Latinx fashion conferences, (more) lace, and decoloniality
September recap, exciting plans for October, and a bunch of resources to keep thinking through Latinx fashion
Dear fashion thinkers,
As you probably saw on Instagram, this month I had the pleasure to travel to New York—again!—for the opening of “Threads of Power Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen” at Bard Graduate Center.
The opening events included spending lots of time in the exhibition galleries, several celebratory meals, and a group visit to see some magnificent lace objects at the Ratti Textile Center at the Met, hosted by lace superstar Elena Kanagy-Loux. It was truly a pleasure to see old friends and colleagues and meet new ones as we all got together to celebrate lace.
While in New York, I was interviewed for a radio program in Venezuela on one of my most favorite subjects of all times: the relationship between fashion and politics. I finally got to visit the new gallery at The Hispanic Museum & Library (previously known as The Hispanic Society) in Upper Manhattan. And there was some free time left to bike by the river, eat my favorite almond croissant from Orwashers, and have a drink or two with my dearest mentors and friends.
I returned to Colombia to finish my edits for a dissertation draft that I “owed” my advisor, wrap up the first term at my university, and prepare for the second half of the semester, which is loaded with classes. Thinking about it in retrospective, the month was terribly busy! So much so that I had to shut down over the weekend because I was starting to feel burnt out from all the intensity of the month—which included some health issues with my horses that are never fun!
Next month will be even more intense but I want to think that it will also be even more exciting! I do hope, however, that the horses remain as healthy as possible throughout the month, especially as I will be traveling again and I definitely don’t need any additional stress to deal with while I’m away.
But, before moving onto what the next month will bring, I must remind you that this is one of those moments where the English and Spanish versions of this newsletter diverge the most, so make sure to check out Pensar la moda if you’re interested in what I’ve been doing on the Spanish-speaking side of my life!
October News
I know I’ve been saying this for months now, but I am super excited about October! I’ll be receiving the month in LA with some of the people I hold closest to my heart, but I’ll also be meeting with some of my dearest mentors and colleagues, and visiting an exhibition that I’ve been dying to see. From there, I’ll head over to New York for yet another exciting conference, and will participate in a third conference online later in the month. It will be busy, busy, but I will try to rejoice in every single moment!
Here’s what I’ll be attending next month—and I hope you can tune in, too:
The symposium “¡Moda Hoy! Latin American and Latinx Fashion” will take place on Friday, October 7th between 10 am and 5:00 pm at the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre at the Museum at FIT—and I am very excited to speak with Hanayrá Negreiros on fashion and identities in Abya Yala!
I will also be speaking on October 20th at the Blanton Museum’s virtual symposium, “The Fabric of the Spanish Americas,” organized in tandem with the exhibition “Painted Cloth: Fashion and Ritual in Colonial Latin America” (closes January 1st, 2023). I will have the honor—and pleasure!—tho share the floor with Martha Sandoval-Villegas and Leslie Todd.
LACMA’s current exhibition, “Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800,” curated by Ilona Katzew and featuring the museum’s most important holdings of Spanish Colonial Art, closes on October 30th. I’ll be viewing it next weekend (eek!) and hope you manage to see it, too, if you’re in the area before it ends.
In celebration of this exhibition, UCLA’s Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies kicks off the month with a one-day, bilingual symposium “Objects Talk: Transformations in Iberian American Art,” featuring an amazing roster of speakers. The event will be livestreamed on YouTube so make sure to tune in from wherever you are!
As always, I’ll be sharing most of my adventures on Instagram, so make sure to follow along!
Resources to Think Through (Latinx) Fashion
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending much of my intellectual inquiries on two issues that are seemingly separate—but certainly more closely related than we sometimes admit: decoloniality and economic history. The first has been the center of my attention as I revise and update the syllabus for the seminar on “Design and (de)coloniality” that I teach at Universidad de los Andes. The second has been my focus as I start writing the chapter of my dissertation that studies makers and markets of textiles and fashion in late-colonial Nueva Granada.
These are some of my highlights from this month:
If you read the last issue of this newsletter, you probably know that I’ve admired Brandie Macdonald and her work at The Museum of Us in San Francisco for years now. It’s very difficult for me to verbalize briefly everything I’ve learnt from her, especially since she accepted my invitation to participate in a roundtable discussion on Decolonizing Museums last year. So I was absolutely thrilled to see her recent article “Pausing, Reflection, and Action: Decolonizing Museum Practices“ published in the Journal of Museum Education. It is open access and definitely worth a careful read, but if I had to highlight one single sentence from this paper, it would be:
Decolonization is a process, it is a verb, and most importantly, it is a collective endeavor – one that must have fluidity built into its ethos.
In their recent “provocation” on Decolonizing Art and Empire, Charlene Villaseñor-Black and Tim Barringer share their thoughts on the close entanglement between Empire—both from British and Spanish perspectives—and the writing (and telling) of art history. But rather than simply adding thoughts to a relationship that we are all aware of by now, they also offer some strategies to decolonize art history. Most importantly, they remind us that:
To decolonize is not to ignore or forget empire—it is to name, confront, critique, and strive to negate the effects of imperial thought and action. To face up to empire and the multifarious roles of art within and against it is to enshrine at the core of art historical debate the burning issues of today, issues dominating contemporary art practice: race, Indigeneity, and the environmental crisis.
I’m not sure if this counts, since it hasn’t been published yet and so I cannot share a link to the text, but Hanayrá Negreiros—whom I profoundly admire—allowed me to read her chapter for an upcoming book on Latin American and Latinx Fashion, ¡Moda Hoy!, edited by Tanya Meléndez-Escalante and Melissa Marra-Álvarez. It was such a treat! She explores the inherent relationship between fashion and politics, especially when it comes to racialized bodies and creators in Latin America. I can’t wait for the book to go out!
I finally had the time—and a “valid” excuse—to read Serena Dyer’s Material Lives, which I have been dying to read since I knew it was coming out years ago! The book analyzes the “material life writing” of four women who lived and worked in eighteenth-century England. In doing so, it proposes material records as a complement to autobiographical writing that also give light to the stories that are often untold when conducting historical research based exclusively on textual and numerical analysis.
Lastly, on non-fashion-related topics, I absolutely adored the most recent episode of Equestrian Voices, in which Caroline Culbertson interviewed international rider Shannon Dueck about flying changes! I honestly don’t understand how they made it possible to talk about this one, single movement for one hour and still keep it so engaging. Not sure it will be of interest to anyone here but I had to share it because it truly blew my mind!
What have you been up to in the past month? I’d love to see your very own recommendations in the comment section!
And don’t forget to share and subscribe to receive Thinking Through Latinx Fashion directly on your inbox!
Until next time,
—L