Saturday 04 October 2025

Cally Blackman - Sartorial Shapshifting and Gendered Bodies

Cally’s lecture will explore the evolution of menswear with a focus on tailored clothing and how it has been used to signify and subvert gender over the centuries. Once almost exclusively made by men for men, since the late seventeenth century the tailored suit has been appropriated into the female wardrobe. More recently, men have increasingly adopted garments once only worn by women. From riding habits and power suits to Jean Paul Gaultier’s skirts for men, we will take a relaxed look at how tailored clothes have been used to signify and subvert gender.

Cally studied fashion design at St. Martin’s School of Art and gained an MA in History of Art (Dress) from the Courtauld Institute. She has taught fashion history at Central Saint Martins for over 20 years.

She has written several books including 100 Years of Fashion Illustration (2007), 100 Years of Menswear (2009), 100 Years of Fashion (2012) (all pub. by Laurence King), A Portrait of Fashion with Prof. Aileen Ribeiro (2015, published by the National Portrait Gallery), Fashion Central Saint Martins with Hywel Davies (2019, published by Thames & Hudson), and contributed a chapter to Les Couleurs de la Mode (2023, published by the Palais Galliera, Paris Musées). She has lectured widely including at the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A, Sotheby’s Institute, the Courtauld Institute, and the Royal Academy.

Her current research focuses mainly on the representation of fashion in the Lumière brothers’ early twentieth century autochrome colour photographic process. Her latest book, The Colour of Clothes: fashion and dress in autochromes 1907-1930, was published by Thames & Hudson in March 2025.

Price Per Person: Member TBA, Non Member TBA