Queer Talks at CCNY: Dressing the Nation

Thursday 5/16 NAC 5/111 Dressing the Nation: Turkey's National Design Movement and Diplomatic Fashion Shows Rustem Ertug Altinay The formative years of the Republic of Turkey, following the country's inception in 1923, were marked by a desire to create a modern, secular nation-state with an authentic national essence. In this period, women were expected to serve both as the key agents to create the desired social transformation and as the symbols of national identity. A key institution established in this period was the Girls' Institutes. Combining the post-elementary curriculum with home economics and vocational education, the schools aimed to create “the new Turkish woman.” The Institutes also attempted to develop a national style by combining the popular Western fashions of the time with diverse dress elements resignified as “Turkish.” To promote this style, the schools, which also operated as haute couture fashion houses, staged the first major fashion shows in the country. In the 1940s, the shows gained a diplomatic aspect as they were organized in honor of political dignitaries visiting Turkey. In 1954, the teachers and students of Beyoglu Girls’ Institute participated in a diplomatic event, The Developing Turkey Exhibition, and traveled the world with a cruise ship, organizing fashion shows in the United States, France, Spain, Morocco, Cuba, and Portugal. In the light of archival research and interviews, this presentation will analyze the socio-historical context in which the national style proposed by the Institutes emerged and the fashion show was re-invented as a diplomatic performance genre. The discussion will focus on how the dresses produced according to the national style gained new meanings through international encounters, how these fashions enabled new subjectivities, and how the staged and everyday performances of Turkey’s first fashion models as well as their affective labor informed these dynamics. Rustem Ertug Altinay is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Performance Studies and a Remarque Institute doctoral fellow at New York University, and a Turkish Cultural Foundation fellow. His articles on gender, sexuality, and body politics in Turkey have been published in various peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Ertug's dissertation analyzes the role of fashion and embodied practices in regulating the politics of subjectivity and belonging throughout the republican history of Turkey.