The pocket, the portable archive: Exploring methods and creating garment biographies with what we wear and carry

Abstract

This thesis proposes and tests the concept of the ‘pocket archive’ as a site to encounter both garment and wearer biographies, through both object-centred and creative research methodologies. The pocket archive is the site of pocketed or attached material culture in garments and accessories, which is examined as a portable and embodied archive of both the garment and the wearer. Pocket archives move with the wearer, and hold intimate, private, often ephemeral items, whilst also sharing connection to wearers’ communities and their wider historical context. In this manner I argue that the pocket archive reveals insightful histories about the wearer and garment. This research draws upon and contributes to dress history and material culture studies. Both are established fields, though the site of the pocket is less explored in the historiography to date. Within these fields this thesis takes a methodological approach grounded in material culture and objectbased analysis. I utilise established frameworks from Prown, Mida & Kim, Kopytoff’s object biography approach, and oral history research, alongside creative non-fiction and creative practice, to further the insight we may gain of garment, object, and wearer. The combination of research approaches establishes a framework, specific to the study of pocket archives, which enables novel, tacit, sensory and emotive insight on multiple levels of garments and wearers. The thesis is centred on examples from Aotearoa New Zealand over the last 200 years, with a focus on the 20th century. The research is conducted with both museum-held and second-hand sourced garments, ranging from former Prime Ministers’ clothing to wedding wear to everyday jeans and blazers. Its methodological focus, however, is broader. The diverse sources and creative research tested the boundaries of the pocket archive concept through garment deconstruction and creative non-fiction. Pocket archives capture histories which are less likely to be found in formal records: often ephemeral, with items worn and used by all of us every day. Likewise, they capture unique narratives of care, privacy, health and gender inequalities. The site also holds memory and is used to keep memory by wearers, creating a duality to the pocket archive concept. I demonstrate that pocket archives are liminal spaces connecting both to wearers and bodies within clothing, alongside sharing insight into the public sphere these bodies’ function in. The cloth of garments is distinct in its ability to hold biography through wear, repair and material traces, highlighting the value of pocket archives in garments specifically. Overall, the thesis argues for both the value of pocket archives as sites for social and cultural history and for combining object-based and creative research methods to most fully understand the stories encoded in our pockets.