Announcing the Underpinnings Museum Twitter Conference

As part of its quest to bring the history of underwear to a wider audience, making collections and research freely accessible online, The Underpinnings Museum is hosting a Twitter conference on Friday 12th January 2018. Anyone with a public Twitter account and an interest in the history of underwear is invited to submit their idea for a conference presentation.

Each selected speaker will be allocated a 15 minute slot for their presentation, which will take the form of a Twitter thread of 6 to 12 tweets with images/video where appropriate. Hosting the conference online using Twitter enables participation, as a speaker or attendee, from anywhere in the world at no cost. All conference content will be collated on Storify after the event, so that a permanent record of the conference is available online.

DECEMBER 2017 UPDATE: We had some fantastic submissions and have made our selections. The Underpinnings Museum Twitter Conference draft schedule is now available. Details of the keynote presentation will be confirmed in January 2018.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Academics, researchers, students, designers/makers, bloggers, collectors and vintage underwear enthusiasts of any kind are all encouraged to present at The Underpinnings Museum Twitter Conference, as we want to cover as many different aspects of underwear history as possible. Suggested themes for presentations include, but are not limited to:

Designing (e.g. history of lingerie/corsetry design, using vintage styles as inspiration for modern designs)
Making (e.g. reproduction garments, vintage sewing techniques, history of embroidery in lingerie, costume for performance, pattern cutting challenges)
Selling (e.g. history of bra fitting, diversity in underwear advertising, evolution of department stores, catalogue shopping)
Displaying (e.g. history of visual merchandising, showcasing underwear in museums)
Collecting (e.g. how you became a collector, tips on looking after vintage lingerie, museum collections/conservation)
Researching (e.g. history of a particular garment type, female lingerie designers throughout history, tips on how to use archives or the internet for research)

We require the following information from all potential speakers: Your Twitter handle (e.g. @TheUPMuseum), your timezone, the title of your proposed presentation, a summary of the presentation (max. 100 words), and a speaker biography (max. 100 words). Send this, with the email subject ‘Proposal for Underpinnings Museum Twitter Conference’ to [email protected]. The deadline for submissions is 17:00 GMT on Friday 1st December 2017.

This conference has been inspired by the recent Institute of Conservation Twitter Conference #IconTC organised by @PietaGreaves. You can find out more about their conference on the ICON website: https://icon.org.uk/events/icons-twitter-conference

GUIDANCE FOR SPEAKERS

You must have a public Twitter account to present from. This can be a personal or organisational account.
Presentations are allowed a minimum of 6 tweets and maximum of 12.
Each tweet must be numbered (1 – 12) and start with the hashtag #UPMTC (i.e 1 #UPMTC, 2 #UPMTC etc)
Your presentation should begin with an introductory tweet, then have 4-10 “body” tweets, and end with a summary tweet.
The speaker is responsible for ensuring they have the correct copyright and permissions for the material to be placed on Twitter.
Speakers can include any kind of media in their tweets (including images, short videos and gifs) as long as they are suitable for a conference that will be open to all online. Get creative!
You will be allocated a time slot in which to tweet your presentation, based on your geographic location. Ensure you give us your time zone information when you send in your proposal.
Discussion and questions are encouraged. When asking a question, please direct your tweet to the individual using their handle and use the hashtag #UPMTC
See a good example presentation from #IconTC here: https://twitter.com/melinaplottu/status/916249677774942208
The language of the conference is English.

Additional information for speakers who are accepted to present at the conference can be found in the guidance document. We aim to make our selections by Friday 8th December 2017.

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE

The conference organiser is Lorraine Smith (Researcher at The Underpinnings Museum). The selection panel will also include Karolina Laskowska (Museum Director) and Tigz Rice (Museum Photographer).