Bassett on “Colonialism, Power & Identity” in Fashion, 17 Mar.

On Sunday, 17 March, Lynne Bassett will speak at the Worcester Art Museum on “Colonialism, Power, and Identity: Fashion in American Portraits.”

The event description says:

Fashion is often dismissed as a frivolous concern of no great importance to world events. Fashion was, in fact, an instigator of the global economy starting with the Silk Road in the 6th century. A thousand years later—in the 16th and 17th centuries—the pursuit of textiles and fashion led to empire-building, wars, colonization, the subjugation of natives, and the enslavement of Africans.

The Museum’s collection of 17th-to-19th-century American portraits offers an unparalleled opportunity to explore early American fashion. Learn how its power to express identity and status shaped world events and drove individuals and countries to war to satisfy their desires.

Bassett is a costume and textile historian who’s well known to New England museums because she’s worked at or consulted with nearly all of them. She was a curator at Historic Northampton, Old Sturbridge Village, and others. She’s organized exhibitions at the Mark Twain House & Museum, the Florence Griswold Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and more, and has helped many smaller museums sort out their textile and costume collections. Here’s an interview with Bassett for New Pathways in Quilt History.

Bassett’s talk is scheduled to start at 2:00 P.M. in the conference room. It is free for Worcester Art Museum members, $5 for others.