No. 110/2019

33 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 110/2019 signer of an exhibition on the fashion diary of the Fugger bookkeeper, Matthäus Schwarz, in Braunschweig. “Dressed for Success” is the title of the exhibition built around the minutely detailed documentation of the opu- lent garments that Schwarz – known to his contemporar- ies as a “fashion fiend” – had tailored for himself in the 16th century. “I never used to think very much about what people wore five hundred years ago,” says Ulinka Rublack. But that all changed when she noticed just how much global history was captured in a fashionable outfit, even then. Some materials were specially brought to Europe from India and Indonesia, feather adornments came from America and Africa, whereby this trade had an impact on the social coherence and ecosystems of all the countries involved. Rublack highlights one aspect: “The environ- mental catastrophe caused by textile production began in the early modern period.” The industrious researcher is currently busy tracing all these global connections. The working title of her next book is “The Triumph of Fashion 1300 to 2020” – and it is not likely to suffer from a lack of public interest. THE RUBLACK METHOD: SOURCES TELL STORIES Ulinka Rublack’s sources include Matthäus Schwarz’s 16th century book of costumes. In Renais- sance Augsburg, the fashion- conscious Fugger bookkeeper sat for his portrait in opulent gar- ments. Even then it could be said that clothes make the man. Schwarz’s fashion consciousness aided his social advancement. Apart from local history, the his- torical source implicitly relates the history of globalisation as well, as the materials came from far afield. PROFESSOR DR ULINKA RUBLACK has been teaching Early Modern European History at St John’s College, Cambridge, since 1996. In 2018, she received the Reimar Lüst Award from the Humboldt Foundation and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. Born in Germany, Rublack is a recognised expert on Reforma- tion history as well as the cultural and gender history of the early modern era. Her reconst- ruction of the witchcraft trial of the mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler gained her a wide audience, in Germany as well. For her monograph she was recently awarded the Prize of the Historisches Kolleg in Munich. Rublack is a Fellow of the British Academy. The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler‘s Fight for his Mother, Oxford: Oxford University Press, October 2015.