Les fils conducteurs: Crime, Clothing and Early Forensic Identification in France, 1840-1930

While detectives and forensic experts have long examined fibres, footprints and clothing, which provide important clues as to the identities of victims and perpetrators, the value of this “trace evidence” has been overshadowed by other technologies, including DNA analysis. Yet clothing played a key and often forgotten role in many forms of personal and state identification. This talk took us back to the origins of so-called “scientific policing” and forensic analysis as they were emerging as more formalized disciplines in France. Professor Alison Matthews David shared original research from my SSHRC-funded Fabric of Crime project, including work on the missing persons registers or “disparus” of the Paris Morgue, which contain surprisingly colourful scraps of working-class dress, the blood-soaked nightwear of the 1847 Choiseul-Praslin assassination, the domestic servants’ wardrobes hoarded by Dumollard the serial “Maid-Killer” in the early 1860s, and L’affaire de la Rue Princesse (1869), in which the tailor Beauvoir murdered and dismembered one of his clients. This talk also provided a sneak preview of our co-curated exhibition Exhibit A: Investigating Footwear and Crime, opening at the Bata Shoe Museum in April 2024.