Enfilade

From The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation:

A Head for Fashion: Hair, Wigs, Cosmetics, and Jewelry, 1600–1900
Colonial Williamsburg, 14–16 November 2014 

Colonial Williamsburg is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Kings Arms Barber and Wig Shop by hosting a conference on wigs, hair, makeup, and accessories of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The program will examine how ‘fashion from the neck up’ changed over time, reflecting changes in taste, the personal images people wished to present, affluence and class, and sheer practicality. Colonial Williamsburg wigmakers and other tradespeople, historians and interpreters, will be joined by noted guest speakers to present talks on wigs, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewelry, and related topics. These presentations will be interspersed with demonstrations and panel discussions.

As we put this program together, we realized that there is little published information specifically about these topics, and it is difficult to find anything that brings them all together. This conference will help to fill that gap, for scholars, curators, museum interpreters, reenactors, theatre costumers, and anyone who is just plain interested. We are looking forward to a diverse and enthusiastic audience who will bring their perspectives to the conversation. And we plan to have fun!

From The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation:

400 Years of Chocolate: Aztec to Artisanal
Colonial Williamsburg, 2–4 November 2014

Come join us on a journey with one of the world’s favorite plants: cacao. We will discover the amazing paths through time and space that this plant and its products have traveled. From early uses as a ceremonial beverage and important crop in Mesoamerica, to its transformation to one of the most popular foodstuffs in the world, chocolate has crossed oceans, been carried up mountains, and even flown into outer space. How did the seeds of this humble plant become so popular?

Join Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Foodways staff, curators, and distinguished guest scholars as they explore how this plant is grown and processed and how the seeds are transformed into a product that conquers the food world. Learn how people of the past used and altered chocolate from a beverage into a candy and beyond.

Guest speakers will include Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro, one of the world’s top cacao scientists. He is Global Director of Plant Science and External Research, Mars Incorporated, and Adjunct Professor in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, The University of California at Davis. Dr. Shapiro also helped map the cacao gene and is one of the foremost scholars in the field of cacao propagation. Dr. Michael Coe, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Yale University, will present the place of chocolate in early Mesoamerica. Ruby Fougère, Curator of Furnishings, Collections and Conservation Supervisor, Parks Canada, will complement a Foodway’s staff presentation on chocolate in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and North America, with a look at chocolate in French Canada. Dr. Deanna Pucciarelli, Program Director, Hospitality and Food Management Program, Ball State University, will explore how chocolate production methods evolved during the nineteenth century, and John and Tracy Anderson of Woodhouse Chocolate in St. Helena, California, will delve into modern artisanal chocolate making.

And, of course, no program on chocolate would be complete without a chance to eat some! Chef Rhys Lewis and the Colonial Williamsburg Lodge culinary team will present us with delicious chocolate concoctions of the past, present, and future. So, come learn, smell, taste, and follow chocolate on its journey through history.