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UID:event_1581@www.bgc.bard.edu
DTSTAMP:20260908T055806Z
DESCRIPTION:Depictions of department store shopgirls were common in early t
 wentieth-century silent films in the United States. Socially and professio
 nally\, shopgirls occupied a precarious position in the world of commerce\
 , and anxieties about these working girls played out in the era’s silent c
 inema. The integral role that fashion plays in films such as Shoes (1916) 
 and Manhandled (1924) makes clear that what shopgirls wore—on screen and i
 n real life—was a matrix onto which contemporary ideas about class\, respe
 ctability\, gender\, commerce\, and consumption were often overlaid. In th
 is lecture (based on her chapter in Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion in A
 merican Silent Film\, a forthcoming BGC exhibition catalogue)\, Cormack wi
 ll screen selections from the silent period to analyze the figure of the s
 hopgirl\, whose shifting identity as worker and consumer is constructed th
 rough fashion.Emma Cormack is associate curator for exhibitions and Study 
 Collection curator at Bard Graduate Center. With a background in decorativ
 e arts\, design history\, and material culture\, her research specialties 
 include the history of fashion and textiles with a special interest in dep
 artment stores\, consumer culture\, and print advertising in late nineteen
 th- and early twentieth-century France and the United States. At BGC\, she
  was the cocurator of Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gal
 len (2022) and coeditor of the accompanying publication\; assistant curato
 r of French Fashion\, Women\, and the First World War (2019)\; and curator
 ial and editorial assistant for Eileen Gray (2020). With Michelle Finamore
 \, she is coeditor of BGC's forthcoming Goddesses in the Machine: Fashion 
 in American Silent Film (2026).Object LabsAt BGC\, we use an object-center
 ed approach to advance the study of the decorative arts\, design history\,
  and material culture. Join our student educators before select public eve
 nts to learn about some of the objects in BGC’s Study Collection. Each wee
 k we will showcase three objects carefully selected from the collection\, 
 which includes over 4\,000 objects in a variety of media.October 22 and 29
 \; November 5\, 12\, and 19\; December 338 West 86th Street\, 5–6 pmFounde
 d in 2011\, the BGC Study Collection supports student research by providin
 g opportunities for hands-on close examination of objects. Learn more abou
 t the BGC Study Collection here.
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251022T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251022T170000
SUMMARY:Bard Graduate Center: The Department Store Shopgirl and the Picture
  Palace of Consumption
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