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James Laver
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James Laver
James Laver, CBE, FRSA (14 March 1899 – 3 June 1975) was an English author, critic, art historian, and museum curator who acted as Keeper of Prints, Drawings and Paintings for the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1938 and 1959. He was also an important and pioneering fashion historian described as "the man in England who made the study of costume respectable".
James Laver was born in Liverpool, England, on 14 March 1899, the second child and only son of Arthur James Laver, a maritime printer and stationer, and his wife, Florence Mary (née Barker), strict Congregationalists who brought up their children in a puritanical manner. He attended the Liverpool Institute. His academic progress was put on hold by the First World War, in which he served as a second lieutenant.
In 1919 he resumed his residency at New College, Oxford, where he earned a BA degree second class in modern history 1921. The next year, he earned a B.Litt in theology for a thesis on John Wesley. His college fees and travel expenses were subsidised by a wealthy shipping magnate, Lawrence Holt.[why?] At Oxford, he contributed to the student magazine Isis and won the 1921 Newdigate Prize for his poem on Cervantes.
In 1922, Laver entered the Department of Engraving, Illustration, Design and Painting at the Victoria & Albert Museum where he worked under Martin Hardie. He arrived shortly before the International Theatre Exhibition was transferred to the V&A from Amsterdam and was shown as part of his department. It showcased work by all the leading European designers of the time, and the Museum purchased several designs and models, which became the basis of the Museum's Theatre Collection. Laver was put in charge of this collection. Stage design became one of his passions, possibly in reaction against his upbringing. In 1938 he succeeded Martin Hardie as Keeper of the department, a post he held until his retirement in 1958. Despite his significant contributions to object-centred dress history, he was never Keeper of Textiles for the Museum, or part of the Textiles section.
Laver had an interest in fashion history, which emerged through a desire to date images accurately through the clothing depicted within. Laver defined the relationships between dress design and other applied arts, and discussed the influence of economic and social factors upon the development of fashionable taste. In 1962, Laver received a Neiman Marcus Fashion Award in recognition of his work in the field of fashion history. In 1937 Laver, with Pearl Binder, co-presented the first television programme to be dedicated to fashion history. Clothes-Line, a six-part series, was so successful that in 1938, Laver and Binder reunited to present a revised re-tread (in three parts) of the programme, this time called Clothes Through The Centuries.
Laver followed the theories of Thorstein Veblen and John Flügel, using them to develop his favourite theories. These were:
In the 1980s and 1990s, feminist fashion historians such as Elizabeth Wilson and Amanda Vickery found these problematic, arguing that Laver and C. Willett Cunnington's views trivialised women's behaviour, role within the family, and their contributions to society and culture.
Laver's Law was an attempt to compress the complex cycle of fashion change and the general attitude towards any certain style or period into a simple timeline. It first appeared in Taste and Fashion (1937):
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James Laver
James Laver, CBE, FRSA (14 March 1899 – 3 June 1975) was an English author, critic, art historian, and museum curator who acted as Keeper of Prints, Drawings and Paintings for the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1938 and 1959. He was also an important and pioneering fashion historian described as "the man in England who made the study of costume respectable".
James Laver was born in Liverpool, England, on 14 March 1899, the second child and only son of Arthur James Laver, a maritime printer and stationer, and his wife, Florence Mary (née Barker), strict Congregationalists who brought up their children in a puritanical manner. He attended the Liverpool Institute. His academic progress was put on hold by the First World War, in which he served as a second lieutenant.
In 1919 he resumed his residency at New College, Oxford, where he earned a BA degree second class in modern history 1921. The next year, he earned a B.Litt in theology for a thesis on John Wesley. His college fees and travel expenses were subsidised by a wealthy shipping magnate, Lawrence Holt.[why?] At Oxford, he contributed to the student magazine Isis and won the 1921 Newdigate Prize for his poem on Cervantes.
In 1922, Laver entered the Department of Engraving, Illustration, Design and Painting at the Victoria & Albert Museum where he worked under Martin Hardie. He arrived shortly before the International Theatre Exhibition was transferred to the V&A from Amsterdam and was shown as part of his department. It showcased work by all the leading European designers of the time, and the Museum purchased several designs and models, which became the basis of the Museum's Theatre Collection. Laver was put in charge of this collection. Stage design became one of his passions, possibly in reaction against his upbringing. In 1938 he succeeded Martin Hardie as Keeper of the department, a post he held until his retirement in 1958. Despite his significant contributions to object-centred dress history, he was never Keeper of Textiles for the Museum, or part of the Textiles section.
Laver had an interest in fashion history, which emerged through a desire to date images accurately through the clothing depicted within. Laver defined the relationships between dress design and other applied arts, and discussed the influence of economic and social factors upon the development of fashionable taste. In 1962, Laver received a Neiman Marcus Fashion Award in recognition of his work in the field of fashion history. In 1937 Laver, with Pearl Binder, co-presented the first television programme to be dedicated to fashion history. Clothes-Line, a six-part series, was so successful that in 1938, Laver and Binder reunited to present a revised re-tread (in three parts) of the programme, this time called Clothes Through The Centuries.
Laver followed the theories of Thorstein Veblen and John Flügel, using them to develop his favourite theories. These were:
In the 1980s and 1990s, feminist fashion historians such as Elizabeth Wilson and Amanda Vickery found these problematic, arguing that Laver and C. Willett Cunnington's views trivialised women's behaviour, role within the family, and their contributions to society and culture.
Laver's Law was an attempt to compress the complex cycle of fashion change and the general attitude towards any certain style or period into a simple timeline. It first appeared in Taste and Fashion (1937):