27 May 2022 – Talk ‘A Batik collection fit for a Lady’ at the New Research Conference 2022

During The Association of Dress Historians Annual New Research Conference 2022 I will share part of my recent research project: Retelling the History of the (Indo-)European influence on Batik. My current research is focussed on the wearer, especially on ladies that were of European descent, who dressed in Batik sarongs themselves, during colonial times in Indonesia. Extensive collections have been kept in the Netherlands, privately and in museum-collections. These kept batik-collections can give us new interesting insides and different angles on how to share this history.
For this presentation I focus on 41 batiks that were donated by Jonkvrouwe Anna Cecile Aurélie Jeanne Clifford, Jonkvrouwe as in damsel. Hence the title “A Batik collection fit for a Lady”. The donation is an unusual wardrobe for a lady that apparently had never been to Indonesia herself. The batiks most likely belonged to her mother, Theodora Adriana Lammers van Toorenburg, who was born in 1852 in the former Dutch East Indies. This collection provides us with interesting insights into what was worn by whom and how the wearer can provide us with provenance that is often overlooked in batik-research.

The Association of Dress Historians Annual New Research Conference 2022 with the focus on New Research in Dress History will be held offline at National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and online (for ADH members only, see info on membership here).

For more info check dresshistorians.org
For tickets and more on the program see www.eventbrite.co.uk