The Association of Art Historians (AAH) Summer Symposium is a two-day
annual conference highlighting post-graduate research. It takes place at
a different university each year in early Summer.

'Fashion & Art History'
University of York
29 - 30 June 2015

Fashion and art often follow a shared trajectory of social, political,
and historical circumstances. In collaboration with the University of
York, the AAH's annual Student Summer Symposium will explore the
relationship between fashion and art, by inviting papers that engage
with this subject across a wide range of chronological and theoretical
perspectives.

The influence of fashionable dress on artists and patrons of art has
recently become a popular and productive avenue for research in art
history, while fashion designers have likewise been shown to engage
continuously with historical and fine art as sources of inspiration.
'Fashion and Art History' invites papers that build upon these
conversations while also addressing questions that continue to be
debated in art and fashion history circles: What evidence does art
provide for how dress operates within society? Is fashion 'art'? Should
fashion history be taught alongside art history in academic curricula?
When should these objects be displayed in galleries alongside each
other, and how does this change the way we understand artworks and
fashionable dress? Finally, how might the tools and methodologies of
these related disciplines aid the study of their respective subjects?

We welcome contributions from all periods and contexts that engage with
the relationship between art and fashion within aesthetic, cultural,
social, and material frameworks. Topics may include, but are not limited
to:

- The engagement of artists, sitters, and patrons of works art with
fashion.
- Artworks and visual imagery as evidence for understandings of
historical dress.
- Artists as fashion designers and style setters.
- The dissemination of fashionable dress through artworks.
- Fashion designers as artists and the status of fashion as an art.
- Historical revivals in fashion and the role of visual culture in this
process.
- Exhibitions devoted to fashion history, and the display of fashion in
art galleries.
- Developing relationships between fashion and art and its histories.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words for 20-minute papers plus a 100-word
biography should be submitted as a single Word document to Anna
Bonewitz, Serena Dyer, Sophie Littlewood, and Sophie Frost at
fashionandarthistory2015gmail.com by 27 March 2015.

The symposium is open to all, however speakers are required to be AAH
members.