[MR] Fw: Yahoo! News Story - 'Master of blue jeans' holds key to fashion riddle - Yahoo! News

[lordgaelan at aol.com]

Denim may be period, but the article referenced 17th century, so may be not since our "period" stops in the 3rd year of the 17th century.  The modern construct of blue jeans are not.

Gaelan






-----Original Message-----
From: Fergus MacDair <fmacdair at yahoo.com>
To: atlantia at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Sent: Mon, Sep 20, 2010 10:47 am
Subject: [MR] Fw: Yahoo! News Story - 'Master of blue jeans' holds key to fashion riddle - Yahoo! News


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100919/lf_afp/lifestylefashionarthistory
Blue Jeans are period!
The Tao is called the Great Mother:
mpty yet inexhaustible,
t gives birth to infinite worlds.
t is always present within you.
ou can use it any way you want.
ao Te Ching, chapter 6
http://www.splcenter.org/
ttp://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/
ttp://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/2006/02/the_spoon_theory.php#more
ttp://www.sca.org/
ttp://www.cuups.org
ttp://www.freecycle.org
ttp://www.bmwmoa.org/
ttp://www.airheads.org
'Master of blue jeans' holds key to fashion riddle
"Master of blue jeans" holds key to fashion riddle AFP/HO – Art historians 
elieve they have found a piece of a centuries-old puzzle in the work of a newly 
iscovered …
y Emma Charlton Emma Charlton – Sun Sep 19, 12:01 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – Workaday staple and fashion favourite, blue jeans have conquered 
he planet. But were they born in the textile mills of New Hampshire, on 
rance's southern coast or the looms of north Italy?
Art historians believe they have found a piece of the centuries-old puzzle in 
he work of a newly discovered 17th-century north Italian artist, dubbed the 
Master of the Blue Jeans", whose paintings went on show in Paris this week.
Running through his works like a leitmotif is an indigo blue fabric threaded 
ith white, with rips revealing its structure, in the skirts of a peasant woman 
r the jacket of a beggar boy.
"The works are very attached to the detail of clothing -- it was very rare for a 
ainter to characterise the poor with such detail," said curator Gerlinde 
ruber, who helped to identify the anonymous artist's works.
"And there is blue jean in every painting except one," she said.
Other details in his work, such as a knotted white kerchief in a painting 
ntitled "Mother Sewing", enabled curators to locate the scenes in northern 
taly, in the region of Venice.
Historians have long traced jeans' ancestry to two sources outside the United 
tates: a sturdy fabric from the French city of Nimes -- "de Nimes", hence 
denim" -- on the one hand, and a cotton fustian from Genoa in Italy -- "Genes" 
n French, becoming "Jeans" in English -- on the other.
But unlike the finery worn by the upper classes, the clothes of the peasant 
lasses were used until shredded through, leaving no trace.
Until now there were only fragmented written records to rely on to document the 
hipments of low-cost fabric that flooded from Genoa into northern Europe -- and 
specially England -- in the mid-17th century.
"We have accounts from an English tailor saying that his fabric came from Genoa, 
nd that is the origin of jeans," said Gruber. "But this gives us new 
ocumentary proof of a historical reality that has been forgotten."
In a further quirk, the blue tint of the fabric was painted with the exact same 
ndigo as that used to dye today's denim, according to curators.
Centuries later, husband and wife design team Francois and Marithe Girbaud 
arned a reputation as modern-day masters of the jeans world -- as pioneers of 
he baggy hip-hop look, of stonewashing or stretch denim.
"This calls into question the entire history we have been telling up until now," 
aid Francois Girbaud, who partnered with the Paris exhibition. "And that's 
hat's fun."
"In people's minds, jeans used to be all about Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, about 
he United States," he said. "Nimes or Genoa? I don't have the answer. But it's 
musing to think that jeans already existed in 1655."
Ten paintings have been attributed to the Italian artist, eight of which are on 
how in Paris alongside works by contemporaries such as Michael Sweerts or 
iacomo Ceruti, loaned from museums and private collections in Rome and Vienna.
How they came together in Paris is a detective story in itself.
In 2004, the Paris-based gallery owner Maurizio Canesso bought a work in New 
ork by an unknown artist of the Neapolitan school.
Trying to track down the origins of the painting, "The Barber's Shop", Canesso 
ound a copy in a museum in Varese near Milan and says "that was when the search 
eally began."
At the same time in Italy, unknown to him, Gruber had been joining the dots 
etween works she believed to be by the same artist, who she dubbed "The Master 
f the Blue Jeans" because of the recurring presence of the fabric.
Her search began after two works thought to be by his hand surfaced within a 
hort space of time -- the "Woman sewing with two children" and the "Beggar boy 
ith a piece of pie".
Canesso's curiosity was aroused by a 2006 article in which Gruber described the 
aintings, and over the following few years he purchased all the available works 
ttributed to the artist.
With their use of vivid blue set against chiraoscuro backdrops, and focus on 
umble everyday scenes, the works' value is estimated at between 60,000 and 
00,000 euros according to the Canesso gallery.

opyright © 2010 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information 
ontained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or 
edistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
opyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.


     
=======================================================================
                  The Merry Rose Tavern at Cheapside
   List Info: http://merryrose.atlantia.sca.org/
 Submissions: Atlantia at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
ubscriptions: http://seahorse.atlantia.sca.org/listinfo.cgi/atlantia-atlantia.sca.org