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Fashion Fraud: The Fashion Doll That Does Not Exist
Linda Rampell's investigation into fashion historiography and epistemology unmasks an illusion, which started out as pure fantasy in the 1930s, only to get out of hand and escalate into the claim that a “fashion doll,” dated to the Late Renaissance, existed in Sweden in the shape of a home-crafted doll the size of a hand. The “Fashion doll” is mentioned as prevalent during the Rococo in the form of a manikin that was at least circa one-meter tall, professionally made and dressed to showcase the latest fashion into the smallest detail and with such precision its clothes could be copied. A homemade toy could not answer to that description.
It is one thing when children play with dolls, pretending they are fashion models. It is quite another affair when fashion and costume historians, curators, and other museum staff try to turn an ordinary doll into a “fashion doll.” Today this fashion fraud is put on the market as if it was a proven fact. The conclusions of Linda Rampell's investigation (written in Swedish) are several.
Keywords: fashion historiography, fashion epistemology, philosophy, design theory, 16th–21st centuries
Read more:
Linda Rampell
Fashion Fraud: The Fashion Doll That Does Not Exist
Linda Rampell's investigation into fashion historiography and epistemology unmasks an illusion, which started out as pure fantasy in the 1930s, only to get out of hand and escalate into the claim that a “fashion doll,” dated to the Late Renaissance, existed in Sweden in the shape of a home-crafted doll the size of a hand. The “Fashion doll” is mentioned as prevalent during the Rococo in the form of a manikin that was at least circa one-meter tall, professionally made and dressed to showcase the latest fashion into the smallest detail and with such precision its clothes could be copied. A homemade toy could not answer to that description.
It is one thing when children play with dolls, pretending they are fashion models. It is quite another affair when fashion and costume historians, curators, and other museum staff try to turn an ordinary doll into a “fashion doll.” Today this fashion fraud is put on the market as if it was a proven fact. The conclusions of Linda Rampell's investigation (written in Swedish) are several.
Keywords: fashion historiography, fashion epistemology, philosophy, design theory, 16th–21st centuries
Read more:
Linda Rampell