How did Black African women in mid-20th-century Paris use dress as a language of resistance, belonging, and self-fashioning. And how can artistic practice bridge the gaps in historical archives?
SLARG and ARIA (Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts,University of Antwerp) warmly invite you to Pierre-Antoine Vettorello's public PhD defense.
His doctoral dissertation in the arts, titled "Black Yarns: Fashion and African Women's Resistance in the Parisian Afropea (1939–1966)", addresses the archival absence of Black African women in fashion histories and museum collections.
About the Research
While Paris occupies a central place in global fashion history, the experiences, material cultures, and visual presence of Black African women during colonialism, war, decolonisation, and migration remain largely absent from archives.
Intersecting fashion studies, Black studies, diaspora studies, and museum ethnography, this practice-based research examines how dress functioned beyond aesthetics, serving as a vital medium for elegance, respectability, identity, and political resistance.
What the project does:
- Engages archival absence: Draws on family archives, historical photographs, museum ethnography, and fieldwork across Europe and West Africa.
- Artistic & textile practice: Translates photographic traces into physical garments, textile works, and spatial installations.
- Conceptual frameworks: Develops concepts such as radical kinship, remeasurement, and the palimpsest to propose new methodologies for conservation, care, and collective memory.
Promotors & Doctoral Committee
- Promotors: Dr. Kim Gorus (Sint Lucas Antwerpen) & Prof. Dr. Diana Arbaiza (University of Antwerp)
- External Committee Member: Fatima Fall Niang (CRDS Saint-Louis, Université Gaston Berger, Senegal)
- Chair: Prof. Dr. Henk de Smaele (University of Antwerp)
- External Jury Members: Romeo Mivekannin (Artist), Prof. Dr. Mame-Fatou Niang (Carnegie Mellon University), Prof. Dr. Julia Binter (University of Bonn)
Practical Information & Program
- Date: Monday, 26 October 2026
- Venue: Horloge du Sud (1st floor), Rue du Trône 141, 1050 Brussels
Schedule:
- 12:00 – 14:00: Public viewing of the archive
- 14:00 – 16:00: Public PhD Defense
- 16:00 – 17:00: Committee Deliberation
- 17:00 – 18:00: Reception
