It's amazing how time flies - the conference in Leeds which seemed so far in the future is now more like right around the corner. I'm not giving a paper, but I still have to prepare for this - packing (and figuring out what to pack before that), getting my conference gear together, choosing sessins that I want to attend, finding out what the exchange course is, all that stuff.

There are some things that I really like to bring to a conference:

• working pens - that's a given, isn't it?
• my conference book - so much neater than using a writing pad, and with the book, all my notes from conferences are in one place
• something to read for relaxing in the evening
• a usb stick
• a camera
• my computer - because there's heaps of stuff in there, and I might just want to show something to somebody
• business cards (and maybe promo brochures)

I used to bring a laser pointer, too, since it can come in handy to have your own, but mine has somehow gone AWOL a good while ago.

Do you have a never-without-this-list for conferences?

On Sunday evening, Sabine and I have made the final decision on whether there will be a Textile Forum this year... or not.

It was a hard one - we did re-calculate twice, we thought hard about it some more (that was a topic already discussed time and again during the last month), and it did make us very sad, but we finally decided to cancel Textile Forum 2011. There were too few registrations in spite of all the plugging we did - here, on Facebook, on Huscarl, via the Forum newsletter, and in spite of all the promotion that friends, colleagues, former and current participants did (and our heartfelt thanks for that!). We are fine with a small event, but too small a group means that the Forum idea will not work properly. And while day visitors or short-term participants are a very welcome addition to the participant group, the core group has to be large enough to carry the event on their own.

We are deeply sorry to miss out a Textile Forum, but we are certain that it is better to have a one-year hiatus than to see through a Forum that will not measure up to the participants' expectations (or to ours). It was a hard step for us to take, and I feel almost as if a pet had died - the Forum is a thing very dear to me, and having no Forum this year does make me very sad.

"Es hat nicht sollen sein" (it was not meant to be) is the German phrase that perfectly fits this year's Forum planning, which was quite generously garnished with larger and smaller troubles, now culminating in the cancellation. We are, however, working on the Forum 2012 already - we will not be stopped by one single squib load. We'll be keeping you up to date about developments once we have settled things with our prospective venue.

And we do hope to see you then and there!

First of all, our apologies to everybody who tried to register for the Textile Forum since the 8th of June - we had a server malfunction that I only discovered yesterday evening. If you have sent or tried to send a registration after the 8th,  please send me an e-mail to katrin(at)textileforum.org, and we will take it from there. To make up for the server problem, we have extended te deadline to the 19th (that's Sunday this week). We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience.

And now some plugging of a conference with a much better webpage - there's a small group in the Czech Republic who are doing a historic-clothes-centered conference on the  19th
November 2011 in Hradec Králové. The programme is mostly in Czech, with two papers announced in English, and the main aim of the group (mostly not scientists from the textile field) is knowledge exchange. (Now doesn't that sound familiar?) I'd love to go, but unfortunately my Czech language skills will barely get me a cup of tea and dumplings after saying "Good day", so I'm afraid I will have to pass.

For those of you interested in joining the seminar, their webpage sports a registration form. And for those of you not interested, but with a minute or two to spare - go there anyway and have a look at the website. You don't need to be able to understand a single word of Czech - just click through the six menu points and enjoy the most beautifully made conference website that I have ever seen.

The Costume Colloquium III will take place in Florence, November 8-11, 2012.

Topics of Interest:

I.  The remaking or recreating dress from the past: yesterday and today
II.  Patterns from the past and the fashions of today: which aspects of a certain historic past?
III. The past relived through dress:
    - in institutional collections (public and private)
    - in a social context (pageantry, parades and historical
      reenactment)
    - in didactic experiences (fashion and design course and schools)
IV. The vintage phenomenon and recycling of styles
V.  Conservation, restoration and the presentation of collections: new tendencies and innovative methods
VI.  Fashion documents and archives
VII. Dress collecting: goals and accessibility
VIII. Information regarding costumes and dress accessories

It does sound like an interesting conference - and I'm definitely thinking about sending in a paper proposal. If you are interested as well, you can find more information about the conference (including the rest of the CfP and submission guidelines) on the conference webpage.

After the success of the first two years of the European Textile Forum, we did not suspect troubles with participant registration in our third year - but unfortunately, we do have them.

Registration for the Forum on 12th to 18th September 2011 has been very, very slow. In fact, it has been so slow that we have extended the registration period until June 14th - in hopes that some more people will register.

The Textile Forum these last two years has been a rather small event, and while we are content to stay a small thing also during the near-ish future, being small has a downside: It can easily become too small. And this is exactly what is threatening to happen this year. We do need a minimum number of people - to have enough persons in our group so that we can get a good rate on our catering, but also to have enough persons during the Forum itself for the idea of it to work. After all, it's intended for exchange of knowledge and for networking, which will only be possible when enough persons are there.

We do not know why this year is running so slow - is it the topic? Did we not advertise it enough? Is the date, one week later than the last two years, the reason? Or is it just bad luck?

Whatever the reasons, I would be very sorry to see this year's Forum canceled for lack of participants. So if you were planning to register and just didn't get around to doing it in time, please do so. Or if you know somebody who might be interested, please pass on this information - while we will keep hoping until June 14th, and then see whether there will be a Forum this year - or not.

It is almost the end of May, which means that the deadline for German taxes is approaching - and that, in turn, means I am doing what all good Germans are doing now... which would be re-checking the bookkeeping, making final calculations, and filling out tax forms with all the maths that is involved with that.

And while I am here and happy that there are programmes to help me doing all the maths and calculations and listing and whatnot that needs to be done, in case you want something else to look at, here's a list of stuff that I wanted to pass on to you, accumulated during the last few days when things were busy here:



Textile History, Journal of the Pasold Research Fund Ltd' has digitized all back issues. You can find the contents of each issue at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/tex. There's also a free issue to look through (one from 2009) as well as a cumulative index. (h/t to MEDTC-list)

There's a conference "Developments in Dress History" planned for December 8-10 2011 in the University of Brighton, UK; the Call for Papers is open until August 1. You find more info about the conference and the full CfP here.

The Euregio Maas-Rhine has a project about the historical wool fabrication up and running - it's called the Wollroute (wool route). They have made videos to show the historic production places and tell some background info - in German, Dutch or French. If you don't understand any of these three, you will at least have nice pictures of wool and looms, so do check out their website www.wollroute.net.


Yale has made their digital collection available online, and it's free! They announced an Open Access policy this May, and now you can browse what they have via Discover Yale Digital Commons. (They have spindle whorls. And lots more.)


And finally... Crowd Funding has found its entrance into archaeology. A group of German students wants to try and make a T-shaped stone pillar, as it was used at Göbekli Tepe more than 11000 years ago. The pillar will be about 5 m high, 35 t heavy, and will be worked with only the materials and tools available back then. They have already done their preliminary experiments, and now they are looking to raise money for the real project this summer. The fundraising is done via mySherpa, a German-language site (and the project description is all German) - if you are interested in the project (or better still wish to support it), you can find their mySherpa site here. (In contrast to kickstarter.com, mySherpa requires you to pay upfront as soon as you declare your sponsorship; in case of underfunding of the project, they wire your money back.)


Go have fun with these links!

Here's just a short reminder that the Call for Papers of the European Textile Forum is ending on the 27th of May - so if you were planning to register, please do not forget to do so!

We are looking forward to a very interesting week - and we hope that you will join us! (Just in case you haven't been here before when I was plugging the Forum, you can learn more about it on www.textileforum.org.)