International research and application conference “Fashion and Design: historical experience – new technologies”

On 26 May 2022, the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre was the venue for one of the sessions of the 25th international research and application conference “Fashion and Design: historical experience – new technologies”.

The conference was organized by State Hermitage in collaboration with the Russian Ethnographic Museum and Saint Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design. In keeping with tradition, at the centre of the conference participants’ attention was the comprehensive study of clothing, footwear and textile articles from various eras and countries. The emphasis this year was on the use of new technologies and the emergence of new trends – recycling and upcycling.

The session at Staraya Derevnya was to a considerable extent devoted to the Hermitage’s textile collections, which are known for their rich diversity. Many of the contributions were notable for their original subject matter: the re-use of fabrics in 16th–19th-century Europe; the reworking of women’s outfits in Russia in the mid-1850s to 1870s; the use of vintage patchwork pieces in 20th–21st-century fashion. There were also talks on topics traditional for the Hermitage, including the restoration and new attributions of textile articles.

The conference participants visited the Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre’s celebrated Costume Gallery.