On Friday 6th June DMU's International Centre for Sports History & Culture hosted a Sport & Fashion study day in partnership with Sporting Heritage. The event was part of Sporting Heritage's #SportAndFashion month, which will be running throughout June with seminars and events.
The speakers and attendees of the Sport & Fashion event.
The day began with a keynote address from Dana Abdulkarim, the first Muslim hijabi to play for England. Dana spoke movingly about her struggle to be allowed to wear her hijab or equivalent accommodation during sports games, even when playing at international level. She described feeling othered by rigid enforcement of uniform rules simply because of tradition. Thankfully the situation has improved tremendously and there are now sports hijabs produced by every major sportswear retailer. As Dana said, there is no 'definitive' sports person so there should be a range of kit to suit all requirements.
Detail of Power Point slide by Emmy Sale showing changing hockey kit.
We moved on to hear three very interesting case studies. Firstly Emmy Sale and Shane Smith from the Hockey Museum spoke about Emmy's PhD research into womens hockey wear. Emmy's study explores the changing hockey uniforms found in the Museum collection and considers the relationship between society, sporting bodies, gender and clothing. The need for uniforms to provide mobility while also preserving modesty was a core concern, alongside the enforcing of femininity. For example, in the 1930s "divided skirts" were introduced with referees required to check that players were definitely not wearing shorts! Emmy noted the importance of collecting women's sporting material culture to recover overlooked stories in women's sports history.
Examples of Hockey kit from the Hockey Museum. Right, Team GB Olympics shorts, left, a 'divided skirt'
Next Sarah Collins, Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Fashion Institute, introduced her PhD research 'Identi-kit', exploring fan participation in football kit design. Sarah is interested in the way fans are consumers of football kits without being active participants in their design. Her study uses participatory design methods to involve fans in the design of their teams' kit, allowing design to become 'a meaningful channel of fan involvement'. She interviewed fans about what their team meant to them and interwove their stories into the design of new kit, thus reflecting the heritage and culture of the club from the fan perspective.
Detail of slide by Sarah Collins explaining the Identi-Kit project.
Finally Rebecca Shawcross, Senior Shoe Curator at the Northampton Museum & Art Gallery, spoke about their large collection of sports footwear. Rebecca explained that sports shoes are part of a much larger shoe collection at the Museum, which holds 18 thousand examples of footwear, mostly made in Northampton. She described a recent project to collect trainers, including signed examples from noted sportspeople which are very popular with visitors due to the 'celebrity' cachet - moreso if they have definitely been worn by the athlete! Rebecca noted that a particular issue with curating footwear is that the individual examples are often lacking in contextual information, meaning that she is thrilled if a pair are donated with a photograph of the original owner wearing them.
Rebecca Shawcross showing examples of sports shoes from the Northampton Museum collection.
We then had a very useful session from textiles conservator Rebecca Bissonnet. Rebecca described the various agents of decay that can affect historical textiles - theft, vandalism, pests, fire, temperature, relative humidity, dust and pollutants, flooding and light. She explained how to control these factors. Rebecca noted that for textiles there was another risk factor - the way garments are stored can be very detrimental. She recommended rolling garments or hanging them on padded hangers. If folding garments is necessary, then soften the folds and creases with acid free tissue or Rebecca's secret weapon - pipe lagging! Rebecca showed us some fascinating case studies from her own textiles conservation work, including the Welsh rugby shirt that she worked on for the BBC's Repair Shop programme.
A DIY padded clothes hanger made by Rebecca Bissonnet.
After lunch it was our turn to showcase the varied sports collections held here at DMU. Archivist Katharine Short discussed the ways she brings historical sports garments into teaching students of fashion, footwear, contour and textiles. Elisabeth Gernerd and Rachel Neal, fashion historians from DMU's School of Fashion and Textiles, also spoke about how they incorporate object based teaching into their seminars. A wide-ranging discussion followed that touched on changing textile technology and the impact on sportswear, the myth-busting photographs of women participating in sports despite wearing corsets and long skirts, and the importance of object-based learning in our increasingly digital age.
Rachel, Lis and Katharine discussing using sports collections in fashion teaching. Various garments and magazines are on the tables in front of them.
The day was a fascinating look into the potential of sports heritage to illuminate fashion and cultural histories. For more #SportAndFashion events, see the Sporting Heritage website.
Rugby caps, ties and kit from the Leicester Tigers collection at DMU.
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