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Preppy In Spirit with Dr. Cyana Madsen image

Preppy In Spirit with Dr. Cyana Madsen

S7 E1 · Apocalypse Duds
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227 Plays2 months ago

This week, we improbably welcome Future Miss Canada, herself, a PhD who is not a Pretty Huge D***, yet another genius guest for our worthy audience, Dr. Cyana Madsen. Now, many of our guests have had labyrinthine CVs, resumes, slide decks, and more, but Dr. Madsen’s is so vast and impressive, you must see for yourself! We talked about clothing, history, ownership, Weird Al, Canada, the UK, America, “curatorial interruption,” and much more!

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Transcript

Introduction to Bucklup Studs Hosts

00:00:01
Speaker
Good evening and welcome to another exciting and action-packed episode of Bucklup Studs. I'm a host, Connor Fowler. And I am Matt Smith.
00:00:16
Speaker
another host. about And today we have tricked yet another genius into coming on our show. yeah We have in studio Dr.

Meet Dr. Ciana Madsen

00:00:30
Speaker
Ciana Madsen, who is very, very smart and has volunteered to walk us through some ah ideas that we kind of have ideas about, but um I don't know. or Better established by her. Honestly, I think this might be the first time we should just allow our guests to introduce themselves. Yeah, agreed. Because it's so it's such a huge CV. It's like there's so much stuff. It is vast and neither Connor or myself not to not to tutor on horn or as academic.
00:01:06
Speaker
as a guest is. We try, we put on the facade, but see you on it. Could you please introduce yourself or give us like a one minute CV? ah Sure. um And I'll try to sound smart while I do it. Yeah,
00:01:28
Speaker
um yeah I'm Sienna Madsen. I'm a curator. I'm a lecturer. I run a master's degree program at London College of Fashion here in London. Hey,
00:01:42
Speaker
um And my specialty, as it were, I suppose, is worn clothing and biography and what happens when curators work with that biography. And also, I'm a doctor. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. You're you were one of the few doctors that we had on this program, I think two or three. I'm not mistaken. Well, and it's like It's different in Europe than it is in America. Isn't that right? like it's like I think it's a much more involved yeah process in Europe. Is it? I don't know. I thought i thought that it was like not just a straight four-year program, but I could be wrong and have been many times. so Some people do it part-time and can take up to eight or ten years. but i
00:02:36
Speaker
wanted that thing done, done, done, done, so I got it done in four years. Well, yes, we will get into it. But you are your participation and in things involving fashion is vast. And we were yeah we were very taken aback by it. So once again, thank you for coming on.
00:02:59
Speaker
um So where where are you from and where do you, well, you just said you were in London. So where are you from, where do you live now was maybe a little, yeah, super close.

From Canada to Costume Design: Dr. Madsen's Early Life

00:03:12
Speaker
So I am Canadian. um I mean, where I'm from, I moved like 18 times or something crazy like that by the time, you know, um or no, it's 11 times in 18 years, there we go.
00:03:26
Speaker
ah Wow. But I primarily grew up on the west coast of Canada, Vancouver Island. And then I left there and I went to Toronto and did my BA there because I was going to be a music video director. That was my ambition, which gives you an insight into how old I am. Do you have a favorite video? That thing you could do because there was music video channels.
00:03:54
Speaker
um but that obviously didn't work out anyways. but um So I did my BA there and then worked in broadcasting for a number of years and and did everything kind of like.
00:04:08
Speaker
like archiving, um to costuming, to production design. um And then I moved to the UK and was in London for about eight years. And then just about three years ago, moved to to a town called Ramsgate. So I've ended up in kind of like, you know, a little harbour town, not dissimilar to the one I grew up in, but just in a totally different part of the world.
00:04:37
Speaker
I mean, that kind of sounds amazing. Wait. It's a trajectory. I will say that. Do you have a music video that I guess made you want to make music videos? Like, you were like, fuck, that is what I have to do.
00:04:54
Speaker
god um We had a channel in Canada called Much Music.

Impact of Music Videos on Lives

00:05:00
Speaker
I was really hoping you would bring this up. it was like I ah started watching it, I think probably not long after it went on air. I was about like four years old. and not because I was some kind of like ah you know a prodigy in terms of appreciating you know the finer points of music videos, but ah because my parents would have it on and I was just like, what is this? And so it was just part of um who I was growing up. but i mean So in terms of like a music video, I don't know. I mean, it would have to be whatever you like whatever age you caught me at. but like
00:05:38
Speaker
I had all the, I guess the kind of like exit point for me when I was like, maybe this isn't viable anymore was the ah Chris Cunningham and Michelle Gondry DVDs. If you remember when that box set came out, and I think there was like Spike Jones one too, but I don't truck much with Spike Jones. So i'd say I think, I think there's also the woman who did, um like a lot of no-doubts videos. I think I named Sophie Mueller. I really loved her work. um Floria Sigismundi. But yeah, I'm not, I'm not au fait with the directors now. but
00:06:18
Speaker
We weren't even, we aren't gonna check. yeah but you know my wordy ah as the As far as as the show is concerned. I grew up in in rural Georgia. um And we would get much music for like, those two weeks bands where im like the cable company was trying to get subscribers and things. So we would get like much music and MTV2. And at this point MTVProper was still playing cool shit from time to time. It wasn't you know it was pre-TRL and the
00:06:50
Speaker
ah I don't know, the- Till I ride? Yeah, like pre-fucking whatever they became. Reality 10 television or whatever. yeah much Much Music was always so sick because it played a lot of indie and alternative and punk stuff that you just did not see elsewhere. MTV2 was kind of the same order.
00:07:13
Speaker
I remember, I swear to God, I saw like 15 Tragically Hip videos everywhere. I enjoy the Tragically Hip. They're kind of like, I guess Canada's like a premier band? I'm not sure. yeah For better or for worse, yes. I i do love the Tragically Hip.
00:07:37
Speaker
I mean, much music to me was just, there's no contest. It was the the best channel. It was wonderful. It was like ah it was like the 120 minutes or whatever, like weird underground shows on the MTV times a thousand. and like and Depending when you watch it, they there was a period of time when they used to do things like they would let Weird Al Yankovic take over the channel for 24 hours. And it was just like, just took 24 hours. There you go. Just handed it over to him and it's like, like, you know, you couldn't, I mean, you wouldn't do that now for probably a few different times. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know how Connor Stance is on or why Connor Stance is on Weird Al, but like I stand Weird Al to this fucking day.
00:08:26
Speaker
like I'm pro Weird Al. I'm not going to say... I kind of feel like if you shit talk Weird Al, you are not our people. Well, it's like you youre you would be a cursed person anyway. He has proven himself to be genuine and like nice. So leave the man alone, right? whole so I think I think it's the last few things we have in this movie. Very much so. Exactly. yeah I didn't see the movie. Did you see the movie?
00:08:57
Speaker
Would Daniel Radcliffe? i have not I didn't see it either but I mean I know that Radcliffe is like a talented actor so I would be kind of interested like as much as I dislike a biopic i because I think I did say, oh god, the fact that I can't remember probably doesn't say much about it. I'm terrible at watching movies. This is one that's been on my list. That's your review of the movie. Don't remember it. Yeah. It washed over

Madonna's Influence on Dr. Madsen

00:09:26
Speaker
me. Nothing stuck with me. Actually, I remember, OK, I can give you a proper answer to the music video question now. The first music video that really stuck with me. Madonna, like a prayer.
00:09:40
Speaker
um okay i was like obsessed with that video and um i don't think this i think there's a scene in a different madonna video but i i took a I took a letter opener that we had. And then I drew red marks on my hand like stigmata, like was it like a prayer video and went over to my neighbor's house and knocked on the door and was like, ah like the way the kind of like the knife falls in the video and they were like, Oh my God, what is going on? So that that was definitely like a pivotal
00:10:20
Speaker
pivotal moment for me in terms of, I guess, thinking that, like, music videos were little films. I don't know. Anyways. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's a great point. I feel like that is, like, ah that was realized by people, and then the music video died. Well, but but not before we had the November rain Dungeons and Roses video, which is... if I'm remembering correctly, one of the most expensive videos of the time, and also one of the best. That's a funny one. like I don't remember how long that one is. It's like it's like eight and a half minutes. Yeah. I'll tell you, it is long and I have not good memories of that video because- I can completely understand this. Well, GNR, you got a side with Nirvana in the in the divide.
00:11:16
Speaker
Well, I mean, do I? but If you have to choose, if you have to choose between the two, yeah. OK, well, fine, Nirvana. But the the reason the issue is with November 8 is because it would always be the song that they would play. And we had, I mean, speaking of much music, they used to do this other thing called much video dances that would like tour around to like rural towns. Wait, I don't I do not know anything about this. This sounds kind of amazing.
00:11:45
Speaker
it was amazing so they would they'd had this is truly on a tangent now but they would get these massive video screens and they'd play music videos at your high school dance and they'd have like a DJ to just yell whatever the music video was and November Rain was always the last song of the dance and you would be like panicking going like oh my god please god no please no no no and someone you did not want to be dancing with for eight and a half like sweaty sweaty minutes it was awful
00:12:18
Speaker
eight and a half, 20 minutes. I mean, I will say like just just based on this conversation, I think that closing time by Sivi Sadak was probably more on my like high school dance yeah radar. yeah yeah This sounds terrible, no matter which version you choose. I was always trying to get them to play rock music, basically. And it would fail. like They would like not want to listen to me at all. So they played Smells Like Keen Spirit, I think, one time.
00:12:52
Speaker
I don't mean to much a different time further derail this conversation, but in middle school, we had the thing at my middle school where you could take CDs in and like mark what songs you wanted the DJ to play. And so I did this with a bunch of punk and hardcore shit, never once heard a song, which obviously punk and hardcore probably not.
00:13:15
Speaker
all that you think they for a dance they had parental advisory stickers on them ah yeah yeah they weren't going to play that they wanted to play that ah li biscuit ah a It's an impossible to soundtrack song over and over and over again. Yeah. yeah but Better than the Nickelback or whatever. When the hero will save a song. which Which with Chad Kroger, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's really that's like
00:13:50
Speaker
the American national anthem, really. Which is ironic because he's Canadian. and Right. he Yes. Yes. And he also has never written one good song, but I digress. The lyric in that song that absolutely befuddles me is he says something like, I grab onto the wings of the eagle and then fly away or something. And I'm like, wait, if you're holding onto the wings, how's the eagle flying?
00:14:18
Speaker
Right. yeah You know, like I worked in the movie theater when this movie came out and the amount of times because that Spider-Man movie. Yeah, Spider-Man 2. And the amount of times I've heard the song as ending credits were while I am sweeping up the biggest garbage you've ever seen is like innumerable. That's tough. Like 10 times a day for, you know, five days a week. And I'm just like, yeah, ah not not about that.
00:14:50
Speaker
Sorry about that. We added to my history, and now Chad Kroger is basically a parent, and Nickelback are basically me. It all comes full circle. There you go.

Fashion Culture on Vancouver Island

00:15:02
Speaker
ah So growing up on the western coast of Canada, what kind of stuff did you see, my clothing-wise, growing up? And and what were you know what were you wearing at at certain points? Well,
00:15:18
Speaker
ah It's a real mishmash to be honest with you. like im I'm from kind of like the northern Vancouver Island and so it was very like, it's logging, well it was logging and fishing up there so it's quite like
00:15:37
Speaker
I guess like jean jackets and like, you know, outdoor wear. But then also it's got this kind of like West Coast thing where people are wearing, you know, especially now are very kind of like, you know, Lululemon.
00:15:51
Speaker
So it's, um, and this is obviously gross generalization, all the things that I'm saying, but that's the kind of like, and then, and then there was also like, you know, there's lots of, um, smaller communities and Island communities and indigenous communities. So there would be like inflections from, you know, people in those communities that, that, you know, modifies what they're wearing, but it was generally pretty, um,
00:16:20
Speaker
I guess, just like small town, like probably what you'd find in most North American small towns. In high school, I was very interested in matching my shirts or my sweater sets to my hush um o was so i So i i I was very into that kind of like matching thing and I guess it was like a ah ah little I say preppy but like, you know, there's there's people who would like purists who would murder me for saying that it's more it was like preppy in spirit than actual like prep or something like that. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean, I kind of wore
00:17:08
Speaker
I wasn't terribly fashionable, I guess, for whatever that means. um But so like, you know, I remember wearing a junior high, like I went to, I went on a trip with my dad, he was an airline pilot, so I used to go away with him sometimes. And he bought me an outfit and it was a pair of, i I thought it was like the coolest thing ever. It was a pair of red and yellow, a black, carton,
00:17:35
Speaker
like flares. nice And then the shirt, we went to, I think we're in the seats actually, I can't remember why we were there, but, um and ah like a ringer tee that had, this is like very 90s, it had like a, like a scratch and sniff thing on the front of it. So I brought that back and I was like, this is the outfit, like it's very kind of completely clueless, it's giving like and big enough ah you saw a of rave culture like it's great and i walked into my grade eight class and the cool girls were like nice ketchup and mustard pants and i was just like oh no i mean this whole fit seems like the the like dna of that brain dad suits that exist at back of the day
00:18:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I mean, that that would have been my dream. But yeah, it was very much like we we didn't have um I'm sure you remember Delia's or Delia's. We didn't have that in Canada, but we could get the catalog really, you could order the catalog from the back of like 17 magazines. So I used to get the catalog and like look at pictures.
00:18:46
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I mean, in terms of what I was wearing when I was living there, it it was kind of not like, I think it was like a little bit aspirational about looking at people like what's funny or, um, like maybe a little bit of clueless, but not that kind of like out there. Um, and bringing that into my own style, but like in a very, very safe, you know, to fly under the radar way.
00:19:17
Speaker
ah Do you remember kind of the first piece of clothing that really stuck out to you? um like At all in my life? like like the first thing We the first clothing memory, um but like the first thing it really just made an impact on you and like what you were interested in.
00:19:42
Speaker
a That's a tough one. and um I think it's probably not even something that I necessarily was wearing. Oh yeah, that's totally cool.

Heritage and Clothing: A Personal Story

00:19:53
Speaker
Like I, and and I mean this will probably be more telling about what I do now, but um my grandmother, my father's from Denmark originally, and like but they immigrated to Vancouver and my grandparents lived in this apartment building in Vancouver and
00:20:13
Speaker
um but always go to swimming every day and you know we're very active and she would always have her like velour um kind of like zip house robe on the back of the bathroom door and it was like I remember from when I was little like going to visit them it would or when you'd go into their apartment. And it was like, as soon as I saw that, it was like, oh, I've arrived. you know umm I'm with my family. And so I think that's probably the first thing that had some sort of like meaning to me in a way that wasn't just kind of the ephemeral nature of the clothing that I was wearing, which you just kind of grow out of and get rid of. um And actually, when she passed away, I asked my grandfather if he still had it.
00:21:02
Speaker
because you know I would never wear it myself, but just because that had such meaning to me. So I think maybe something like that. So it's not even necessarily something that I would wear um because certainly the ketchup and mustard pants are very meaningful to me. of course. But I think in terms of a piece of clothing that I can think of as being like symbolic or meaningful is probably the same. Yeah, that's ah that's a beautiful answer.
00:21:29
Speaker
Thanks.
00:21:33
Speaker
So I guess we're kind of at the thesis topic, right? Do you want to walk us through that? I mean, how did you get how did you get there to begin with?

Pursuing a PhD and the Biography of Clothing

00:21:48
Speaker
ah I mean, clothing, biography, meaning? Yeah, i um well,
00:21:56
Speaker
I mean, to kind of like dip back into my, you know, wide ranging career. When I moved to the UK, I was a bit like, a bit at least ends. I was like, what the hell am I going to do with my life? Because I had given up this, you know, this career in broadcasting and moved. And I was like, I don't want to start all over again. And I was working in retail at a few different brands in London and I ended up talking to a gentleman who used to come into one of the shops that I worked in who
00:22:33
Speaker
was working at the Museum of London. um And I was saying, you know, I had done costuming, I'm really interested in that kind of thing. I've been doing historical clothing, and he was like, oh, I'll introduce you to the curator um in the dress and textiles collection at Museum of London, who at the time was named Timothy Long. He's since left his back in the States now. And I went and met him, and we really hit it off but it just so happened that they were recruiting um volunteers to um work on a new collection that they had acquired there ah belonging to
00:23:12
Speaker
a gentleman named Francis Golding, who had been a really important city planner in London. And he was gay and he was a collector of clothing from like his entire life. I mean, he would have been able, I'm sure, to give you a great answer about his first kind of meaningful piece of clothing. And he had died. But you did too.
00:23:35
Speaker
And he died in a cycling accident and his husband ended up donating his clothing in part in London. So I came in at this point and began working in this direction, doing what we call the acquisition process, which is cataloging and measuring it and doing really close analysis of the clothing and making descriptions of it.
00:24:04
Speaker
And I think that was the kind of impetus for me being interested in the biography of clothing, as I see it, which is how our lives become embedded in clothes we wear.
00:24:20
Speaker
because there were things like of course, you know, bending or staining in his clothing, you know, there's smells coming out of them, which, you know, depending what collections you're working with can be interesting or bad. Some of my favorite smells are old clothing. It's like, yeah, it can be interesting. um But particularly with him, he kept things in his pockets and um not just, you know,
00:24:51
Speaker
lint and, you know, receipts, although there was certainly that. It was um things that that kind of pinpointed him and in space and some time. And it was sort of pictures even of himself and like letters to and from him, to other people, you know, matchbooks from hotels and plane tickets and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, oh my God, like I can almost, or i can I can imagine his life through the things that I'm finding in his clothes and through through the signs of wear in his clothing.
00:25:26
Speaker
um So I was doing that, and I was like, yes, this is what I want to do. I want to work in museums. I'd started applying for museum jobs, and I could not get like a gift shop job. oh And it wasally I was hoping you don't have a master's degree I And when I finished my BA at that point,
00:25:56
Speaker
whatever it was 11 or 12 years before, I had kind of said goodbye to school and thought I would be going back. But I applied to the master's program in fashion creation, and as it's now called fashion creation and cultural programming at ah University of the Arts London, and I applied with his collection as my research project so that I would be looking at the pocket contents and his collection, what it kind of meant. So I did that, um I did the master's degree, that was all wonderful, and as I was getting to the end of it, the opportunity came up to get them to apply for a funded PhD
00:26:42
Speaker
ah to continue the research. So I applied and I got accepted. And so I was like, okay, I guess I'm doing my PhD now. So concurrent to all of this, I was working and doing lots of other things as well too. But yeah, I mean, the interesting thing with the PhD is when I originally applied, it was to work with his collection, or continue working with his collection quite closely.
00:27:12
Speaker
And then about five months after I started, the HD COVID happened and obviously everywhere closed and not included museum collections. And so I just couldn't access the collection at all. um But one of the things that had started emerging to me in my research when I was on my master's degree was how much curatorial interpretation of people's biography impacted what was actually documented

Curatorial Bias in Fashion History

00:27:41
Speaker
in the collection. So how I see something or how I understand something when i when I'm doing the catalogue of it is what comes to the street in terms of it documented in the collection. So when COVID happened that I couldn't get couldn't physically access the garments anymore, I started looking more at
00:28:03
Speaker
this idea that I had um and you know, everyone's got a term in academia and my term is curatorial interruption. And that's what I see is like the curator coming in and literally interrupting someone's biography by inserting their own kind of interpretation of that in there. So yeah, so that, so that became the focus of my PhD research is the argument that, you know, we have our our biography embedded in our clothing um and curators have bias and subjectivity as we all do. That's how we are working for humans. And that when those two things come together, there's there's a friction and there's a new kind of history. Did that answer your question?
00:28:55
Speaker
i think so. Yeah. I mean, we were we were definitely curious about what the you know curatorial bias was. And I feel like you kind of explained that to the lay people that we are. I mean, hopefully, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's a scary word, like, we'll hear bias and they don't, they don't like that. But I mean,
00:29:21
Speaker
One of the sources of bias I looked at in my PhD research is cognition. like we have you We get so bombarded with information um every day that we develop cognitive systems that help us filter things out. and that So when I say like we're all biased, we are all biased. Certainly. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
00:29:48
Speaker
I was going to say something about paper ephemera. hi I think that that's some of the most interesting, I don't know, some of the most interesting stuff that gets left behind.
00:29:59
Speaker
ah their, I don't know, I guess they have that kind of um material for a lot of people. um And I guess for a lot of people, they don't have it. But even so, like the Warhol Museum is like full of like, literally millions of objects.
00:30:19
Speaker
the Yeah, i mean and it only I mean, so much of it is um contingent on like how somebody collected their own life and then how that's preserved after they go. I mean, I look specifically, I should say too, I look specifically at clothing that's acquired when the original wearer of the clothing's not around to provide that you know, context for how they wore things or what they collected or why they did things. Because then the onus is really on curators and collections to interpret those things and do the research and try to put these stories together. But yeah, obviously, if you have somebody around to be like, yeah, this is where I wore this, you know, I felt better than I think it's a totally different scenario. Yeah, it's not the same. It's not the same thing. It's a different game.

Subcultures and Fashion Liberation

00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things when we were researching up to this interview was the subculture to clothing pipeline that you've kind of like done things in the vein of, written about, et cetera. How did exploring you know subculture and punk in particular as like a concept ah or historical moment come up for you?
00:31:44
Speaker
me um Yeah, so I worked as an archivist with a collection in London called Contemporary wardrobe collection, which is founded and run by Roger Ebert who is like decades of collecting clothing. And he was a vintage dealer and he was a costumer. Did you say Roger Ebert?
00:32:11
Speaker
No, Roger K. Burton. Oh, Roger's like, Jesus, Roger, Ebert, what have you done? It's the same thought, you just said it. Yeah, sorry, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't like a same name, different person's name. You had to. That was his double life. Yeah, yeah, he's collecting clothing. I think it makes total sense, a movie person, yeah. Anyway, I apologize. No, no, no, not at all.
00:32:40
Speaker
um But yeah, he did, he worked really closely with Vivian Western and Malcolm Clarend on a couple of their shops in London.
00:32:53
Speaker
And he was around at but when the punk kind of broke. And so he collected a lot of a lot of the clothing kind of contemporary to the time and spilled onto it in the collection. And so I was getting to work with that when I was an artist there.
00:33:11
Speaker
And I think that, yeah I mean, it's a funny one because like I'm not particularly like if a punk music person, certainly not that hero of punk. But I'm really interested sort in, I think, the way people present to themselves, particularly women at that time, and the way punk was this kind of like,
00:33:38
Speaker
ah for Punk clothing was kind of a form of liberation for women, or I think it could be. i And I'm also really interested in Vivian Westwood, but not kind of the latter day Vivian Westwood as a designer, but those early days when she was working with McLaren and developing this, what punk was and what kind of codes of punk were.
00:34:07
Speaker
So yeah, so I mean, that's a kind of ongoing project with me is looking at that thought idea of authorship, I suppose, in punk clothing.
00:34:24
Speaker
That's a really cool like way to frame a lot of things. like and I know a little bit about like their history. Never, like you said, never been into like the more modern living Westwood ship. But like she and Malcolm McLaren had a huge role in and that aesthetic appeal and continued to her death. Yeah, I mean, they were, I mean, if you think of
00:34:59
Speaker
I mean, it depends how much I guess you track, you want to put it in the Sex Crystals, but they were designers of the Sex Crystals. But of course, there was so much going on, particularly in London at that time with, because the the thing that I think gets lost is particularly Vivian was an adult at the time. And there were so many teenagers running around and kind of taking these things and making their own or were already doing their own things that she was not inspired by. um So it's interesting too, it's like this kind of aesthetics of youth rebellion at that time were actually designed by, you know, like a young mom, basically. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's what like it's really not too similar to like how the Beatles and the Stones in the 60s like rose to profits. Like it was I don't know, like the the intersection of like subcultures and music and and fashion is something we always talk about. It's something that like drives both Carter and myself. And it's like, oh, cool.
00:36:11
Speaker
like, you know, 25 years later, this same kind of thing was happening on on a scale that was like not big, but it wasn't small. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing about subculture is it's like, I don't know, by the time by the time the codes of a subculture kind of spread, it's probably already it's it's How do I say this? It's probably already done. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, definitely. um Yeah, but by the time anything reaches reaches the mainstream, it's moved on. So yeah, no, I'm definitely, I'm interested in, I think what I always kind of turn back to though is again, like the the personal aspects of these things. So it's like,
00:37:04
Speaker
yeah There's obviously vast and amazing bodies of research on subcultural style, depending on what area of subculture you're looking at. But what I'm interested in is people who actually wore them and what it meant to wear this kind of clothing and how it kind of gave you the ability to access certain spaces or be projected from certain spaces and what that would mean for your life experiences.
00:37:27
Speaker
of And then, you know, what a of those life experiences that in turn are kind of per retained within the fabric of your clothing that somebody like me might come along with, you know, decades later.
00:37:45
Speaker
um in In your academic pursuits of this, you know, this kind of fashion archivism and documentary, like, what are some things that have stood out to you?

Overlooked Collections and Their Stories

00:37:56
Speaker
uh as far as I don't know just like information available or um whatever um like what do you sorry what do you mean I guess kind of like like uh you know it it seems like not many people are are taking the um the stance that you are on like learning people's you know learning about people's lives or inferring about people's lives and and as an archivist and like documenting and this kind of weird thing that like really doesn't, not to minimize anything, but like really doesn't matter, but like you take something from this.
00:38:45
Speaker
um have you Have you experienced you know things that were or people or situations where like it didn't seem to matter and then you mined something like really good from it? Yeah. and i I mean, your first point, and I'll probably lose the thread, so bring me back in. All good. All good. I mean, in terms of like documenting people's biography of their fashion or of their clothing in collections. I think it really depends on what the collection is. like
00:39:24
Speaker
um
00:39:28
Speaker
without kind of going into bigger conversations about how I feel about museums. They have different collecting policies and and you know there's museums like the Met or like the DNA here in England that emphasize the kind of art and design aspect of what they have and so for them it's not a priority.
00:39:48
Speaker
to document or know necessarily, you know, who wore something unless they're notable, whatever that means. um It's more about who made it or how it was made or what it's made of. But then you have museums like, you know, where I was for years at Museum London, um where those lives really are what they're interested in. So I think
00:40:18
Speaker
It depends where you are, but those things are being documented. But in terms of like something that I've discovered, a verb um think is what you're asking, about somebody's life in a collection, I mean i was looking at um
00:40:36
Speaker
I was looking at the collection of um a woman named Gerlinda Costiff, who was a club promoter in London with her husband um and a really famous club promoter. They did a party called Kiki Gerlingi.
00:40:51
Speaker
And she she wore Vivian Westwood and she wore kind of like, I guess like 80s and corsets. It was one of the main things that she wore. It was one of Westwood's kind of iconic pieces. And she passed away really untimely as well. And her husband arranged to have her collection acquired by the DNA.
00:41:20
Speaker
um And they acquired her collection and I was doing research and I can't remember how I came upon it originally, but I was like, hmm, this is weird. There's no name attached to this collection, but one on this this file, but not on this one, but they look similar. And then I ended up doing going down kind of research rabbit hole and going to their DNA's archives.
00:41:47
Speaker
and One of the things about her collection being donated there was that it was interviewed of her and it was interviewed of her life, but they were interested primarily because it was Vivian Westwood Porsett's. And so when it came in, for whatever reason, her name was attached to the vial and so she was effectively erased from her own clothing in the collection. um And I feel like, you know, not that I'm some hero, but because, you know,
00:42:18
Speaker
whatever work happens and things are busy, but I just said, do you know that these aren't actually connected? And so it ended up being her name was put back on the files. And so you feel like, okay, well,
00:42:31
Speaker
something good's come of this, which, as you say, is like ostensibly not earth-shattering. The objects weren't going into an exhibition necessarily under her name, but it's just about kind of reassigning her memory back to her clothing, I guess. Yeah.

Historical Documentation in Fashion

00:42:49
Speaker
yeah and It's about correctness, too, right? I also feel like that is kind of i from my
00:42:58
Speaker
interpretation of curatorial bias, like that's a prime example. Yeah, and I mean, one of the, again, one of the things that I look at in my research is, you know, the impact of the working environment on bias, like it's not, nothing's an indictment of everyone, of anyone, we're all human and, you know,
00:43:18
Speaker
we work in you know We work at speed in underfunded jobs and you know it happens, but um it certainly can impact these stories, which is one of the things that I've discussed. And so if anything, it's kind of, I hope, a bit of an advocacy for making curatorial jobs and working in collections.
00:43:45
Speaker
better funded because I think they are important. We're documenting history, so we should have the resources to do that with care and with time.
00:44:00
Speaker
ah yeah as As someone that very much appreciates the history of whatever garment I come across, the like being able to put a face to name has always been important to me.

Personal Attachment to Clothing

00:44:14
Speaker
And like, when that's not possible, just figuring out as much as I can about where something comes from. It's, know, in a way. Yeah, it's more, it's like more dynamic. It's like the the thing is like more cool.
00:44:35
Speaker
and you Because it was someone's. Yeah. And there's you know multiple ways of looking at any you know any government anyways. You can look at it like, oh, this was you know designed by this person. This was made by this person. This was made in this location. It's made of this. But if you don't have all that information attached to it, then you kind of get this myopic history that overemphasizes
00:45:02
Speaker
or creates a hierarchy of what's important to talk about in the industry, which we know is an issue. And it's an issue just as much with clothing, um because you know as as you know very well from doing this podcast, you know clothing is something that we all engage with, and it's meaningful. And it you know i would I would say 99.9% of humans' lives. of Yeah.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, as I think probably the three of us and basically anyone that comes on this program, we talk or we think and talk more about clothing than the average person. That's a given, but it doesn't mean that the average person doesn't have some sort of attachment to the things that they wear and why they wear them.
00:45:55
Speaker
you know, even if it's not quote unquote special, it's special in that kind of like personal relationship. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, going back to like, what I said about my grandmother's robe, it's like, you know, where it becomes a kind of clothing can be a stand in for people that aren't there anymore. ah And it doesn't have to be even that morbid, you know, it can just be like, can you wear a t shirt that reminds me of the show you went to when you bought it? Totally, totally.
00:46:24
Speaker
Like my, my grandpa kind of looks like Andy Griffith back in the day. And, you know, in my, my lifetime since the eighties, like I need them to wear like Dickie's coveralls, Red Wing or Georgia boots. And that was it. Like, you know, looking back, he didn't think he was cool, but like he, that's, that was his uniform. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:51
Speaker
yeah Yeah, that's the whole point of this show is just like, kind of coming back to that. Yeah, and I guess, you know, you hope yeah hope that you you leave that kind of impression on people when you aren't around either. Even if you know even if it's not like the spectacular, you know, it's the, I don't know, it's the meaning that that clothing kind of together when we are in our clothing with kind of meaning that comes from that is what I'm interested in. Saved you. Hell yeah. Well, Sienna, this has been awesome and we appreciate you coming on. Thanks for having me.
00:47:38
Speaker
yeah we We love talking to people with a PhD and um we love talking to people that have, you know, interesting shit to say about clothing. Well, people with PhDs are so rarely, you know, able to talk about. Exactly. You probably never talk about it. Probably. Probably. People really don't want to hear about it.
00:48:04
Speaker
Well, the earth yeah. It has more everyday application than, like, ah you get at first glance. Like, I would say for for your average user, right? I mean, you could say to someone, like, you had a parent or grandparent, right? Like, what if you had one of their hats from long ago? Would you cherish it? You know, it's kind of like... Exactly. There you go. That's the log line.
00:48:34
Speaker
ah right ah Well, yeah, once again, thank

Dr. Madsen's Online Presence

00:48:39
Speaker
you. um We always like to give our guests a chance to shout out whenever they want to. So having people that are interested in what you're doing, connecting ah You can check out my website, which is animatsy.com. um I've got a studio space with a teeny tiny little exhibition um window that I'm working with now, and so I always have digital exhibitions up in conjunction with physical ones.
00:49:13
Speaker
um I'm also on Instagram, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I should share that handle, but. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. yeah But yeah, no. Yeah. Check out my website if you're interested in finding out more about clothing and what I think about it. And we will shout out the website when this episode is posted. Awesome.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yes, yes. Well, yeah, this has been a treat. And um talking about the more academic types of view on clothing is fun. So, yeah, thank you.

Closing and Appreciation

00:49:57
Speaker
um Anyway, I am Matt Smith at Rubble's Rogues. Please shoot us an email.
00:50:05
Speaker
We got a really nice one today, actually, that said they were no longer on Instagram and thanked us and loved the ship. So, apocalypseduds, edgymalaikon. Yeah, one of us will at least look at it. I mean, we're almost damned alive because we get like four animals every six months. Right. And I'm Connor Fowler at Connor Flower.
00:50:33
Speaker
um Yeah. Thank you. This has been, this has been great. This is like, uh, really our, I don't know, like this is really our wheelhouse. So thank you. Thanks a lot.