Short Abstract:

Dress comes supplied with narratives. In their vestimentary practices, individuals un-write these by adapting their clothing according to their dispositions, telling alternative stories and imbuing garments with meaning. This panel investigates the processes of storytelling in clothing practices.

Long Abstract:

In the process of designing and producing dress is supplied with narratives. This counts for folk dress as well as for products from the fashion industry that are part of a themed collection and also for homemade clothes that are sewn with specific addressees in mind. But in their individual dress practices, users adapt their clothing according to their own dispositions, socio-political perspectives etc. Some of them not only abandon the ready-made narratives, but tell completely new stories in the creative ways that they wear their clothing, fill garments out with their individual bodies, imbue them with meanings relevant to them, combine them with other pieces of clothing or alter them. For example, alternative narratives are developed by style movements which adapt vintage clothes with distinct time/place signifiers to enrich them and transport them into their life-styles. This un-writing is accentuated by up-cyclers who intervene with the clothes structurally and generate the basis for rich distinctive narratives. For this panel, we invite papers that develop on how individuals or groups interpret or even alter their clothing to fit into their lifestyles. Which narratives guide the respective transformation processes? How are new and alternative stories told and how are these apprehended by others? How do these narratives imbue clothes with new and alternative meanings? The aim of this panel is to contribute to the understanding of individual vestimentary storytelling and their reception beyond the mainstream.

This Panel has so far received 3 paper proposal(s).
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