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- Convenors:
-
Emma Davenport
(UCL)
Heike Derwanz (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna)
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- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 21 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
The 20th century brings new debates about fashion for anthropologists interested in material culture and social rituals, which this panel explores through the use of clothing and the practice of dress. This panel is convened by Dr. Heike Derwanz and Emma Davenport
Long Abstract:
Fashion is a socio-cultural reality that has become so complex that we cannot assertively define it in contemporary times. Since industrialization, fashion has inspired fruitful debates in dialogue with societies. The twentieth century led us to the spectacle of fashion shows (SKOV 2009, DUGGAN 2001); veiled expressions and manifestations, such as feminine (CRANE, 2006) or social-political (BOLLON, 1996) claims; the production and consolidation of brands (LIPOVETSKY and ROUX, 2005; SAMPRINI, 2006); the democratization of access to fashion novelties; to fast fashion as a business model.
In the 21st century new debates have been gaining expression: diversity and inclusion as opposed to industrial production and economy of scale (ROFEL and YANAGISAKO, 2019); an environmental concern regarding waste produced by the fashion industry; fair labor conditions in relation to slave-like labor (MENSITIERI, 2018); the speed of production problematizing the logic of innovation as a result of planned obsolescence (EWEN, 1988).
How are the uses and practices of fashion-clothing dialoguing with these new movements? What meanings can we problematize in relation to what is dressed and what is called "fashion" today (LUVAAS and EICHER, 2019 and MILLER, 2004, 2010)? This panel hopes to problematize these issues, relating them to wider cultural concerns about place, embodiment and sustainability.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 21 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
Emerging from the field of economics, the term fast fashion described a faster production and selling of mass-produced clothing. Today's phenomenon of fast fashion, however, had a much broader impact on clothing consumption that calls for an integrated postcolonial anthropological perspective.
Paper long abstract:
Fast fashion is a term used in fashion business publications as well as fashion studies literature and the wider public including NGO's such as Greenpeace. After some 30 years in circulation, it is time to also regard its historical becoming as everyday expression and change in the consumption of clothing, not only production. Many authors from economics mentioned early that the retail strategy or business model of the fashion market changed consumer habits or vice versa (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood 2006, 260; Cachon and Swinney 2010, 29, 34; Gabrielli, Baghi and Codeluppi 2013, 213, Samioe 2017, 26). But these enterprises produce masses of everyday clothing which is bought on high streets in big cities or in the country and is mostly left out by fashion theory unless some years (Worth 2008, Buckley and Clark 2017).
Did the term fast fashion free itself from its childhood in marketing as a retail strategy for certain items (Sull and Turconi 2006, 5; Bruce and Daly 2006, 330) to business model (Caro and Marinez de Albaniz 2014) and became a battlefield over the extremes of contemporary fashion consumption? What is an integrated cultural anthropology-perspective that opens up a new horizon taking production and consumption in consideration? My overall hypothesis is that the term fast fashion today does not only encompass the business model as it was seen in marketing. It is used in a much broader sense describing a technical revolution that led to significant changes in perception, valuation and other everyday-behaviour with clothing.
Paper short abstract:
To reduce the environmental and social impacts that the consumption and production of clothing is causing, ethical consumers have decided to stop and avoid buying new garments in order to focus on more sustainable alternatives. However,the transition to this consumption still presents obstacles.
Paper long abstract:
Contemporary debates on the environment, human rights and social justice have increasingly identified overconsumption as a concern due to environmental and social impacts, which challenges consumers to change their consumption patterns (De Neve et al., 2008; Barnett et al., 2011).
It's in this context that emerge ethical consumers, that upon receiving certain information about the effect of production and consumption, particularly about clothing (Barnett et al., 2011; Miller, 2012) decide to take responsibility for their consumption choices by stopping or avoiding buying new garments in fast fashion stores. The purpose of this type of stores is to profit, and for that reason they trap the consumer in a vicious cycle of consumption and disposal (Fletcher, 2012). With the aim of avoiding those stores, ethical consumers start inheriting clothes from families and friends, repairing their own clothes or even, buying secondhand clothes (Isenhour, 2012). Apart from that, they also buy in ethical fashion brands, or even in transnational brands but only nationally produced clothing (Shaw e Newholm, 2002).
This article which is based on an ethnographic research conducted with Portuguese ethical consumer families, seeks to understand how the degree of commitment that these families have to ethical consumption influences the changes they make regarding garments consumption. Additionally, the article will also try to explain the difficulties they felt and feel due to the change in this practice, namely family tensions, the existence of few pieces of clothing produced in Portugal and the high cost of organic clothing.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses the roles of traditional textiles (uis) in the life of the Karo Batak, Indonesia. Based on the author's field observations, it addresses the functions of uis as both an ethnic identity marker and fashion item, and looks into recent fashion tendencies in the Karonese communities.
Paper long abstract:
The paper discusses the roles of traditional textiles (uis) in the life of the Karo Batak of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Uis is a rectangular handwoven cloth produced on a backstrap loom, which can be worn as a scarf, sarong or headdress. Strongly associated by the Karo with their heritage and ethnic identity, uis continues to be an indispensable part of Karonese life cycle rituals and other festive occasions. However, besides its ritual connotations, uis appears to be a fashionable item which, along with Western and common Indonesian elements (such as batik, songket and kebaya), constitutes the modern Karo Batak festive outfit. While the patterns used in uis design tend to be conservative, the colours can be a subject to variation. The paper, based on the author's field observations in Sumatra in 2015 and 2018, addresses the functions of uis as both an ethnic identity marker and fashion item, and looks into some recent fashion tendencies in the Karonese communities. Those include the initiatives to incorporate traditional Karonese architecture patterns into uis designs, and the rethinking of uis as an element of modern pieces of clothing by the young Karonese fashion designers.
Paper short abstract:
Social media made it believable that anyone could suceed doing whatever wanted. However, being a fashion model requires skillful aspirational body. Our research draws on the strategies of a little person who uses Instagram for marketization as model.
Paper long abstract:
Social media made it possible for anyone to be celebritized without the need for large financial resources or the support of an institutional structure (Turner, 2010; McQuarrie, Miller and Phillips, 2012). However, not all industries are open to being freely represented. The institutionalized fashion activity is based on a traditional sense of skillful body: models have bodies and heights that are considered aspirational and parade down the catwalk displaying perfection, suggesting a hegemonic aesthetic to succeed as a human brand in the fashion world.
The stream of literature that conjugates human brand and body acceptance have been focusing on overweight people to understand their strategies for inclusion in the fashion world (Scaraboto and Fischer, 2013; Peters, 2014; Gurrieri and Cherrier, 2013). Interestingly, however, extant literature has approached overweight bodies as representatives of all types of excluded bodies and consider their ways of fighting for inclusion to be the same of all other outsiders (Becker, 2008) seeking to build their brands in the fashion world.
Our research brings a new perspective to the human brand literature through a case study of a body-positive model with dwarfism who uses Instagram as a platform for visibility and marketization. Empirical findings suggest the use of discursive engineering strategies associated with visual representations and the enacting of layers of influence that were not evidenced by the plus-size literature. Thus, our study seeks to offer insights on how diverse bodily representations also lead to distinct ways to market and publicize a human brand on social media.