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British Printed Textiles of the 1970S a Material Culture Study

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British Printed Textiles of the 1970S a Material Culture Study British Printed Textiles of the 1970s A Material Culture Study A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Natasha Ann Thoreson IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Advisor Barbara E. Martinson, Ph.D. December 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Natasha Ann Thoreson. Acknowledgements A sincere and humble thank you to all the people who helped me with this paper. Thank you to my advisor Barbara Martinson and all the faculty who served on my various committees over the years: Gail Dubrow, Marilyn DeLong, Karen LaBat, Jean McElvain, and Stephanie Zollinger. Thank you to my writing group: Leigh Gleason, Reva Main, and Diana Rose. Thank you to the kind British archivists who helped me with my research: Alexia Kirk, Victoria Platt, Kimberley Smith, Nicholas Smith, Deborah Sutherland, Sarah Westbury, Eva White, Lesley Whitworth, and Sally Williams. Thank you to my many colleagues, mentors, and professors at the Goldstein Museum of Design, Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison: Leslie Bellais, Terry Boyd, Marilyn Bruin, Kathleen Campbell, Caitlin Cohn, Laura DeBiaso, Holly Easland, Marj Ford-Sethna, Charisse Gendron, Laureen Gibson, Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers, Sherry Harlacher, Eunice Haugen, Joe Horse Capture, Carolyn Jenkinson, Kim Johnson, Charleen Klarquist, Curt Lund, Clare Moran, Rebekah Njaa, Jennifer Komar Olivarez, Roberto Rengel, Eike Schmidt, Mark Schultz, Ann Sisel, Meaghan Tongen, Anne-Marie Wagener, Gabriel Weisberg, and JuanJuan Wu. i Thank you to my friends and family who cheered me on, especially Jeremy Benedict, Melody Boeser, Katherine Buenger, Sarah Connor, Naomi Farabee, Luann Freitag, Candy Helget, Erika Holmquist-Wall, Callie Hutchinson, Kim Laughter, Adam Roberts, Mary O’Rourke, Chauntae Ruppe, Donna Seys, George Seys, Elizabeth Spear, Angie Thoreson, Brent Thoreson, Courtney Wilder, and Bill Wittenbreer. Special thanks to my very patient partner, Chad Thompson and to my very loyal cat, Astarte Kitty. ii Abstract The purpose of this material culture study is to explore how social and cultural changes in Britain are expressed through British printed textiles of the 1970s. To facilitate this exploration, two research questions were developed. The first draws attention to the textiles’ surface design: What is the nature of iconography featured in British printed textiles of the 1970s? The second reiterates the purpose statement, the goal being to understand how these textiles reflected the changing values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions of 1970s Britain. This paper addresses the different ways different groups of people (e.g., designers, manufacturers, consumers, cultural commentators) viewed British printed textiles in the 1970s. This insight into the beliefs, values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions regarding these textiles contributes to the study of textiles by (a) placing 1970s British printed textiles in historical, social, and cultural context; (b) adding to the information about 1970s textile iconography; and (c) positioning textiles in a broader theoretical dialogue. Textile design in the 1970s is often dismissed as a dark period in the otherwise bright history of modernism. Findings reveal a thematic and stylistic diversity in textile design, symbolic of the spirit of the “Schizophrenic Seventies.” This zeitgeist was manifested as a cultural ambivalence regarding modernity, technology, and progress expressed in terms of revivalist, escapist, ethnic, and nostalgic textile designs or hybrids thereof. In iii hindsight, both the zeitgeist and the designs might be termed postmodern: a conscious break from the modernism of the 1960s. iv Table of Contents List of Tables .................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures ................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Prosperity to poverty: The oil crisis .....................................................................................3 Problem ................................................................................................................................7 Purpose .................................................................................................................................9 Research design overview ..................................................................................................10 Rationale and significance .................................................................................................11 Assumptions .......................................................................................................................12 Definitions of key terminology ..........................................................................................12 Chapter 2: Literature Review .........................................................................................15 Introduction ........................................................................................................................15 British printed textiles in the twentieth century .................................................................16 Designers and creativity .........................................................................................17 Manufacturers and trade ........................................................................................18 Fine versus applied art ...........................................................................................19 Aesthetics ...............................................................................................................21 British printed textiles in the 1970s ...................................................................................22 British interior design in the 1970s ....................................................................................27 Modernism .........................................................................................................................36 Modernism and British printed textiles in the 1970s .........................................................37 Technology and progress ...................................................................................................46 Technology and British printed textiles in the 1970s ........................................................53 v Postmodernism and British printed textiles in the 1970s...................................................58 Conceptual framework .......................................................................................................65 Postmodern literature .............................................................................................69 Related studies ...................................................................................................................70 Judy Attfield...........................................................................................................70 Regina Lee Blaszczyk ............................................................................................72 Dinah Eastop ..........................................................................................................74 Chapter summary ...............................................................................................................76 Chapter 3: Method ...........................................................................................................78 Introduction ........................................................................................................................78 Material culture as method.................................................................................................78 Research questions .............................................................................................................82 Research sample.................................................................................................................82 Research sites and design...................................................................................................84 Data collection methods .........................................................................................85 Material culture ..........................................................................................86 Primary documents ....................................................................................90 Data analysis and synthesis ................................................................................................93 Limitations of the study .....................................................................................................95 Chapter summary ...............................................................................................................97 Chapter 4: Findings Related to Iconography and Style ...............................................98 Introduction ........................................................................................................................98 Finding 1 ..........................................................................................................................100
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