À la recherche d’une identité : le cirque et le théâtre en Angleterre et en France (1768 et 1864)

Dans les créations contemporaines, l’influence du théâtre sur le cirque est incontestable mais pour beaucoup, il s’agit là d’une nouveauté. L’histoire du cirque, en France comme en Angleterre, montre combien l’influence du théâtre est en fait consubstantielle à l’existence même du cirque, puisque c’est au regard de la législation théâtrale et de la concurrence avec les autres établissements que se dessine l’identité du cirque tant du point de vue de son architecture que de son répertoire. En comparant les situations de l’un et l’autre côté de la Manche, les stratégies individuelles développées par les premiers circassiens de même que les contraintes institutionnelles auxquelles ils étaient confrontés apparaissent d’autant plus clairement et permettent de mieux comprendre l’essence des spectacles de cirque.In contemporary creations, the influence of theatre on the circus is beyond question, but is for many a novelty. The history of the circus, in France as in England, shows that the influence of the theatre is in fact crucial to the very existence of the circus: both in its architecture and its repertoire, the identity of the circus emerges with relation to the legislation governing theatre and to the competition from other establishments. By comparing the situations on both sides of the Channel, it appears clearly that the individual strategies developed by the first circus owners as well as the institutional constraints which confronted them helps to understand the very essence of the circus show

Fashion archive fervour: the critical role of fashion archives in preserving, curating, and narrating fashion

Fashion items and artefacts across the 19th and 20th centuries were once considered unworthy of placement in museums and archives on account of their perishable nature and their association with the shallow pleasures of low culture. The perceived fragile and ephemeral nature of fashion garments and accessories has been reevaluated with material objects now considered worth saving for multiple purposes and uses. Awareness of the high social, cultural, economic, and historic value of physical fashion relics has resulted in the trend for fashion designers, brands, and museums to collate, create, and manage fashion archives. The article analyses the importance for both industry and consumer of preserving and accessing fashion archives in the 21st century in both digital and traditional ways. It highlights the benefits of collating a holistic multi-modal archive by combining material and textual cultural objects in various forms to portray and contextualize the lived social experience. A case study will analyse a selected educational fashion archive based in postcolonial Hong Kong. The contemporary fashion archive’s role is evaluated from the perspective of archivist and user regarding contested issues such as commercialization, curatorial objectivity, or controlled access, while evaluating future directions for the fashion archive as ultimate style repository