This conference highlights the interplay between clothing habits and vigilance in various contexts in late medieval and early modern Europe, with a focus on sensory perception, disguise, mistrust, questions of identity and shame, and the problem of latency, i.e., the potential to conceal something through clothing or to suspect something to be concealed because of a particular clothing practice.
Building on existing research on sumptuary laws, the theatre and the history of clothing, while responding to new archival discoveries and recent work on the concept of vigilance, the conference asks who ensures that bodies are dressed in accordance with legal, social, and moral expectations? We seek to avoid a top-down approach and focus on the specific situations and mechanisms in which clothing became the object of increased attention on the part of authorities, ordinary people, and in artistic contexts.
For more information, please visit the CRC “Cultures of Vigilance” website.