My research lies at the intersection of fashion, history and politics. I have a special interest in the political significance of uniform clothing in policing, military and public service roles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Other research interests include militarism in design and media, the (un)sustainability of the fashion industry, art-design collaboration, high-tech materials for adverse environments and utopian thinking in histories of design and technology.
A surge in creative collaboration between fine artists and fashion designers has prompted little ... more A surge in creative collaboration between fine artists and fashion designers has prompted little debate within academic research in the visual arts. But the growth of inter-disciplinary collaboration reflects a decisive shift in the relationship between art and popular culture. Since the mid-twentieth century, art-fashion interplays have disorganised disciplinary boundaries, illustrating the unsettling effects of neoliberalism on cultural production. In this article, we argue that art-design collaboration has been critical to new dynamics in the art market. By accessing fashion's symbolic circuits the art market has found new ways to secure dominance in a changing aesthetic economy.
Making War on Bodies: Militarisation, Aesthetics and Embodiment in International Politics, 2020
A growing global visual culture in the 1950s and 1960s made image and self-presentation technique... more A growing global visual culture in the 1950s and 1960s made image and self-presentation techniques critical to the transnational impact of the Cuban revolution. Strategies of urban guerrilla warfare in the revolution, and the nation-building programmes that followed, relied on distinctive visual images and aesthetic objects to embody new forms of citizenship. Popular culture shaped the interpretation of events by photographers, journalists and designers, who were often inspired by the anarchic militarism of the Cuban rebels. Published in an edited volume by Edinburgh University Press, this chapter draws on photographs, speeches, biography and posters to consider the significance of aesthetics and embodiment to comprehending the images, textures and experiences that characterised twentieth century insurgencies.
My chapter in Fashion and Politics, published by Yale University Press, examines the history and ... more My chapter in Fashion and Politics, published by Yale University Press, examines the history and materiality of the keffiyeh. From its roots in Middle Eastern peasant dress to its emergence as a key symbol for the Palestinian cause, the discussion situates the keffiyeh within debates about subaltern strategies of resistance. First adopted by guerrilla fighters, then Arab leaders and later the Palestinian diaspora, the keffiyeh has been mobilised as an object of popular memory in various regions. Its popularity amongst students, activists and later young fashion consumers beyond the Middle East illustrates the urgency and vitality of material objects in political struggles.
Image was central to the reform of law enforcement in nineteenth-century Britain. In this chapter... more Image was central to the reform of law enforcement in nineteenth-century Britain. In this chapter for the multi-volume series 'A Cultural History of Law' I reflect on why police modernizers focused their efforts on visual codes of law; a new uniform became central to the formation of a more visibly 'policed society.' Revolution and terrorism prompted reformers and legislators to demand a new kind of policing. Reform was viewed as a matter of perception, thus the modernising of uniform was thought to be critical to transforming the relationship between police and citizenry. The drive to manipulate visual codes in English policing had been tried and tested at the edge of Empire. A design innovation, the new uniform confirmed an image of unity and authority by blending military and civilian codes at a time of crisis in law enforcement.
The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods , 2016
Research into war and peace is increasingly concerned with vision and visuality. In this chapter,... more Research into war and peace is increasingly concerned with vision and visuality. In this chapter, I consider the value of visual, design and material culture approaches to new research on war and conflict. These approaches implicate the researcher in a complex set of inquiries into representational, visual and material worlds. Key themes of the chapter include visual technologies, media images, camouflage and the body at war, highlighting the strategic role design and aesthetics play in war and conflict. A range of examples from various academic studies reveal that images and objects mediate modes of seeing and forms of knowledge about military institutions and their activities.
Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the Easter Rising , 2016
This chapter explores the self-presentation techniques of rebels in the 1916 uprising in Dublin t... more This chapter explores the self-presentation techniques of rebels in the 1916 uprising in Dublin through witness accounts, photographs and documents from the period. As events unfolded on the streets of Dublin, the insurgents' military strategy altered as they went in and out of uniform, giving rise to an improvised image of the urban guerrilla warrior. Their casual militarism highlights the materiality of new military tactics, which inspired revolutionary groups in other regions when the 1920s and 1930s saw a rise in separatist militancy.
This chapter examines fashion practices and discourses through the work of philosopher Michel Fou... more This chapter examines fashion practices and discourses through the work of philosopher Michel Foucault. The growth of academic interest in Foucault’s work has reflected shifts in thinking about the nature of power, but how might we apply his concepts to the embodied practices of fashion and dress? Follows the development of Foucault's thinking from the objectifying effects of the sciences, modes of power/knowledge, to biopolitics; this chapter highlights the value of his body of work to research on the social and political significance of fashion.
Horace Nicholls’ photographs of wartime army recruitment, and post-war facial reconstruction, see... more Horace Nicholls’ photographs of wartime army recruitment, and post-war facial reconstruction, seem to lie uneasily between photojournalism, propaganda and record keeping. It is argued here that the photographer’s artistic aspirations, and his love of a good story, coloured his response to the brief from Wellington House to record the war effort on the home front. This is photography as pictorial history, but it is also photography as theatre. What we see are stages in a process of bodily and psychological transformation: the preparations of the new recruit and the meticulous ‘repair’ of ‘war’s ravages’. Nicholls relies upon the serial quality of his photographs to develop a narrative of the body, first the making of the civilian soldier, then his remaking. He might be drawing on a documentary style but the photographer also dramatizes his subjects, as pictorial effects inject a poetic sensibility into his account of the transformation of men’s bodies. During World War I, facial wounds were widely perceived as the most dehumanizing of injuries. Repair, in such cases, was not, or not only, a matter of relieving pain and restoring function; at stake was the patient’s identity. By foregrounding the psychological impact of facial mutilation, Nicholls produced images that ultimately cast doubt on the possibility of restoration.
During the First World War Conscientious Objectors refused to wear military uniform. Here, I exam... more During the First World War Conscientious Objectors refused to wear military uniform. Here, I examine personal accounts from COs who refused to wear khaki to understand the ways clothing signified military participation. The chapter explores the uniform's critical role in struggles over wartime representations of peace and conflict. COs were numerically few, but their resistance to khaki threatened to undermine a wartime project reliant upon mass regulation clothing to construct images of transformation and control.
War and The Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience, 2013
This chapter explores the plural, complex and changing nature of the dialogue between fashion and... more This chapter explores the plural, complex and changing nature of the dialogue between fashion and militarism. Military themes in fashion media exploit the spectacle of war and conflict to sell products but constitute part of a process of militarisation. By highlighting similarities as well as points of difference between popular discourses of fashion and uniform, the discussion considers the significance of clothing to the representation of the military body.
This article traces the emergence of the trench coat through a range of First World War British p... more This article traces the emergence of the trench coat through a range of First World War British press advertisements. In 1914 many firms sought to employ the language of wartime economy in their promotions. Burberry sold protective clothing for soldiers enduring harsh weather conditions but gave their advertisements a distinctive quality that boosted the war effort with images of active, healthy and resilient male bodies. If their waterproof coats became synonymous with the war on the western front then this was the result of artful advertisements that constructed the very idea of the reliable and trustworthy trench coat. Burberry resolved the contradictions of the wartime trade by offering practical, mass-produced clothing that bore the marks of sporting leisure; their advertising images slipped easily into the prevailing visual language of military masculinity. Graphic images that modernized male clothing brought the image of a man in a trench coat to civilians and embodied the militarizing of the home front during wartime.
From its origins in the trenches of WW1, this military outerwear came to project the inner-being ... more From its origins in the trenches of WW1, this military outerwear came to project the inner-being of detectives, writers, reporters, rebels, artists and intellectuals. The coat outfitted imaginative leaps into the unknown.
Trench Coat tells the story of seductive entanglements with technology, time, law, politics, trust and trespass. Exploring the violent imaginaries that inhabit designed objects, readers follow the rise of a sartorial archetype through media, design, literature, cinema and fashion. Today, the trench coat continues to have resonance in life and fiction; adorning embattled inhabitants of future life-worlds, its ominous presence might be a warning of disturbances to come.
Uniform: clothing and discipline in the modern world, 2019
This volume examines the role uniform plays in public life and private experience. It explores th... more This volume examines the role uniform plays in public life and private experience. It explores the social, political, economic, and cultural significance of various kinds of uniforms to consider how they embody gender, class, sexuality, race, nationality, and belief. From the pageantry of uniformed citizens to the rationalizing of time and labour, this category of dress has enabled distinct forms of social organization, sometimes repressive, sometimes utopian. With thematic sections on the social meaning of uniform in the military, in institutions, and political movements, its use in fashion, in the workplace, and at leisure, a series of case studies consider what sartorial uniformity means to the history of the body and society.
This cultural history of the First World War traces the social, economic and cultural significanc... more This cultural history of the First World War traces the social, economic and cultural significance of the uniforms worn by British combatants on the western front. Getting civilians into khaki transformed the tailoring trade, but uniform also became a touchstone for pacifist resistance. This books demonstrates how military appearance embodied wartime beliefs about gender, social class and race. This story of khaki offers insights into why it has become the symbol of modern militarism.
Held to coincide with an academic conference at the Imperial War Museum, the exhibition offered m... more Held to coincide with an academic conference at the Imperial War Museum, the exhibition offered multiple perspectives on the problem of the body at war: the suffering of bodies caught in war zones, the shock of war experience for soldiers, the militarizing of civilians, bodies displaced by forced migrancy, and the loss of limbs and senses.
A surge in creative collaboration between fine artists and fashion designers has prompted little ... more A surge in creative collaboration between fine artists and fashion designers has prompted little debate within academic research in the visual arts. But the growth of inter-disciplinary collaboration reflects a decisive shift in the relationship between art and popular culture. Since the mid-twentieth century, art-fashion interplays have disorganised disciplinary boundaries, illustrating the unsettling effects of neoliberalism on cultural production. In this article, we argue that art-design collaboration has been critical to new dynamics in the art market. By accessing fashion's symbolic circuits the art market has found new ways to secure dominance in a changing aesthetic economy.
Making War on Bodies: Militarisation, Aesthetics and Embodiment in International Politics, 2020
A growing global visual culture in the 1950s and 1960s made image and self-presentation technique... more A growing global visual culture in the 1950s and 1960s made image and self-presentation techniques critical to the transnational impact of the Cuban revolution. Strategies of urban guerrilla warfare in the revolution, and the nation-building programmes that followed, relied on distinctive visual images and aesthetic objects to embody new forms of citizenship. Popular culture shaped the interpretation of events by photographers, journalists and designers, who were often inspired by the anarchic militarism of the Cuban rebels. Published in an edited volume by Edinburgh University Press, this chapter draws on photographs, speeches, biography and posters to consider the significance of aesthetics and embodiment to comprehending the images, textures and experiences that characterised twentieth century insurgencies.
My chapter in Fashion and Politics, published by Yale University Press, examines the history and ... more My chapter in Fashion and Politics, published by Yale University Press, examines the history and materiality of the keffiyeh. From its roots in Middle Eastern peasant dress to its emergence as a key symbol for the Palestinian cause, the discussion situates the keffiyeh within debates about subaltern strategies of resistance. First adopted by guerrilla fighters, then Arab leaders and later the Palestinian diaspora, the keffiyeh has been mobilised as an object of popular memory in various regions. Its popularity amongst students, activists and later young fashion consumers beyond the Middle East illustrates the urgency and vitality of material objects in political struggles.
Image was central to the reform of law enforcement in nineteenth-century Britain. In this chapter... more Image was central to the reform of law enforcement in nineteenth-century Britain. In this chapter for the multi-volume series 'A Cultural History of Law' I reflect on why police modernizers focused their efforts on visual codes of law; a new uniform became central to the formation of a more visibly 'policed society.' Revolution and terrorism prompted reformers and legislators to demand a new kind of policing. Reform was viewed as a matter of perception, thus the modernising of uniform was thought to be critical to transforming the relationship between police and citizenry. The drive to manipulate visual codes in English policing had been tried and tested at the edge of Empire. A design innovation, the new uniform confirmed an image of unity and authority by blending military and civilian codes at a time of crisis in law enforcement.
The Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods , 2016
Research into war and peace is increasingly concerned with vision and visuality. In this chapter,... more Research into war and peace is increasingly concerned with vision and visuality. In this chapter, I consider the value of visual, design and material culture approaches to new research on war and conflict. These approaches implicate the researcher in a complex set of inquiries into representational, visual and material worlds. Key themes of the chapter include visual technologies, media images, camouflage and the body at war, highlighting the strategic role design and aesthetics play in war and conflict. A range of examples from various academic studies reveal that images and objects mediate modes of seeing and forms of knowledge about military institutions and their activities.
Making 1916: Material and Visual Culture of the Easter Rising , 2016
This chapter explores the self-presentation techniques of rebels in the 1916 uprising in Dublin t... more This chapter explores the self-presentation techniques of rebels in the 1916 uprising in Dublin through witness accounts, photographs and documents from the period. As events unfolded on the streets of Dublin, the insurgents' military strategy altered as they went in and out of uniform, giving rise to an improvised image of the urban guerrilla warrior. Their casual militarism highlights the materiality of new military tactics, which inspired revolutionary groups in other regions when the 1920s and 1930s saw a rise in separatist militancy.
This chapter examines fashion practices and discourses through the work of philosopher Michel Fou... more This chapter examines fashion practices and discourses through the work of philosopher Michel Foucault. The growth of academic interest in Foucault’s work has reflected shifts in thinking about the nature of power, but how might we apply his concepts to the embodied practices of fashion and dress? Follows the development of Foucault's thinking from the objectifying effects of the sciences, modes of power/knowledge, to biopolitics; this chapter highlights the value of his body of work to research on the social and political significance of fashion.
Horace Nicholls’ photographs of wartime army recruitment, and post-war facial reconstruction, see... more Horace Nicholls’ photographs of wartime army recruitment, and post-war facial reconstruction, seem to lie uneasily between photojournalism, propaganda and record keeping. It is argued here that the photographer’s artistic aspirations, and his love of a good story, coloured his response to the brief from Wellington House to record the war effort on the home front. This is photography as pictorial history, but it is also photography as theatre. What we see are stages in a process of bodily and psychological transformation: the preparations of the new recruit and the meticulous ‘repair’ of ‘war’s ravages’. Nicholls relies upon the serial quality of his photographs to develop a narrative of the body, first the making of the civilian soldier, then his remaking. He might be drawing on a documentary style but the photographer also dramatizes his subjects, as pictorial effects inject a poetic sensibility into his account of the transformation of men’s bodies. During World War I, facial wounds were widely perceived as the most dehumanizing of injuries. Repair, in such cases, was not, or not only, a matter of relieving pain and restoring function; at stake was the patient’s identity. By foregrounding the psychological impact of facial mutilation, Nicholls produced images that ultimately cast doubt on the possibility of restoration.
During the First World War Conscientious Objectors refused to wear military uniform. Here, I exam... more During the First World War Conscientious Objectors refused to wear military uniform. Here, I examine personal accounts from COs who refused to wear khaki to understand the ways clothing signified military participation. The chapter explores the uniform's critical role in struggles over wartime representations of peace and conflict. COs were numerically few, but their resistance to khaki threatened to undermine a wartime project reliant upon mass regulation clothing to construct images of transformation and control.
War and The Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience, 2013
This chapter explores the plural, complex and changing nature of the dialogue between fashion and... more This chapter explores the plural, complex and changing nature of the dialogue between fashion and militarism. Military themes in fashion media exploit the spectacle of war and conflict to sell products but constitute part of a process of militarisation. By highlighting similarities as well as points of difference between popular discourses of fashion and uniform, the discussion considers the significance of clothing to the representation of the military body.
This article traces the emergence of the trench coat through a range of First World War British p... more This article traces the emergence of the trench coat through a range of First World War British press advertisements. In 1914 many firms sought to employ the language of wartime economy in their promotions. Burberry sold protective clothing for soldiers enduring harsh weather conditions but gave their advertisements a distinctive quality that boosted the war effort with images of active, healthy and resilient male bodies. If their waterproof coats became synonymous with the war on the western front then this was the result of artful advertisements that constructed the very idea of the reliable and trustworthy trench coat. Burberry resolved the contradictions of the wartime trade by offering practical, mass-produced clothing that bore the marks of sporting leisure; their advertising images slipped easily into the prevailing visual language of military masculinity. Graphic images that modernized male clothing brought the image of a man in a trench coat to civilians and embodied the militarizing of the home front during wartime.
From its origins in the trenches of WW1, this military outerwear came to project the inner-being ... more From its origins in the trenches of WW1, this military outerwear came to project the inner-being of detectives, writers, reporters, rebels, artists and intellectuals. The coat outfitted imaginative leaps into the unknown.
Trench Coat tells the story of seductive entanglements with technology, time, law, politics, trust and trespass. Exploring the violent imaginaries that inhabit designed objects, readers follow the rise of a sartorial archetype through media, design, literature, cinema and fashion. Today, the trench coat continues to have resonance in life and fiction; adorning embattled inhabitants of future life-worlds, its ominous presence might be a warning of disturbances to come.
Uniform: clothing and discipline in the modern world, 2019
This volume examines the role uniform plays in public life and private experience. It explores th... more This volume examines the role uniform plays in public life and private experience. It explores the social, political, economic, and cultural significance of various kinds of uniforms to consider how they embody gender, class, sexuality, race, nationality, and belief. From the pageantry of uniformed citizens to the rationalizing of time and labour, this category of dress has enabled distinct forms of social organization, sometimes repressive, sometimes utopian. With thematic sections on the social meaning of uniform in the military, in institutions, and political movements, its use in fashion, in the workplace, and at leisure, a series of case studies consider what sartorial uniformity means to the history of the body and society.
This cultural history of the First World War traces the social, economic and cultural significanc... more This cultural history of the First World War traces the social, economic and cultural significance of the uniforms worn by British combatants on the western front. Getting civilians into khaki transformed the tailoring trade, but uniform also became a touchstone for pacifist resistance. This books demonstrates how military appearance embodied wartime beliefs about gender, social class and race. This story of khaki offers insights into why it has become the symbol of modern militarism.
Held to coincide with an academic conference at the Imperial War Museum, the exhibition offered m... more Held to coincide with an academic conference at the Imperial War Museum, the exhibition offered multiple perspectives on the problem of the body at war: the suffering of bodies caught in war zones, the shock of war experience for soldiers, the militarizing of civilians, bodies displaced by forced migrancy, and the loss of limbs and senses.
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Papers by Jane Tynan
Books by Jane Tynan
Trench Coat tells the story of seductive entanglements with technology, time, law, politics, trust and trespass. Exploring the violent imaginaries that inhabit designed objects, readers follow the rise of a sartorial archetype through media, design, literature, cinema and fashion. Today, the trench coat continues to have resonance in life and fiction; adorning embattled inhabitants of future life-worlds, its ominous presence might be a warning of disturbances to come.
Book Reviews by Jane Tynan
Trench Coat tells the story of seductive entanglements with technology, time, law, politics, trust and trespass. Exploring the violent imaginaries that inhabit designed objects, readers follow the rise of a sartorial archetype through media, design, literature, cinema and fashion. Today, the trench coat continues to have resonance in life and fiction; adorning embattled inhabitants of future life-worlds, its ominous presence might be a warning of disturbances to come.