Costume Society Annual Conference 2026: Call for Papers Now Open

Saturday, 17 October – Wednesday, 28 October

Marriage À La Mode: Dressing for Weddings, Civil Partnerships & Conscious Couplings

For the first time in its history the Society is inviting presentations on the theme of marriage ceremonies, whether they are religious, civil or personal commitments.

Call for Papers

We are pleased to open the Call for Papers for the Costume Society’s annual conference to be held online between Saturday 17th October – Wednesday 28th October 2026.

The closing date for the submission of proposals is midnight (UK time) Sunday 7th June 2026.

For the first time in its history the Society will be inviting presentations on the theme of marriage ceremonies, whether they are religious, civil or personal commitments. For ease in this document we will refer to the breadth of these personal choices simply as ‘ceremonies’.

We are seeking papers and presentations on any aspect of dress relating to any of these ceremonies, including the dress of all those attending or officiating

Taking the Society’s ethos of encouraging the study of the history of dress from around the world and throughout history we hope to explore the traditions and innovation in clothing for the diverse occasions where people mark their commitment to each other.

With thousands of years of history, the scope of the whole world and all the diversity of human relationships we hope that this will be a conference full of rich visual content, aspects of new research, the practice of makers and the experience of wearers.

The Conference Selection Panel will meet in mid-June, and we will confirm our speakers by Friday 10th July.

We will begin our conference promotion and ticket sales in September.

The Conference will be held on-line in four sessions (The afternoons of Saturday 17th October and Saturday 24th October 2026 and the evenings of Wednesday 21st October, and Wednesday 28th October)

We welcome proposals from across the community of dress and fashion historians, independent scholars, designers, makers, curators, conservators, collectors, wearers and celebrants.

Presentations (which can be PowerPoint, a practical demonstration, a live ‘in conversation’ or other suitable format) are to be either 20 or 30 minutes in length and able to be shared on Zoom.

Those wishing to offer papers should submit their initial proposal using the template provided which can be found here.

Proposals and accompanying CVs should be sent to Philip Warren.

All submissions must be received by close of Sunday 7th June.

All submissions will be considered by an Advisory Panel made up from the Costume Society Executive Committee and specialists in the thematic areas.

All candidates will be notified by Friday 10th July.

Successful speakers will then be required to provide additional information in advance of the Conference. This will be required by Monday 10th August.

This will include:

• An image/s relating to the talk/demonstration to be used in social media promotion for the conference. These must have permissions from the rights owner of the image and rights must be for commercial activity (as we will be promoting your presentation to sell tickets for the conference).
• A recent headshot – also for promotion.
• A synopsis of the talk/demonstration to be used in social media promotion and the published conference programme and a short biography, and any social media tags to be used in promotion of your particular contribution to the conference.
• We expect participants to co-promote their contribution to the conference as well as the conference as a whole on their own social media platforms and within their networks.

Please note the Society posts ‘live’ commentary on the conference on social media.

The Society regrets that it is not possible to pay for expenses in the preparation and presentation of a paper, but free access to the conference series will be available for contributors.

 Please contact Philip Warren if you have any queries.

 

Image caption: Marriage à la Mode, opening case, © Olive Matthews Collection, Chertsey Museum.