Reparasjon og gjenbruk i 1900-tallets håndarbeidsbøker

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Innledning

For våre formødre utgjorde vedlikehold og reparasjoner av tekstiler en stor og tidkrevende del av husarbeidet. Tiden som har blitt brukt på dette har minket betraktelig i løpet av 1900-tallet (Avdem og Melby 1985, Hagemann & Roll-Hansen 2005, Sæbø 1986, Lingsom & Ellingsæter 1983). Fra å ha utnyttet alt til siste trevl, sies det ofte at ingen reparerer noen ting lenger. Slike absolutte påstander er sjelden riktige, og noe gjøres fortsatt, delvis på andre måter enn før (Klepp 2001 og 2002). I denne artikkelen skal vi ikke se på hva som er blitt gjort – eller gjøres, men hvordan ulike teknikker har blitt omtalt og formidlet i samtiden. Hva slags teknikker fantes på 1900-tallet for å ta vare på tekstilene, og hvordan endret de seg i dette århundret? Når skjedde disse endringene, og hva har til en vært tid vært ansett som viktig å lære bort? Kildene til å besvare disse spørsmålene er 80 håndarbeidsbøker, alt fra store oppslagsverk, til enkle mønstersamlinger. Dette er supplert med noen årganger av medlemsbladet for Husmorforbundet –, Husmoderen, Arbeidermagasinet – senere Magasinet for alle, håndarbeidsbladet Alt om håndarbeid og Kvinner og Klær. All omtale av teknikker for reparasjon og gjenbruk er er registrert og analysert ut fra spørsmålene hvordan teknikken har blitt presentert og hva hensikten har vært med dem. Analysen får dermed også frem forfatteres og utgivers holdninger til bruken av dem. Dette vil bli sett på som måter å forstå teknikkene i samtiden. Med samtiden menes her det tiåret publikasjonen ble utgitt. Analysen av håndarbeidsbøkene og bladene vil bli organisert i noen hovedtyper teknikker for å økonomisere med tekstiler. Men først vil jeg kort beskrive litt av den tekstile hverdagen bøkene og bladene ble brukt innenfor.

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English summary

Reparing, patching and darning in the 20. century

The article discusses changes in the way different techniques for economising with textiles is referred to in the 20th Century. The material consists of 80 needlework books, in addition to some periodicals and ladies’ magazines. The analysis focuses when the different techniques are described relative to each other and how they are described. The described techniques include needlework for the prevention of wear and tear, different kinds of mending, recycling of textiles through re-sewing and the utilisation of rags, patches and left-over yarn. The development goes from numerous time-consuming and specialised techniques at the beginning of the century towards fewer and far simpler techniques. In the earliest period utilising everything to the last rag seems like an implied matter of course. Later this kind of work is given a moral significance, and at last it is liberated from economic as well as moral reasons. Technically this development is shown through a change from stressing advanced and invisible techniques which made the mended or re-sewn garment as similar to the original as possible, to a stressing of the techniques’ potential for a unique aesthetical expression. The 1970s is the golden age for this kind of work, which can be explained both by “anti-fashion”, the new ideology of art education in the schools and by a growing ideology of leisure time. Towards the end of the century the techniques for economising with textiles disappear from the books of needlework. Yet in the magazines there is still a certain interest in wardrobe planning and renewal of garments.

The full article is only available in Norwegian.

Reading Fashion as Age: Teenage Girls’ and Grown Women’s Accounts of Clothing as Body and Social Status

Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Ardis Storm-Mathisen

Abstract

If you don’t follow fashion, you wear, like, sorta childish clothes

(girl, aged thirteen)

I think about my age before wearing something that seems rather daring

(woman, aged forty-one)

This article discusses the similarities and differences in how women in two different stages of life describe the relationship between fashion and age. The analytical approach is basically discursive, based on Norwegian teenage girls’ and adult women’s verbal accounts of clothing and clothing practices in conversational interviews undertaken in the late 1990s.

Prevailing discourses as to what represents a breach of clothing conventions are to be found in the ways young girls and grown women talk about clothes. When clothes are used in accordance with conventions and norms, they are not noticed much. However, when clothes are used in a way that differs from the norm, this can attract attention and provoke reactions. By comparing narratives of clothing provided by respondents of the same sex and approximately the same class background but of different ages, we gain access to material that is particularly well suited to illustrate the significance of age in conventions governing clothing and fashion.

Click here to read the full article (tandfonline.com).

Klippe, klipp, klippe: Kjønnsarbeidsdeling på frammarsj

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Innledning

I Norge er det stor enighet om at en endring mot et mer likestilt samfunn er ønskelig. I forskningen kan et slikt ønske om endringer være et problem, fordi det som burde ha skjedd, kan stå i veien for å se hva som har skjedd. Denne artikkelen skal handle om hvordan dette ønsket og forestillingen om endring kan være til hinder for å få frem materiale som viser noe annet.

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English abstract

It is a widespread conception that we are heading towards a society in which men and women share work and responsibilities more equally. Such notions of change that point in one direction, can obstruct seeing what is really happening. This article is based on questionnaire material. Studies were carried out to answer the question: Are there areas within household work where gender work sharing is increasing? The answer to this is yes. In this material, men have been more active in purchasing and manufacturing clothes and textiles, and in different kinds of household work in areas defined as ”outside” in the period before 1950. The discourse in the article concerns why this can be difficult to see, and why the material offers a less comprehensive answer to the question than desirable.

The full article is only available in Norwegian.

Farlige farger

Ingun Grimstad Klepp

Abstract

What is so dangerous about colours in women’s clothes? In this article the author is looking for answers in the book Skikk og bruk (etiquette), in ladies and fashion magazines dated 1999, and in interviews with women as well as in their piles of discarded clothing.
The author found that colours are considered dangerous because they break with the level-headed aesthetics of the middle class, and because they refer to gender in the wrong way. Economical and practical reasons, as well as the notion of colours as becoming, are used as arguments in favour of this self-inflicted asceticism.


Individualism and personal expression are applied as the mantra for dressing habits, and as a camouflage for disciplining. The claim that clothes should be suitable and if possible also reflect the bearers’ personality can be regarded as a dressing norm, and thereby as something which puts structuring above the individual.

This article is in Norwegian.

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