Historical Studies Program, Dean of the College, and Africana Studies Program Present

Tailoring Identities: Mobility, Technology, and Men’s Fashion in Independence-Era Bénin

This talk traces the development of artisanal tailoring in mid-twentieth century Bénin, West Africa to show how everyday tailors served as important cultural and technological innovators. Drawing on evidence from apprenticeship, oral history, and archives, it explores the entanglement of materials, craft knowledge, and sartorial meaning in the creation of popular and enduring Béninois men’s styles. In doing so, it demonstrates how tailors helped fashion identities through clothes-making, giving form and expression to the political and social challenges of modernity, urbanization, and decolonization.

---

Elizabeth Ann Fretwell is Assistant Professor of African History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She has also taught at Reed College in Portland, Oregon and at the University of Chicago where she received her PhD. Her research on material culture, technology, gender, and labor in French-speaking western Africa has appeared in Radical Historical Review, History and Technology, and Journal of Urban History. Her first book, Tailoring Identities: Craft, Technology, and Style in Bénin, is forthcoming with Indiana University Press.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Olin Humanities, Room 102

Subscribe: Save this Event: Subscribe / .ics File