Denise Nicole Green

Stella Blum Grant Report

Abstract Huulthin (shawls) play an important role in Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations’ oral histories, social organization, and ceremonial life. Drawing upon archival, material, museum, and ethnographic data, this research explores changes in huulthin as emblematic of broader social, economic, and spiritual transformations. Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations’ huulthin do not exist in a vacuum—they are intimate possessions, collectively produced and displayed. Huulthin are a material iteration of deep histories, spiritual beliefs, social relationships, and trade networks. In the last 240 years, colonial encounters, capitalist economies ( fueling rampant resource extraction and industrialization), settlement, and Canada’s aggressive assimilationist agenda have brought dramatic change to the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Huulthin are a material, symbolic, spiritual, and embodied interface: between individuals and tribal communities, physical and spiritual worlds, knowledge and display, and perhaps most importantly, between history and a rapidly changing world.

The Best Known and Best Dressed Woman in America

In the field of dress history, the name Irene Castle is synonymous with 1910s and early 1920s fashion. During this period, Irene was a household name and considered a style authority. Fashion historians previously have focused on her fashion influence in the early 1910s when she was dancing with her first husband, Vernon Castle; however, this paper argues that Irene’s greatest fashion impact occurred later, during her silent film career. Film, as a new medium, brought moving, fashioned, celebrity bodies to cities and towns across the United States, becoming an important vehicle for conveying fashion. Not only did Irene use her silver screen presence and stardom to become the “Best Known and Best Dressed Woman in America,” she was the first film star with an eponymous fashion line.

Fashion(s) from the Northwest Coast: Nuu-chah-nulth Design Iterations

Carved and painted onto wood, stone, bone, animal skins, or metal, or woven and knitted into cloth, the material culture from Northwest Coast Native peoples has historically been a one-of-a-kind iteration and a declaration of familial rights and privileges. These items have adorned public and private spaces, including the body, and were traditionally produced by hand. In recent years, some designs have been serialized and mass produced through new technologies such as silk screen and digital printing, adorning everything from coffee mugs to t-shirts, sunglasses, jewelry, and other garments (Roth 2012; Roth 2015). This chapter explores the history of Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations specifically and analyzes their distinctive aesthetics and design practice through the lens of fashion theory. The chapter concludes with a discussion of contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth designers and the circulation of their work. I ask: how does fashion operate within Nuu-chah-nulth social organization and how has ongoing colonialism and hybridization of prestige and capitalist economies transformed Nuu-chah-nulth fashion systems and design ideas? The findings discussed in this chapter draw from ongoing ethnographic research (beginning in October 2009) and archival- and museum-based research at both major and minor institutional repositories in the United States, Canada, Germany, and England.