The Costume Society’s golden jubilee year was marked by a range of memorable events and activities. They included the sparkling ‘Power of Gold’ conference held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Was it all Swinging?’, the 1960s-themed study day at the London College of Fashion, and the expansion of the Society’s Ambassadors scheme in which ten students, recent graduates and early career professionals have been extending the reach of the Society on social media. Although the journal does not celebrate its own fiftieth anniversary until 2017, we were delighted to play our role in the celebrations; alongside two rich and informative editions of the journal members now have online access to current and past editions of the journal through the Society’s website. This online access has been made possible by the generosity of our publishers Maney and the Society is very grateful to Maney for all its fine service in our fiftieth year. As editors we have particularly appreciated the hard work, thoughtful guidance and unstinting support from members of the Maney team, especially Laura Bradford and Linda Fisher, which have been so crucial to maintaining the high standards of the journal.
We are always proud of the breadth of dress related subjects covered by Costume, and the wide range of approaches to the study of dress and fashion history which it represents. This edition is no exception. We are especially pleased to include two articles which analyse elements of Chinese dress and help to counter an assumption that historic Chinese dress was static and unchanging, with no concept of fashion. Fang Chen’s tightly focused article addresses exactly this point and explores in detail the wotu’er headdress, worn by Chinese women in the sixteenth century. We are very pleased to have another article by Danae Tankard, this time carefully examining the tastes and buying habits of a seventeenth-century couple, Samuel and Elizabeth Jeake of Rye, East Sussex, through their surviving correspondence. Mikael Alm’s article takes us to Sweden and presents a thoughtful study about the crucial role played by clothing in visual identity in the early modern world by analysing the submissions to a competition in the 1770s calling for a system of Swedish national dress. Rachel Silberstein provides our second article on Chinese dress and examines the embroidered roundels on women’s jackets in the nineteenth century. Her object-based article skilfully demonstrates a complex interaction between Chinese clothing and popular culture. Finally, Kevin Arnold and Liz Garland’s article examines an entirely different area of clothing culture by addressing the issue of pattern cutting for the performing arts and assessing their own experiences of mould-making with students of theatrical costume.
This edition also contains a thoughtful and absorbing collection of book reviews, ably organized by Christine Stevens, along with a list of recent dress exhibitions compiled by Imogen Stewart and a list of recent articles in periodicals compiled by Pat Poppy.
One aspect which makes Costume such a distinctive academic journal is the way in which it reflects the interests and passions of the Society’s members, and we have greatly valued those members who have contacted us to tell us how much they have enjoyed reading Costume. We always welcome constructive feedback and will especially appreciate hearing your ideas as we look forward to celebrating fifty years of the journal in 2017.