At the heart of this anthology lies the world of fashion: a concept that pervades the realm of clothes and dress; appearances and fashionable manners; interior design; ideas and attitudes. Here sixteen papers focus on the Nordic world (Denmark, Norway, Sweden Finland, Iceland, the Faroe Isles and Greenland) within the time frame AD 1500–1850. This was a period of rapid and far-reaching social, political and economic change, from feudal Europe through political revolution, industrialisation, development of international trade, religious upheaval and technological innovation; changes impacting on every aspect of life and reflected in equally rapid and widespread changes in fashion at all levels of society. These papers present a broad image of the theme of fashion as a concept and as an empirical manifestation in the Nordic countries in early modernity, exploring a variety of ways in which that world encountered fashionable impressions in clothing and related aspects of material culture from Europe, the Russian Empire, and far beyond. The chapters range from object-based studies to theory-driven analysis. Elite and sophisticated fashions, the importation of luxuries and fashion garments, christening and bridal wear, silk knitted waistcoats, woollen sweaters and the influence of the whaling trade on women’s clothing are some of the diverse topics considered, as well as religious influences on perceptions of luxury and aspects of the garment trade and merchant inventories.
0. Prologue (Mikkel Venborg Pedersen)
1. The World of Foreign Goods and Imported Luxuries: Merchant and shop inventories in late 17th-century Denmark-Norway (Camilla Luise Dahl & Piia Lempiäinen)
2. Foreign Seductions: Sumptuary laws, consumption and national identity in early modern Sweden (Eva I. Andersson)
3. Fashion from the Ship: Life, fashion and fashion dissemination in and around Kokkola, Finland in the 18th century (Seija Johnson)
4. Creating fashion: Tailors’ and seamstresses’ work with cutting and construction techniques in women’s dress, ca. 1750-1830 (Pernilla Rasmussen)
5. Silk Knitted Waistcoats - a 17th-century fashion item (Maj Ringgaard)
6. Fashioning the early modern Swedish nobility - mirrored in preserved 17th-century liturgical textiles (Lena Dahrén)
7. Reflections on dress practices and how to get to know the past (Bjørn Sverre Hol Haugen)
8. The Queen of Denmark: An English fashion doll and its connections to the Nordic countries (Cecilie Stöger Nachman)
9. At the Nordic Fringe of Global Consumption: A Copenhagen bourgeois’ home and the use of new goods in the mid-18th century (Mikkel Venborg Pedersen)
10. The Theft of Fashion: Circulation of fashionable textiles and garments in 18th-century Copenhagen (Vibe Maria Martens)
11. Bolette-Marie Harboe’s bridal dress: fashionable encounters told in an 18th-century dress (Kirsten Toftegaard)
12. Luxurious Textiles in Danish Christening Garments: fashionable encounters across social and geographical borders (Tove Engelhardt Mathiassen)
13. Fish-bones and Fashion – the influence of whaling on women’s clothes in early modern Europe (Christina Folke Ax)
14. From Doll Cups to Woollen Sweaters: Trends, consumption, and influentials in early 19th-century southern Disko Bay, Greenland (Peter Andreas Toft & Maria Mackinney-Valentin)
15. Abundance to Asceticism: Religious influences on perceptions of luxury in Denmark and Great Britain in the 18th century (Juliane Engelhardt)
16. Circulating images of unmanliness and foreignness: Collector Niclas Holterman and European caricatures in Sweden around 1800 (Patrik Steorn)
17. Acknowledgements
18. Illustrations
19. Contributors
