Refashioning Experiments: Making Invisible Colours Visible

Is it possible to reconstruct colour based on documentary evidence, and can this be developed as a systematic and rigorous methodology in cultural studies of dress? During this workshop, we carried out various dye tests, using both standardised historical recipes as well as specific historical recipes, and discussed both decisions and compromises that were made, as well as the methodological challenges and benefits that we identified in connection with our experimentation. We also thought about the differences in working in a modern labs vs. in a historical dye workshop or historically reconstructed setting. Read more: