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Magali An Berthon Brings Fashion and Cultural Expertise to AUP and to the Mus茅e du Quai Branly

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Magali An Berthon is a design historian and expert of textile, fashion and craft. She joined AUP as Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies in the fall of 2024 after spending the past decade and a half deepening her knowledge of textiles and the cultural aspects of their crafting, and finding ways to tell their stories鈥攊n writing or in visual arts and documentaries. This spring, she is telling the story of gold threads across 鈥渢he gold road鈥 with the exhibition 鈥 (Golden Threads: The art of dressing from Northern Africa to the far east鈥) at the Mus茅e du Quai Branly.

Co-developed with Hana Al Banna-Chidiac, a curator formerly in charge of North African and Middle Eastern collections at the Quai Branly, the exhibition tells the story of the ways gold, a historically coveted yet expensive material, has been transformed鈥攁nd made more accessible鈥攖o be used in textiles. Chidiac first reached out to Berthon a few years ago to discuss Cambodian textiles and asked her to join in to work on the Asian section of this one-of-a-kind exhibition that traces the connections, through gold, from Africa to the Middle East, to Southeast Asia and East Asia. 鈥淣ot much has been done about gold threads,鈥 explains Berthon. 鈥淲e have produced a historical, technical and global show on that topic, bringing together a lot of the current research being done through different perspectives.鈥 The exhibition will also enter into dialogue with contemporary Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei whose pieces Berthon describes as 鈥渧ery spectacular, ornate and heavily embroidered鈥攁lmost theatrical.鈥

Berthon holds an MFA from the 脡cole nationale des arts d茅coratifs and a PhD from the Royal College of Arts in London, where her research focused on silk practices in Cambodia. Today, she describes herself as a material-oriented scholar who came to academic work from practice, after gaining professional experience in the fashion industry. This trajectory from industry to academia, common to many AUP professors, provides great opportunities for students to gain first-hand insight into the careers they might choose鈥攏ot to mention the bridges they can build thanks to their networks.

While working as a designer for Kenzo, among other high fashion brands, Berthon became particularly interested in questions of sustainability and cultural appropriation. She began researching the stories behind textile craft with a focus on the cultural and artistic fashion aspects, mostly in Southeast Asia.

As faculty for AUP鈥檚 Fashion Studies major and Fashion track of the MA in Global Communications, Berthon finds herself well-positioned to spread her passion for understanding the use of materials in fashion, an aspect she sees as vital to our awareness as consumers. 鈥淓ven if you work in PR, you need to know about materials and have a sense of how they are produced,鈥 she states. 鈥淚n response to the pressure of fast fashion, you need to consider the human aspects of textiles, sustainability, how people will wear them, and learn the value of things by touching them, by making them.鈥 For Berthon, it is essential to educate the younger generations on how to consume more responsibly, an approach she takes through various courses, in particular her Fashion Systems & Sustainability course.

As part of two of her Spring courses, Fashion Making Practicum: Textiles & Techniques and Fashion Materials & Processes, students will visit the Quai Branly exhibition, which will run from February 11 to July 6, 2025. To accompany the exhibition, Berthon has also co-edited the catalog in which scholars and experts share the latest research on gold use in textiles, and has authored an article on Cambodia.

With AUP Professor Sophie Kurkdjian, Berthon is also organizing a field trip to the international textile trade show Premi猫re Vision in mid-February and is developing a two-year research seminar entitled 鈥淔ashion and Migration/s鈥 with Kurkdjian and AUP Professor Renata Stauss.

Though some students may come to AUP and to Paris to study haute couture, Berthon reminds us that fashion is never just 鈥渁bout Paris.鈥 Her expertise brings perspectives from across Europe and the world, challenging students to 鈥渄ecenter their perspectives on global fashion,鈥 as she puts it. 鈥淔ashion in Paris is also workers in the fashion industry who often come from migrant or immigrant backgrounds,鈥 she adds. 鈥淏eing here allows you to access the many layers of the industry, when given the right lenses.鈥