This second issue of The Yarn explores colonial violence in fashion museums, museums often acting as “hygienist” entities—fixated on “cleansing and disinfecting their contaminated past” (Deliss, 2022). At stake here is the intersection of two frameworks invented in colonial contexts, fashion and museums, and how their entanglement involves specific negotiations. Fashion’s sympathy capital has driven many Western museums to curate exhibitions that foreground national historiographies through designers’ stories, social movements, and selected notable figures. What role, then, does the fashion museum play in upholding colonialism and imperialism? This bilingual anthology provides a platform for reflecting on the role of fashion museums in the decolonial discourse and exploring ways to challenge their foundations. It welcomes texts by Alison Moloney, Angela Jansen and Karolien de Clippel, Françoise Vergès, Audrey Bartis, Pallavi Chamarty, Morolake Dairo, Sharifa Jamaldin, Marius Janusauskas, and Pierre-Antoine Vettorello. It also features in dialogues, Kaat Debo, Janice Deul, Gangadhar gaaru, Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja, Nyanchama Okemwa, and Michaëlle Sergile.

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CONTENTS

Audrey Bartis - Decoding the Absence, Weaving the Traces. In conversation with Michaëlle Sergile.

Pallavi Chamarty - Our Riches and Their Riches: A block maker's record, museums and the archive. Interview with Gangadhar gaaru.

Morolake Dairo - What’s in a name and place? A review of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s ‘Africa Fashion’ Exhibition.

Angela Jansen & Karolien de Clippel - Shared Histories: Dior by Maison Joste Casablanca.

Sharifa Jamaldin - The Lack of Representativeness in the Fashion Museums Collections Curation: In conversation with Janice Deul.

Marius Janusauskas - Kinds of Closets: Reimagining Fashion Installations.

Alison Moloney - Absence as Action.

Seminar transcripts - Archival Frictions: In conversation with Nashilogweshipwe Mushaandja, Nyanchama Okemwa, Kaat Debo, and Alison Moloney.

Françoise Vergès - The Death of the Textile Industry and the Birth of the Fashion Museum in the West.

Pierre-Antoine Vettorello - Reviewing the Fashion Folklore Exhibition at the Mucem in Marseille.

Book Review by Pierre-Antoine Vettorello - Reclaiming Artisanal Legacies: Handcrafted Traditions and Community History in Ariella Aïsha Azoulay The Jewellers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World (2024).