Blithe Spirits: Absent British Women Couturiers - The Rahvis Sisters

这个以实践为基础的MPhil/PhD项目旨在挖掘、调查和审问围绕着成功和多产的女性设计师--拉赫维斯姐妹(Rahvis Sisters)(雷蒙德和朵拉)--的缺席/在场二分法。它关注的是拉赫维斯姐妹通过电影和新闻片、报纸和目录等媒介的持久幽灵存在，如何挑战英国文化对战后英国时装经典中有成就的女裁缝重要性的否认。这将被置于女权主义批评的框架内，特别是在确定Rahvis位于和不在时尚历史中的位置，是和不是假设的地方，以及今天不存在的时候。在对碎片进行探索的同时，还将利用和讨论拉赫维斯存在的部分和残余物、档案和艺术实践，以了解我们如何、何时和在哪里发现它们。通过分析和解读这些作为一种挑衅形式的各种历史传播，可以在实践和理论上阅读和理解它们存在的差距和痕迹。这些读物将激发这个项目以实践为基础的部分，从而产生一系列设计，这些设计来自报纸和杂志上对拉赫维斯服装的零碎描述(Trove.nla)，一部由报纸和采访中发现的拉赫维斯传记残余物构建的派系中篇小说(Trove.nla，Pathé1958)，以及一场特定地点的身临其境的表演，形式是一场质疑式的时装秀，从新闻片中留给我们的环境的残余物中提取出来(Pathé，1958)。因此，一种档案方法(Pathé1958，Trove.nla，英国电话簿1929-1981等)将与这种以实践为基础的跨学科方法携手合作，并应用和承认关于叙事、历史和记忆的哲学方法。

This Practice based MPhil/PhD project intends to unearth, investigate and interrogate the absence/presence dichotomy surrounding the successful and prolific female designers - The Rahvis Sisters (Raemonde and Dora). It is concerned with how the Rahvis sisters' enduring ghostly presence via the medium of film and newsreel, newspapers and directories, challenges British culture's disavowal of the importance of accomplished women couturiers within the canon of Post War British Couture. This will be framed within a Feminist critique, particularly when locating where the Rahvis are and are not situated within Fashion History, are and are not posited, and do/do not exist today. Whilst engaging in an exploration of the fragments, the partials and the remnants of the Rahvis' existence, Archival and Artistic practice will be employed and discussed with regards to how, when and where we may discover them. By analysing and decoding these various historical communications as a form of provocation, the gaps and traces of their existence may be read and understood both in practice and theory. These readings will motivate the practice-based part of this project resulting in a collection of designs borne of the fragmentary descriptions of Rahvis' garments in newspapers and magazines (Trove.nla), a Faction novella constructed from found remnants of the Rahvis' biography in newspapers and interviews (Trove.nla, Pathé 1958) and a site-specific immersive performance, in the form of an interrogative fashion show, drawn from the residues of environments left to us in newsreels (Pathé, 1958). An Archival method (Pathé 1958, Trove.nla, British Phone Books 1929 - 1981, et al), will therefore work hand in hand with this practice-based, interdisciplinary methodology, with philosophical approaches to narrative, history and memory being applied and acknowledged.