Fashion Theory

'Fashion matters' proposes a new-materialist framework to look at global fashion. A new-materialist approach helps to highlight fashion's materiality and understand the hybrid mix of both local and global matters in fashion. An analysis of the material details of the-often ironic-use of cultural heritage in contemporary Dutch fashion (e.g. Viktor&Rolf, Klavers van Engelen, The People of the Labyrinths, Oilily, Scotch & Soda) reveals how Dutch fashion designers tap into local clothing styles and crafts. Such examples are part of a growing preoccupation with local roots in times of globalisa-tion. The current interest of Western countries in their own local, national roots cannot be separated from a fascination for 'cultural otherness' and for 'other' local traditions. Fashion designers and firms establish a look that is both local and global at the same time; or: 'glocal.' The 'material turn' enables an understanding of 'glocal' fashion as both a material reuse of local crafts and as an immaterial phenomenon of globalized identities.

Debates over copyright and craft are particularly thorny, jumping as they do from notions of a common shared history of quilting bees and knitting circles that should be open and welcoming to all, passing through the idea that as an apparently gendered pastime crafting is regularly devalued (and that this is something its practitioners should resist) and concluding with more recent arguments that there are lucrative opportunities for professional crafters and designers that need to be protected through the copyrighting, patenting and trademarking of designs and processes. Of late, however, calls for ever more stringent protection and policing have marked the online crafting world, a transformation that I connect (albeit indirectly) to massive changes in the global textile industry and increasing anti-piracy initiatives resulting from the 2005 end of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA). In this article, I analyze the appearance and spread of this intimidating lexicon of copyright protection in the (online) craft world. I argue that the rising interest in copyright and craft needs to be seen not only in light of growing visibility and marketability for crafting practice online, but also in terms of the positioning of intellectual property as an increasingly important economic strategy for Global North nations. So too, a transition from an ethos of community-based practice to one of individual property rights can be read as a part of ongoing debates over copyrighting (or lack thereof for fashion designers, regulations concerning craft and textiles as protected national property in indigenous, developing and transitional economies, the changing global textile industry, and further debates over open source software and anti-copyright activism. My purpose here is to understand how and why a reiteration of (often incorrect or unsupported) norms is creating a strong atmosphere of policing and protection that contrasts with more traditional understandings of crafting.

Reprinted in Jessica Hemmings, ed. Textile Reader. (Berg Press: forthcoming, 2012).

What is fashion? Where does it come from? Why has it come to permeate modern life? In the last half century, questions like these have drawn serious academic reflection, resulting in a new field of research-fashion studies-and generating a rich multidisciplinary discussion. Yet theology's voice has been conspicuously absent in this conversation. The time has finally come for theology to break her silence and join this decades-long conversation. Fashion Theology is the first of its kind: a serious and long-overdue account of the dynamic relationship between theology and fashion. Chronicling the epic journey from ancient Christian sources to current developments in fashion studies, cultural theologian Robert Covolo navigates the rich history of Christian thought as well as recent political, social, aesthetic, literary, and performance theory. Far from mere disparity or quick resolution, Covolo demonstrates that fashion and theology inhabit a mutual terrain that has, until recently, scarcely been imagined. Covolo retraces the way theologians have taken up fashion across history, unveiling how Christian thinkers have been fascinated with fashion well before the academy's current focus, and bringing these insights into the conversation with fashion itself: the logic by which fashion operates, how fashion shapes our world, and the way fashion imperceptibly molds our personal lives. Within fashion's realms reside some of life's greatest challenges: the foundations of political power, the basis for social order, the nature of aesthetics, how we inhabit time, and the means by which we tell stories about our lives-challenges, it turns out, that theologians also explore. Fashion favors the bold; theology demands humility. Holding the two together, Fashion Theology trailblazes an interdisciplinary path informed by a thoughtful engagement with the Christian witness. For those traversing this spectacle of unexpected crossroads and hotly contested terrain, the promise of fashion theology awaits with its myriad unexplored vistas.

This article examines the relationship between costume and character, self and appearance in Luca Guadagnino’s film, I Am Love (Io Sono l'Amore, Guadagnino: 2009). As played by Tilda Swinton, Emma Recchi is a woman whose dress reveals a meticulous record of her emotional journey, providing an almost text-book case of costume performing emotional exteriority. Complicating any straightforward analysis of costume design in I Am Love, however, is a deep fashion consciousness that pervades the film and goes beyond the widely publicized association with fashion houses, Jil Sander, Fendi and Hermès, to a recognition of fashion as a complex discourse able to canvas multiple, even contradictory, interpretations. Just as Guadagnino draws on other narratives and other films to tell his story, Swinton’s off-screen life and on-screen personae shadow her portrayal of Emma, constructing a character who is both the unique individual of ‘I Am Love’ and the hollow image of fashion that is the Emma of ‘I Am Style.’

In fashion world, fashion shows are the most significant
part for fashion presentation, marketing and communication. In the last twenty years, fashion shows transformed themselves: They became a huge consumer market in a large hoop, which includes press and public relations professionals. At this point, fashion shows had a special
role with their exclusive show pieces, which are not for production: they only function as image. This image is constructed by capital. Fashion shows gained a meaning with consumer culture. When people buy a product, they do not purchase only a product: They feel themselves as a part of the brand. In here designer’s name is sold through its image not only by it’s a product. Thus, people purchase their dreams and their fantasies, which are in their unreal world.

Sonia Delaunay’s simultaneous dress of 1913 incorporates a heterogenous variety of materials in its patchwork structure, which includes both fur and fabrics of different weights and colours. By focusing on the relationship between art, fashion, and the tango, this article studies the dynamic between the tangibility and intangibility of Delaunay’s dress and proposes an interpretation related to the collage. The dress materialises the collage within the lexicon of fashion, while its texture incorporates fragments of movements, tango poses, and everything one could find drooped over the patronesses and patrons of the ballrooms of the age. This article transposes the concept of the collage from the surface of the dress to the space of the ballroom, and reflects on the new idea of intimacy and physical proximity encouraged by the fashion of the tango.

From Chinese Brand Culture to Global Brands uses a Chinese
perspective to examine the capacity of Chinese brand culture to
serve as a complement to existing models of brand globalization.
Moving away from the trend to study the managerial aspects of
Western brand building in Chinese contexts, we examine how
Chinese branding efforts express significant aspects of their own
brand culture. Our selection of Jay Chou, the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Opening ceremony, and Shanghai Tang, an aspiring global fashion brand with aesthetic roots in Chinese historical culture, as illustrative cases, is fully consistent with this unwritten and unspoken consensus around exploiting Chinese cultural specificity towards the global development of Chinese brands. Although these three cases may seem “under the radar,” we believe that, together, they provide unique insights into the relation between brands and Chinese culture, and offer intriguing possibilities for thinking about global Chinese brands.

En Las artimañas de la moda: una genealogía del poder vestimentario, Camilo Retana parte de una hipótesis audaz: la moda pone en juego una serie de mecanismos de control que es preciso detectar puesto que contribuyen a regular el funcionamiento social de los cuerpos; más aún, la moda los consolida, los instituye, los refuerza y hasta los legitima. En otras palabras, la moda cuestiona, critica o discute los cuerpos como un modo de administrarlos, regularlos y estructurarlos. La moda no viste al cuerpo desnudo sino que, por el contrario, el cuerpo desnudo es el producto de nuestras conjeturas vestimentarias. De manera que las vestimentas operan como el intento hasta cierto punto dialógico entre un sujeto que “negocia” sus modos de arropamiento y una sociedad que le dicta sus mandatos por inscribir ese cuerpo en una grilla de inteligibilidad que transita los distintos discursos sociales; en especial los de sexo-género, pero también los de clase, cultura, religiosidad y rebeldía. El texto, claro, conciso, argumentado con solidez y bien articulado recorre filósofos y teóricos: va desde Foucault y Agamben a Butler; desde Kant y Rousseau a Simmel, desde Lipovetsky y Deleuze hasta Haraway, por sólo marcar algunos de sus recorridos de ida y vuelta, en un minucioso análisis conceptual. En suma, un aporte tan rico como innovador en el campo de las reflexiones acerca del cuerpo y de la moda.

María Luisa Femenías

The paper looks at dandyism in Europe of the Nineteenth century and aims to offer a structural description of dandyism as a cultural semiotic system encompassing fashion, techniques of the body, emotional discipline and behavioral strategies. Special attention is paid to the aesthetic principle of Minimalism, and to the further development of theory of dandyism in mid-nineteenth-century treatises. The paper is focused around structural correspondences between different aspects of dandyism from dress and canons of elegance, to code of conduct, speech patterns and personal hygiene.

Parametric Design is a computer based design approach that treats the geometric properties of the design as variables. The dimensions, angles and geometric properties (like curvature) remain malleable as the design progresses. Although at any time the 'parametric model' displays a determinate shape according to the set of currently chosen values, the essential identity of the parametric design resides in the malleable object's topology rather than its momentary determinate shape. This means that the design consists in the relationships that are maintained between the various elements of the composition. In fact the parametric design model is conceived as a network of relations or dependencies. This way of building up a design has the important advantage that the build-up of complexity and the detail resolution of the design can progress while simultaneously maintaining the malleability to adapt to changing requirements as new information is fed into the design process. The generation of alternative options remains viable and economical deep into the detail design without requiring abortive modeling and drafting work. This parametric malleability is advantageous both for the sake of continuous design adjustments as the design progresses, and for the sake of the generation of options and variations. The parametric model can be conceived as general building plan or genotype for the generation of many different versions or phenotypes that might co-exist (rather than substitute each other as options). Optioniering thus leads to versioning. Mechanical repetition is being replaced by mass customization.

Sewing Reality: Fashion in Non-fiction Media
University of Bedfordshire, Luton Campus, UK
9th June 2018


As two distinct art forms, fashion and film have flirted with each other in symbiotic relationships since the dawn of the medium: from British and American actualities showing current high-street fashion, to French newsreels capturing fashion shows. The synergy has been mutually influential also as far as other media are concerned, with pop stars and television dramas inspiring catwalks and collections. While the literature on film and fashion is quickly growing, this interest has primarily focused on fiction and includes, among others, works on the construction of femininity and masculinity through costumes, the definition of national identities through cinematic clothing, and the haptic pleasure of fashion in film. Non-fiction material remains an understudied source, with only a few scholarly works shedding some light on early cinema’s attention to the fashion world, still and moving images in fashion archives, celebrity and fashion, but also make-up culture and TV entertainment, the relationship between austerity and sewing/knitting programs, and the political potential of fashion documentaries.

This interdisciplinary symposium wants to fill this vacuum and excavate and reassess the role of non-fiction media in shaping our understanding of fashion across multiple platforms and different national contexts. The event aims to create an open space for dialogue between fashion and documentary studies, drawing from different methodologies and approaches: media and cultural studies, ethnography, audience research, marketing and public relations.
Sewing Reality aims to discuss the interconnection between fashion and media industries, the audiences of factual moving images about fashion, as well as the past, the present and the future of fashion documentaries.


Curated by: Dr Elena Caoduro, University of Bedfordshire, UK

Keynote Speaker: Pamela Church-Gibson, Reader in Cultural and Historical Studies at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK

PANELS

1a: Fashion Documentaries

• Rona Murray - Have Fun: Fashion Matriarchies
• Daisy Richards - Muses, Mythology and The First Monday in May
• Karen Ritzenhoff - A maverick on the streets: Bill Cunningham, photography and New York fashion

1b: The Pleasure of Sewing

• Laurel Forster - Bringing up the Subject of Sewing
• Joanne Knowles - ‘I should have stayed at home and finished the hem on my skirt’: Sewing, domesticity and distinction in teenage girls’ magazines of the 1970s and 1980s
• Nickianne Moody - Bunty’s Cut-Out Wardrobe Goes to Art College
• + Rosie Steele’s poster

2: Fiction/Factual fashion exchanges

• Rachel Velody - Stitching authority
• Mariaemanuela Messina - Fashion Cinema and Representations

3: Capturing the Fashion Real

• Mark Pickering - HUMAN SEE, HUMAN DO: A case study exploration of the para-social interaction between celebrity blogger and fashion consumer
• Boel Ulfsdotter - Shooting fashion: the double-bind of a non-fiction approach to Paris Fashion Week

4: Fashioning the Archive

• Silvia Vacirca - Call to fashion reality: a closer look at Istituto Luce Archive fashion cinejournals (1939-1941)
• Jihane Dyer - Documenting Fashion Histories on the BBC, 1989-2014: Temporality and Cultural
• Sigrun Lehnert - The Fashion of East and West in German Cinema Newsreels
• Giulia Caffaro - The Italian Ready-to-wear Fashion through Carousels

The key message of this book is: clothing matters. And it is not just that clothing matters for people who enjoy fashion, but that across time, space and culture, for man, woman and child, clothing and appearance is a fundamental way in which we express our identities, are judged by others and communicate semiotically. Habits of Being II: Exchanging Clothes offers a compelling insight into the way in which clothing affects and is affected by identity and social structure, from Homer's ubiquitous renditions of male armour, to Kate Chopin's humble but erotically charged stocking.

A collection of international contributions from renowned academics and practitioners from the UK, USA and China, the second edition of Fashion Marketing has been revised and expanded to incorporate the major changes in the fashion industry since 2001. This ...

Rasyonaliteyi merkeze alarak kendisini inşa eden modernite; bireyci, seküler, materyalist, evrimci ve evrenselci özellikleriyle tüm dünyada etkili olmaya çalışan ve neredeyse dünyanın tamamına erişen bir zihniyet olgusudur. Yayılmacı politikalarını destekleyen aygıtlarının yardımıyla kendi sosyal kontrolünü oluşturan modernite, dönüştürmeye ve homojenleştirmeye çalıştığı toplumlar üzerinde kullandığı en etkili araçlarından birisi de tamamen moderniteyle birlikte anlamını bulan modadır. Moda yeryüzünde varoluşumuzdan bu yana evrenle, kendimizle ve başkalarıyla iletişimde kullandığımız bir araçtır. İnsanoğlu hayatını kendi bedeni üzerinden inşa eder. Benlik ve kimlik olgusunu kendi bedeni ve bedenini saran giysiler yoluyla gerçekleştirir. Bedenini değiştirme, koruma ve sunma, ruhsal ve toplumsal süreçler içerisinde gerçekleşir. Bu nedenle bedenimizi ve ruhumuzu saran giysiler, kişiliğimizi anlatmada, kendimizi olmak istediğimiz şekilde sunmada, ruhumuzu ve bedenimizi korumada önemli bir görev edinir.
SOCIAL CONTROL INSTRUMENT OF MODERNITY IS "FASHION"
ABSTRACT
Modernity, which constructs itself through centering on rationality is a mentality phenomenon that tries to be
effective all over the world and reaches almost the whole world due to its individualist, secular, materialist, evolutionist
and universalist features. Modernity which creates its own social control with the help of its instruments supporting its
expansionist policies, is fashion, which finds its meaning completely with modernity and which is one of the most
effective instruments uses on the societies and tries to transform and homogenize them. Modernity composes its own
social control with the help of its apparatuses supporting its expansionist policies. One of the most effective tools used
by modernity on societies which is tried to be transformed and homogenized is fashion finding its meaning totally with
modernity. Fashion is a tool that we have been using to communicate with the universe, ourselves and others since our
existence on earth. Human builds his life through his own body. Human realizes the phenomenon of self and identitythrough her/s own body and the clothes covering her/s body. Changing, protecting and presenting the body takes place
in spiritual and social processes. Therefore, the clothes covering our body and soul play an important role in expressing
our personality, presenting ourselves as we want to be, and protecting our soul and body.
Fashion emerges from the individual and social compositions of clothes. While fashion, which is an irrational
means of control directed to meet the spiritual and social needs of the individual, is being used as a way to impose the
dominant culture, hegemonic power, power and thought system on the individual by consent; continues to create new
identities through embracing all its symbolic meanings. The individual who tries to make himself included in a social
group is tested by fashion, which is the most visible form of social obedience. In this research that was performed based
on the literature, the position of fashion as a hidden ideological social control instrument used by modernity while
constructing itself has been discussed and tried to be determined. First of all, the relationship between modernity and
fashion has been examined through supporting with the opinions. Then, fashion was questioned within consumption and
its place as a consumption object was tried to be determined in society. The relationship between fashion, which is seen
as a social control instrument of modernity and power, and dominant power and modernism has been tried to be
revealed.
Key Words: Modernity, Fashion, Social Control.

Architectonic is a hybrid experiment which raises questions within the field of inter-disciplinary research. The study explores
the opportunities that the dynamic between the cross-fertilization of architecture and fashion approaches may offer. The research
is substantiated via the production of three-dimensional leather garments which initiate key synthesis of materials, techniques and
processes and interrogates fabric, form and function, to evaluate whether there is prospect for re-alignment, new methodologies
and practices within a fashion context?

Mode und Geschlecht sind innerhalb modischer Praktiken auf komplexe Art und Weise miteinander verbunden. In diesem Beitrag schlage ich vor, eine intersektionale und eine queertheoretische Perspektive in die Modeforschung zu integrieren, um der Ambivalenz und Hybridität modischer Praktiken methodisch zu begegnen. Dabei fasse ich zunächst Gender als interdependente Kategorie, die in sich bereits durch andere Kategorien konstruiert ist. Anhand zweier Beispiele, der modischen Stereotypisierungen dapper und DapperQ, skizziere ich beispielhaft, was eine solche Perspektive in der Modeforschung leisten kann. Dabei geht es exemplarisch darum, wie modische Gendernormen visuell und textuell konstruiert sind und wie sie, innerhalb queerer Praktiken, gestört bzw. dekonstruiert werden.

Carved and painted onto wood, stone, bone, animal skins or metal, woven and knit into cloth, material culture from Northwest Coast Native peoples has historically been a one-of-a-kind iteration and a declaration of of familial rights and privileges.  These items adorned public and private spaces, including the body, and were traditionally produced by hand.  In recent years, some designs have been serialized and mass produced through new technologies like silk screen and digital printing, adorning everything from coffee mugs to t-shirts, sunglasses, jewelry and other garments (Roth 2012; Roth 2015). This chapter explores the history of Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations specifically and analyzes their distinctive aesthetics and design practice through the lens of fashion theory.  The chapter concludes with a discussion of contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth designers and the circulation of their work.  I ask: how does fashion operate within Nuu-chah-nulth social organization and how has ongoing colonialism and hybridization of prestige and capitalist economies transformed Nuu-chah-nulth fashion systems and design ideas? The findings discussed in this chapter draw from ongoing ethnographic research (beginning in October 2009) and archival- and museum-based research at both major and minor institutional repositories in the United States, Canada, Germany and England.

The topic of this paper is the research of processes of selective tradition on the example of the interpolation of elements of traditional wear into collections by contemporary Croatian fashion designers. The primary reason for choosing this topic is the fact that the area covered by the proposed research is extremely popular, yet insufficiently explored. In the era of globalisation, despite the announced egalitarianisation, the need for highlighting national identity and preserving cultural heritage is still present. The cult of difference and novelty in hyper-production, as well as the flirtatious and fluid relationship towards the surface of the body as the territory for inscribing signs of identity, is very apparent in expressing one’s affiliation to a certain social group by means of clothing. Clothes can signify, communicate, semiotically claim and position itself towards the system of objects that enshrine and follow the body, while at the same time having no impact on fashion as change, nor as system of luxury and high craft, often associated with it. By analysing the practices of contemporary Croatian fashion designers, especially those who include elements of traditional wear, I will try to show that the said forms a complex and multi-layered process which should be viewed as a type of process of selective tradition. In this context, I understand selective tradition as defined by Raymond Williams - a process of selecting from cultures of different periods, those elements that correspond to particular interests of lived culture (Williams, 1961:67).
The goal of this research is to show and define the manner and importance of the process of selective tradition when interpolating elements of traditional wear into collections by contemporary Croatian fashion designers.


Keywords: selective tradition, traditional wear, identity, body and fashion industry

O livro "Moda e ironia em Dom Casmurro" foi publicado em 2010, Editora Alameda, fruto de uma pesquisa desenvolvida nos anos de 2005 a 2007, como dissertação de mestrado da autora.
"Moda e ironia em Dom Casmurro" foi a primeira obra brasileira a abordar a moda na literatura como estratégia de criação literária.
Tornou-se, desde então, uma referência para pesquisadores que pretendem empreender estudos sobre moda e literatura no Brasil, sendo a autora uma precursora na área.
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The book "Moda e ironia em Dom Casmurro" was published in 2010, Editora Alameda, the result of a research developed in the years 2005 to 2007, as a master's thesis of the author.
"Moda e ironia em Dom Casmurro" was the first Brazilian work to approach fashion in literature as a strategy of literary creation.
It has since become a reference for researchers who intend to undertake studies on fashion and literature in Brazil, and the author is a precursor in the field.

A partir da conciliação de duas perspectivas antropológicas de análise dos objetos materiais-o sistema classificatório de bens e as abordagens da materialidade-propõe-se um caminho alternativo para o estudo da moda. O enquadre oferecido escapa aos tradicionais esquemas distintivos, desloca a análise da moda de um sistema de gosto mundial e afasta o seu estudo de uma apreciação do belo, seja esta guiada por modos ditos corretos de se autoapresentar ou por uma noção de belo universal. Por fim, mostra-se como o estudo da moda de vestuário coloca sempre em questão o corpo e a relação que a indumentária estabelece com o mesmo.
Palavras-chave: gosto, materialidade, agência, funk carioca

Pam Cook asserts, in her analysis of costume design, that “clothing marks the threshold between the body and the outside world, between private and public. Fashion… it is both self-expression and social pressure, compelling us to conform.”  The examples that the lecturer provided, which span the course of western history, illustrate the tension that fashion presents to individuals partaking in its use. Despite the technical mastery of Rembrandt, Memling, and Copley, fashion remains static through the medium of art and can only truly come to life through film. While these paintings, as they will examined further throughout this paper, attempt to tell stories about who these people were, they serve as snapshots of this tension between self-expression and social pressure.

The figure of the 'woman-child' appears time and time again in the field of British fashion. Caught somewhere between the discursive domains of childhood and womanhood, the 'girl' has vast and malleable 'symbolic appeal' (Jobling 1999). She has been used at different historical moments to symbolise something beyond herself: modernity and progress; freedom and financial independence; pessimism and so-called heroin chic. But what does the 'woman-child' represent today, following three (or even four) waves of feminism? This question is unravelled here through discussion of Meadham Kirchhoff's Spring/Summer 2012 collection, A Wolf In Lamb's Clothing.

Book review. Michael Carter: Being Prepared: Aspects of Dress and Dressing. Sydney: Puncher & Wattmann, 2017, 210 pp., ISBN 978-1-9221-8694-2.

The meanings of dress, clothing and fashion are so intermingled nowadays that it is hard to speak about one without inferring the others. Dress is mainly about appearance, the visual, while fashion includes the social meanings and functions of dress. Clothing occupies a central place in contemporary dress and fashion, but clothing is also a technology with properties and functions unrelated to dress and fashion. For these reasons, the overlap between dress and clothing can create problems when considering questions of origins.

The fashion industry is in need of repair. Familiar criticisms are easy to level: overproduction of low quality goods manufactured in unacceptable working conditions has driven down quality in favor of volume. Far harder to come by are clear solutions. Consumer apathy, the disparities of global economics, and rapidly disappearing knowledge pose formidable barriers to change. But there are inspiring examples of designers and artists succeeding in their rejection of our present models of textile and fashion production. Time, as Swedish artist Emelie Röndahl explains, is often their greatest investment capital...

Surface Design Journal fall 2016: 26-31