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From ArtHist.net:

Luxury in Fabrics and Fashion: 5th Colloquium of Textile and Fashion Researchers
El luxe en els teixits i la moda / El lujo en los tejidos y la moda
Barcelona Design Museum, 6–7 November 2025

Organized by Sílvia Rosés and Sílvia Ventosa

Proposals due by 31 March 2025

The Design History Foundation and Catalonia’s textile museums announce their 5th Colloquium of Textile and Fashion Researchers, to be held at the Barcelona Design Museum on 6 and 7 November 2025. This year’s theme is textiles and fashion as powerful instruments of social stratification and distinction. On the one hand, luxury has positioned itself at the service of the ruling classes by consolidating established, imposed hierarchies, although, on the other hand, it has also helped to blur and rewrite them. This is why the concept of luxury has been one of the best-guarded bastions by the privileged sectors, given that it is one of the most powerful resources of social significance, the legitimation of power and the recognition of the elites. What is understood as luxury has consequently changed its semantics in order to adapt to the various facets that power has assumed.

In the past, colours such as purple or black, the quality of fabrics or jewellery were major indicators of status. Items of clothing such as ruffles, chopines, corsets, togas or crinoline indicated the high social class of those who did not have to work. Today, more subtle aspects such as hygiene, the cut of suits, the concept of good taste or the recent obsession with brands have become intangible added values that distinguish those who have political or economic power from those who do not.

This congress aims to examine the various facets of luxury, both in the field of fabrics and clothing and the changes in meaning that this concept has undergone at different times throughout history and in various cultures. It intends to provide an in-depth analysis from a historical and sociological perspective (through its role in shaping societies), from a technical perspective (through the tradition and innovation of crafts and their adaptation to the industrial paradigm), from an anthropological perspective (through the analysis of multiple cultural realities), and from an economic perspective (through the study of the implications of luxury in the configuration of fashion systems).

This 5th Colloquium therefore proposes various strands to submit your papers:
• Luxury throughout History
• The Aesthetics of Luxury: Tastes and Ornaments
• Luxury and Elitism
• The Moral and Psychological Implications of Practicing Luxury
• The Semantics of Luxury
• The Production of Luxurious Objects
• Craftsmanship and Luxury: Tradition, Innovation, and Modernity
• Economy and Luxury
• Luxury and the Issue of Gender
• Luxury and Sustainability

With this fifth edition of the TFR Colloquium—prior editions were held in 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023—the Design History Foundation and Catalonia’s textile museums have established themselves as a forum for exchange designed to promote top-level research and the dissemination of knowledge in the fields of textiles and fashion. These Colloquiums have showcased public and private archives and collections and have helped to place the spotlight on a group of historians and scholars who had previously worked in isolation. The TFR Colloquium brings together people of the highest academic level. The committee will not accept abstracts from artists and designers who come to promote their work.

The conference languages will be Catalan, Spanish, and English, and the papers to be presented in person during the conference will last a maximum of 15 minutes. Registered participants will receive a certificate, as will the researchers presenting the papers. The papers will be published in the conference proceedings. They will have a DOI if they are published online and an ISBN if they are published in paper form.

Proposals (maximum of 500 words) should address the general aims of the research, theoretical framework (reference authors), methodology, and the originality of research within context of textile and fashion history and studies. Proposals should also include a paper title and details of the researcher (full name, academic post, current occupation, and email address), as well as the strand in which the abstract belongs. Abstracts must be sent in Word format (absolutely not in PDF format) to coloquiotextil@gmail.com, with no images or citations, for subsequent processing on paper and/or in digital format.

Once the abstract has been accepted, the researcher will register through the website of the Design History Foundation. All researchers must register and pay the appropriate fee, which will be announced when the programme is published. Diplomas will be issued only to registered individuals in the case of group research. The organisation reserves the right to cancel the colloquium in the event of exceptional circumstances beyond its control.