Full Description
The study of fashion has expanded into a thriving field of inquiry, with researchers utilizing diverse methods from across subject disciplines to explore fashion and dress in wide-ranging contexts. With an emphasis on material culture and ethnographic approaches in fashion studies, this groundbreaking volume offers fascinating insights into the complex dynamics of research and fashion.
Featuring unique case studies, with interdisciplinary scholars reflecting on their practical research experiences, Fashion Studies provides rich and nuanced perspectives on the use, and mixing and matching of methodological approaches - including object and image based research, the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods and the fluid bridging of theory and practice. Engaging with diverse subjects, from ethnographies of model casting and street-style blogging, wardrobe studies and a material culture analysis of global denim wearing, to Martin Margiela's design and archival methods, Fashion Studies presents complex approaches in a lively and informative manner that will appeal to students of fashion, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and related fields.
Contents
Foreword, Christopher Breward, Edinburgh College of Art, UK
Introduction - Locating Fashion/Studies: Research Methods, Sites and Practices, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA
SECTION ONE: APPROACHING FASHION AND DRESS AS MATERIAL CULTURE
Introduction, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA
1. In Search of the Everyday: Museums, Collections and Representations of Fashion in London and New York, Cheryl Buckley, University of Brighton, UK, and Hazel Clark, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA
2. 'Humble' Blue Jeans: Material Culture Approaches to Understanding the Ordinary, Global, and the Personal, Sophie Woodward, University of Manchester, UK
SECTION TWO: EXPLORING FASHION PRACTICES THROUGH ETHNOGRAPHY
Introduction, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA
3. Ethnographic Entanglements: Memory and Narrative in the Global Fashion Industry, Christina Moon, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA
4. Urban Fieldnotes: An Auto-Ethnography of Street Style Blogging, Brent Luvaas, Drexel University, USA
5. Recasting Fashion Image Production: An Ethnographic and Practice-Based Approach to Investigating Bodies as Media, Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, University of Cincinnati, USA
6. Exploring Creativity: An Ethnographic Approach to Studying Fashion Design Pedagogy, Todd Nicewonger, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
SECTION THREE: MIXED METHODS
Introduction, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA
7. Fitting Sources - Tailoring Methods: A Case-Study of Martin Margiela and the Temporalities of Fashion, Francesca Granata, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA
8. Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Fashion Studies: Philosophical Underpinnings and Multiple Masculinities, Susan B. Kaiser, University of California, Davis, USA, and Denise N. Green, Cornell University, USA
9. Action! Or, Exploring Diffractive Methods for Fashion Research, Otto von Busch, Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden
10. Editing Fashion Studies: Reflections on Methodology and Interdisciplinarity in The Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Joanne B. Eicher, University of Minnesota, USA
Index
