrik Steorn took the position of museum director at the Thiel Gallery in Stockholm, starting in January 2014. This meant that the project was ended about a year earlier than planned. According to the project plan, three sub-studies were going to be conducted during the project; one on fashion history literature with a focus on methodological and theoretical questions, one on the Swedish launching of fashion in the US, and one on the American reception of the Swedish fashions. Of these, the first and third were realized, while the second was only just started. The overall aim did however not change, and the results achieved before the research was completed ahead of schedule are in line with the above formulation.

Three main results from the project

Swedish fashions played a double role in the domestic construction of fashionability in the U.S. in the 1960s. On the one hand Swedish dress was the kind of modern clothing that appealed to American consumers. On the other, one of the ways these garments were perceived as particularly "Swedish" and thereby exotic and "other", was through their sensual and potentially sinful qualities. Images of Swedish fashion were used to challenge an established, conservative taste in the U.S., and were thus designated to represent alternative, cosmopolitan ways to relate to fashion as a means of lifestyle expression.

Fashion history literature in Sweden has had a hybridic character. A large part is translated and imported from countries such as Denmark, Czechoslovakia, France and Italy. The fashion industry itself has contributed with a few publications to this heterogeneous field of literature, which contains both exhibition catalogues and consumer education. The closing down of Swedish textile industry during the 1960s seems to have influenced the perception of Swedish fashion knowledge in a very negative way. Textile Professor Inez Svensson has talked about this as a cultural murder. The ethnological perspectives on fashion and clothing dominated the literature during the 1960s and 70s; during the 1980s, more and more books by fashion journalists were published, with a focus on style and taste, and around 1990there was a turn towards a focus on design and fashion culture.

The Swedish fashion industry underwent a fundamental change during the postwar period, which was partly inspired by the American fashion culture. Designer Katja of Sweden studied for Claire McCardell in the United States, and was strengthened in her ideas about a democratic fashion that was practically oriented and which would not reproduce social differences. This was also a period when focus shifted away from the factory owner towards the fashion designer. Katja of Sweden, Sighsten Herrgård and Anna Wrange were some of the names that were launched under their own name, unlike established Swedish manufactures and fashion houses such as Kåwe, DEHA, Sahlins, Hettemarks, Bevells or Kaplan where the director last name or initials were in focus. Through the work of Katja of Sweden, one of the roots to modern Swedish fashion leads back to the United States.

New research questions

The project research has raised ideas about comparative studies on some of the main issues: How has ideas about Swedishness been used as a tool in the international launch within other fields of designs, alongside fashion? Does the Swedish launch of fashion abroad follow a pattern that can be found in other countries? What role does the relative size of the Swedish fashion industry play for its development (not among the most important fashion world)? Issues relating to the growing field of "print culture" - studies about the cultural impact of printed goods. How did the magnificent volumes on fashion, art and crafts with color pictures contribute to disseminating knowledge about visual culture to a broad audience? The cultural history of illustrations in fashion history overviews is another subject area that could be further investigated. The project has also raised new questions of a more theoretical nature, relating to fashion studies in relation to, on the one hand, design studies, on the other hand, studies of visual culture: how can fashion studies' overlap between these fields be described in theoretical terms?

International perspectives and activites

The research aims and questions already contain an international perspective, which has characterized the execution of the project. The project has been established in an international research environment and among archives and museums.
The project has been presented at several international conferences:
Key note speaker: "Swedish fashion in the US. A Transnational Perspective "Fashioning the archive: new approaches to materialising textile history The Pasold conference: A Transnational Perspective on Fashion and National Identity. Goldsmiths University of London, 11 January 2014
Key note speaker: "Swedish 1960s fashion in the US." Traveling Fashion. Styles, Diversity, Globalization Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany January 24, 2013 Paper Presentation "Fashionable sensuality and national identity. Swedish 1960s fashion in the American press' 38th Annual AAH Conference, The Open University, Milton Keynes, England on March 30, 2012.
In addition, a three-month research stay in the US in the fall of 2013, when I was a guest researcher at the Parsons New School of Design in New York, invited by Professor Hazel Clark. The stay entailed work at the Condé Nast archives and interviews with key persons such as fashion importer Marianne Ohm and fashion photographer Gösta Peterson. A study trip to Boston was included where I met with fashion curators at the Museum of Fine Arts, as well as a study trip to Los Angeles where I met the curators in charge of fashion at the Los Angeles County Museum and Museum at FIDM.

Research information activities outside of Academia

The project led to a commission to curate the exhibition "Woven fashion dreams. From Ripsa to New York, 1950-1980 "at the Hallwyl Museum, the winter of 2011/2012. The exhibition dealt with Ebba von Eckermann, one of the designers represented in the research materials. She clearly used the Swedish origins to profile her business and was primarily working against an American market. I was responsible for the concept, selection of objects and texts. The exhibition attracted a wide audience. In conjunction with the exhibition, I held a lecture about the research project.
Lecture at the international symposium "Fashion in Translation" held at the Folkets Hus in Stockholm, organised by the Centre for Fashion Studies, Stockholm University, winter 2011
Lecture and co-organizer of the symposium: "60s fashion scene in a new light: Fashion Studies perspective in focus", at the museum Prince Eugen's Waldemarsudde, the spring in 2013.
Presentation at a panel discussion during Stockholm Pride, organized by the University of Stockholm, the summer of 2014. In connection with this, I was interviewed by the daily culture news Kulturnytt in P1, a feature that had great impact.
Participation in the radio show "Stil i P1", Feb. 2013 on Katja of Sweden and Swedish fashion export.

Publishing strategy

The project originally planned for a total of four publications: three scientific articles in English and one book in Swedish. The articles were related to the project's sub-studies: the first on Swedish fahsion historiography, the second on the internationl launch of Swedish fashion, the third on the American media reception of Swedish fashion in the 1960s. The fourth publication was planned as a monography. The strategic idea behind was to both reach the initiated the international research community and to meet a wider interest from a general local audience.

Of the planned publications only the third article has been published, in a special issue on "Travelling fashions" of the German academic journal Querformat, in both German and English. The first article, however, is submitted to the internationl journal Fashion Theory and is under revision after a first round of feedback received from the editors. The two other publications are put on hold and it is uncertain if and when they could be taken up again. The intention is to make the articles available for Open Access - either through the individual journal, or in DiVA, via Stockholm University.

The project's two main publications with comments

The two publications produced during the project can be seen as representative of the obtained research results. The article published in the German magazine Querformat presents the project's overall aims and focuses on the role of fashion photography in projecting ideas of national identity in material dress, and situates the Swedish material in an international context. The article which is under revision for Fashion Theory brings up overarching questions about fashion history, which has proved to be a previously under-researched area, even internationally. Principal methodological and theoretical issues are discussed with a basis in Swedish examples. Both articles have generated new knowledge to the international field of fashion studies, with particular relevance in the areas of visual culture, historiography and national identity.

Publications

“Fashion History as Hybrid. A Historiographical Perspective on the Distribution of Fashion History in Sweden, 1950-1980”, artikel under revidering, accepterad till Fashion Theory, 31 s.
 
“Swedish 1960s Fashion in the U.S. A transnational perspective on fashion and national identity / Schwedische Mode der 1960er Jahre in den USA. Eine transnationale Perspektive auf Mode und nationale Identität ” Querformat vol. 5, 2014, 14 s.

Övriga publikationer med anknytning till ämnet, som utkommit under projektperioden

“Life-style and politics of fashion and gender in 1960s Sweden. Unisex fashion in theory and practice” The Meanings of Dress (red. Kimberly A. Miller-Spillman, Andrew Reilly, Patricia Hunt-Hurst) New York: Fairchild books, 2012, 8 s.

“’Men can be attractive and a little sexy…’ Swedish unisex fashion in the 1960s and 1970s” Nordic Fashion Studies (red. Peter McNeil & Louise Wallenberg), Stockholm: Ax:l books, 2012, 14 s.
”Vävda modedrömmar. Från Ripsa till New York på Hallwylska museet” Årsbok, Stockholm: Föreningen Garde robe, 2012, 5 s.

"A Man Can Be Attractive and a Little Sexy": Masculinity in Change and Swedish Unisex Fashion in the 1960s and 1970s. Theorya Moda/ Russian Fashion Theory, no 22, 2011-12, 16 s.