Xenia Politou | BENAKI MUSEUM (original) (raw)

Papers by Xenia Politou

ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟ ΜΠΕΝΑΚΗ / MOUSEIO BENAKI 15-16-17 (2015-2016-2017), 2024

Greek National Costumes, 1948-1954: A milestone and a beginning The first volume of the book Gre... more Greek National Costumes, 1948-1954: A milestone and a beginning

The first volume of the book Greek National Costumes was published by the Benaki Museum in 1948, on Antonis Benakis’s own initiative and the second one in 1954, after his death. Both volumes include texts by the famous folklore researcher Angeliki Chatzimichali (1895-1965).
Angeliki Chatzimichali is well known for her ethnographic research through rural Greece, most of which was published posthumously. This early publication was her first attempt of a typological classification of the Greek female costumes and a first evidence of a new approach to Greek costumes.The paper reveals the profound knowledge that Chatzimichali had of the Benaki collections and the place her text in the Greek National Costumes occupies in her work. At the same time it investigates the connection between this significant publication and the building-up of the Benaki Museum collection of Greek costumes which took place in the same years.
Research for this paper has focused on unpublished literature both in the Benaki inventories and in Angeliki Chatzimichali’s Archive kept at the Benaki.

Άγγελος. Αφιέρωμα στη μνήμη του Άγγελου Δεληβορριά, 2023

XENIA POLITOU Whitework Drawn-Thread Embroideries from the Cyclades: A Small Contribution to the ... more XENIA POLITOU Whitework Drawn-Thread Embroideries from the Cyclades: A Small Contribution to the Study of Greek Island Art of Embroidery.

Whitework embroideries from the Cyclades using the drawn-thread technique is a special group of needle decorated fabrics that have not been thoroughly studied. There is still a long-standing debate about their place of production. However, most researchers agree that they originate generally from the Greek islands, notably the Cyclades, and their special features derive from a common Italian heritage.

This paper is focusing on technical and iconographical aspects of these works; and is comparing them to the main core of the Cycladic embroideries characterized by multi-coloured motifs worked with counted-thread techniques. The latter are distinguishable from a stylistic and technical point of view from the whitework embroideries, albeit not from an iconographical aspect, as this study attempts to prove. Juxtaposition of the motifs in the whitework drawn-thread embroideries of the Cyclades with Italian and European models on one hand and with the multi-coloured patterns in various Cycladic islands on the other, leads to new perspectives on the overall study of the Cycladic embroideries.

Paris-Athènes. Naissance de la Grèce moderne, 1675-1919, 2021

A paper on the sartoriar landscape in mid-19th c. Greece, included in the exhibition catalogue: "... more A paper on the sartoriar landscape in mid-19th c. Greece, included in the exhibition catalogue: "Paris-Athènes. Naissance de la Grèce moderne, 1675-1919"

Trésors du musée Benaki d'Athènes. Costumes et bijoux grecs, 2019

This paper is a short introduction to Greek local costumes, published in the exhibition catalogue... more This paper is a short introduction to Greek local costumes, published in the exhibition catalogue: Trésors du musée Benaki d'Athènes. Costumes et bijoux grecs.

MOUSEIO BENAKI 9th supplement. The Journey Continues, 2007

From "Mani" to "Roumeli": Patrick Leigh Fermor's writings about Greece. In most of the more than ... more From "Mani" to "Roumeli": Patrick Leigh Fermor's writings about Greece. In most of the more than 760 pages that Patrick Leigh Fermor dedicated to his travels in Greece, he described aspects of contemporary Greek life, paying particular attention to the customs of villagers and islanders. From the large amounts of folklore gathered in "Mani" (1958) and "Roumeli (1966), this paper assembles details that caught his eye and arranges then in general categories. It also analyses the way that Leigh Fermor worked up his first impressions and transformed them into literature.

The embroidery collection of the "Merimna" Association of Pontian Ladies' workshop

Suscripciones: España: 30,05 € / Unión Europea y otros países: 54,09 € / Incluidos gastos de enví... more Suscripciones: España: 30,05 € / Unión Europea y otros países: 54,09 € / Incluidos gastos de envío El abonado recibe dos ejemplares al año Diseño, maquetación y producción: Angle Editorial S.L.

Patterns of Magnificence. Tradition and reinvention in Greek Women's costume, 2014

Conference Presentations by Xenia Politou

This paper, based on a selection of costumes from the Benaki Museum collection, will attempt to s... more This paper, based on a selection of costumes from the Benaki Museum collection, will attempt to specify the different influences that determined the form of the Dodecanese costumes as they were known in the 19th century.
The Dodecanese is a group of twelve large and six small islands situated in the southeast part of Greece. It acts as a physical crossroad between the East and the West, because of its geographical position on the one hand, and its historical background on the other. It was occupied by the Venitians and the Genoese in the 13th century, by the Knights Hospitaller in the 14th and 15th centuries, by the Ottomans between 1522 and 1912 and, finally, by the Italians between 1912 and the end of World War II, when it was integrated into Greece. Furthermore the commercial and marine activity of its inhabitants reinforced this 'in between' orientation of this group of islands, which was clearly reflected in their dress culture.
The Dodecanese women's costumes can be classified in two major groups, depending on their composition and the origin of some specific garments. The first group includes a pleated dress of European origin as the main garment, and the second one a long open coat, originating in the East.

Anna Apostolaki's archive, drawings and embroideries in the Benaki Museum and her interest in Gre... more Anna Apostolaki's archive, drawings and embroideries in the Benaki Museum and her interest in Greek embroidery.
This paper presents the research of Anna Apostolaki pertaining to Greek embroidery, as revealed by material in the possession of the Benaki Museum, thanks to a gift made by her niece Manina Mantzouni: namely, her personal archive, which consists of her manuscripts and the photographs she collected, three albums with drawings of Greek embroideries made by her, and a number of copies of traditional handicrafts that she embroidered herself. Although her primary research interest lay in the Coptic textiles, traditional Greek embroidery, and especially the production of the island of Crete, her homeland, played a pivotal role in her research program in folk art, a field in which she was also interested, especially during her directorship of the National Museum of Decorative Arts. With her archive as a starting point, this paper aims to focus on the key points of her research concerning Cretan embroidery.

This paper has been presented in the 2017 ICOM Costume Committee annual meeting, held in London C... more This paper has been presented in the 2017 ICOM Costume Committee annual meeting, held in London College of Fashion, with the theme: "The Narrative Power of Clothes". It presents a dress from the island of Crete from the Benaki Museum collection, dating back to the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century and the different stories this dress could narrate. The first one related to the dress pattern and the style of its embroideries is the story of the Venetian occupation of the island of Crete and its impact on the local sartorial system. The second one refers to the common project of the Benaki Museum and the National Theatre of Greece entitled " From the Silence of the Display Case to Living Theatrical Voices " : One exhibit from each museum collection provides the spark for a theatrical performance. In this context the Cretan dress gives the opportunity to the National Theatre's actors to bring to life Erofili, the female character of the popular tragedy by Georgios Chortatsis (c. 1545 - c. 1610).

This paper is an overview of the museum dress collections in Greece, in the basis that an initiat... more This paper is an overview of the museum dress collections in Greece, in the basis that an initiative towards the establishment of a new museum, in particular a Costume Culture Museum, should be founded in a comprehensive record of the type and the size of the existing collections.
Such a survey, in addition to being a classification attempt based on the unique nature of such collections, will try to detect the creteria of their formation and their position within the context of the museums in which they belong, as well as their particular dynamic, as expressed mainly through exhibitions.

The "Stofa" of Skopelos: A Loan from European Textile Industry. Greek local costumes take the ... more The "Stofa" of Skopelos: A Loan from European Textile Industry.

Greek local costumes take the form in which we know them now, in the mid19th century. This form, the result of a process the stages of wich are not always known, includes, in the case of insular costumes, a wide use of various silk brocades, mailnly of European provenance, which reflect the intense commercial activity of the island populations.
In the case of the "stofa", the wedding dress from Skopelos, the import of European textiles is restricted in the use of a single fabric. Still, the use of this fabric will soon take a different dimension: it will be copied by the island's embroiderers and will be srereotyped by taking almost an emblematic status: the initially woven -and later embroidered- theme of the "pot" that decorated the dress of Skopelos, an imported theme of European provenance and taste, becomes the tracemark of the Skopelos dress, thus giving it its particular local character.
In this paper, I will attempt an analytical examination ot the parameters of this loan, by investigating the evolution of the Skopelos dress in parallel with the evolution of stylistically and geographically neighboring dresses and will formulate certain thoughts regarding the possibility of assimilation of foreign elements from local dresses and the way such loans may determine the evolution of these dresses.

La reine Olga, d'origine russe, épousa en 1887 le roi Georges 1er de Grèce et devint reine de Grè... more La reine Olga, d'origine russe, épousa en 1887 le roi Georges 1er de Grèce et devint reine de Grèce jusqu'en 1913, année de la mort de son mari. Elle établit un costume de cour qui incorpora des élements autant du costume de la cour russe que des costumes régionaux grecs, et notamment du costume des mariées de la région d'Attique, aux alentours d'Athènes.
Parmi les éléments empruntés aux costumes grecs, on distinguera les trois pièces qui donnent au costume de la cour d'Olga un effet de transparence: le complet de chemise et de jupon et le châle de tête, confectionnés tous les trois avec des soieries transparentes, et ornés de dentelle aux fuseaux en filés or.
En prenant comme point de départ ces trois pièces, on fera allusion aux techniques de tissage de soie et de dentelle les plus répandues aux costumes régionaux grecs du XIXe siècle.