Full PaperSchool of Architecture + Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
This paper is underpinned by an understanding of bodily sensation as integral to the study of dress, hence having an essential impact on the way dress and dressing can be actively and temporally experienced. It argues for a sensual and dynamic connection between dress, movement, and sensation as a trigger for an embodied experience. The bodily sensation of the elaborately-structured dress which framed the everyday existence of nineteenth-century women, for example the active encounters of the body with dress - the rubbing, slapping, sliding, stretching, brushing, ruffling, and swelling of dress against the form and fleshiness of the body - will be speculated upon as another way of learning about the intimacies between dress and the body. Out of the rich and varied multiplicities of the Victorian wardrobe, this paper picks out, as its subject of interest, the often-overlooked female peasant wardrobe which includes the field or work dress, the everyday garb, and the modest Sunday best. The ambition of this paper is not to provide an historical or socio-cultural analysis of Victorian peasant dress. Rather, the central idea is to put forward an impression of the bodily experience of peasant dress through Thomas Hardy's nineteenth-century novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, through Hardy's poeticism and acute sensitivity towards the most delicate details of the lives of late-Victorian peasantry. By speculating on Hardy's arousal of dynamic multi-sensorial impressions of Tess, through what she wears and how she moves in accordance with the rhythm of the season and across the spectrum of her immediate environment, the paper suggests how bodily sensation of late-Victorian peasant dress is inherently tied to the experience of that particular time and place.
College of Art & Design, Columbia College, Chicago, USA
ABSTRACT
As Western shapes of clothing become commonplace within the Indian sartorial landscape so too do westernised notions of fashion and fashionability. With the adoption of global fashion and its indigenisation to suit the Indian consumer the ways in which the fashionable body is represented, perceived and finally performed has seen a significant shift in recent decades. This in turn further heightens the simultaneous and often contradictory discourse of tradition and modernity experienced by urban women in India. In an attempt to explore contemporary fashion's impact on setting ideals for the female body, this paper examines the representations of the fashionable body in Indian print media. It highlights the contradictions, contrasts and parallels that exist between 'Western' body, the 'traditional' body and ultimately the 'modern' body in Indian fashion and lifestyle magazines. The aim is not only to give an account of how fashion and clothing is portrayed on the body, but also how meaning is made through the consumption of this imagery. The paper also examines the authenticity of such representations in shaping and defining the everyday experiences of modern Indian women.
Bunka Womens University, Tokyo, Japan
ABSTRACT
It is obvious that fashion brings pleasure to people and stimulates human relations. Designers and researchers are interested in objective judgments which measure quantitatively how fashion affects people. It is difficult, however, to measure the effects of fashion on the human body. In general, subjective judgment of one's impression of fashion is expressed by means of words. However, methods which objectively measure the effects of stimulation on the physiological activity of the human body have been developed. In this paper, we present research concerning how various clothing qualities influence the human body and propose an objective way of evaluating how fashion affects the physiological activity of the body. Furthermore, we will attempt to measure the effects that wearing clothes or looking at fashionable clothes have on autonomous nervous activity and the endocrine system of the human body. It is clear that such methods are useful for making objective judgments of the physiological influences of fashion on the human body. It is believed that if such objective evaluation methods continue to develop, through such new techniques as wearable computers, we will be able to know how people 'feel' about fashion. This will enable us to propose new creative fashions with more confidence.
Pearl Academy of Fashion, New Delhi, India
ABSTRACT
Purpose - Simulations are an effective tool for teaching and learning, since they allow students to experience real life business environment. There is a woeful lack of practising online simulations in contemporary fashion business pedagogy. The current study aims to execute and evaluate an online simulation game for learning of fashion business. Methodology - The online simulation was executed with fashion merchandising students where four teams participated. The qualitative data was collected from students through open-ended questionnaires and focus groups. Results about the simulation's contributions are presented in relation to complete learning experience of students. Findings - The conclusion from the study is that online simulation is an effective tool for teaching the nuances of fashion business like forecasting, marketing strategy development and decision making related to functioning of entire business. This was reported to be effective in substantially reducing 'phobia of financial analysis', which many fashion students have. This simulation was also observed to be effective in making students appreciate systems nature of fashion business. Practical implications - Online simulation can be implemented with students in Fashion Marketing or Merchandising training sessions. With this simulation, the students gain more practically relevant experience, as compared to other alternative teaching techniques. Furthermore, the game can be used in organisational training to improve fashion Marketers techniques and experience in reacting to unexpected events. By simulating realistic competitive conditions, knowledge and skills learned can be transferred to the outside fashion business environment.
Fashion and Textile Design, College of Creative Arts, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
What is the relationship between the 'person' and the 'subject'? This paper uses the notion of subjectification to explore how the formation of creative persons, their bodily and mental attributes and capacities, takes place in a distinct instituted cultural setting - in this case the New Zealand fashion design school. Creativity has lately become a very desirable attribute, an aptitude that contributes to an individual's identity and allows them to conduct themselves as a particular sort of person. The paper draws on interviews with fashion students to investigate the practical means by which this category of creativity is connected up with individual subjects.
School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Blaise Cendrar's Poem for Madame Delaunay (1914) begins with the line 'On the dress she wears a body...' and celebrates the synergy that existed between Delaunay and the Simultaneous Dresses she designed and modelled on herself. Inspired by Cubism, the dresses were collaged together from coloured geometric swatches, forming a carapace that echoed the curves and proportions of the artist's individual shape. The prototypes informed her printed couture of the 1920s, which adhered to the streamlined garçonne style of the time, but expressed the female form as a new moving, sensual phenomenon through abstract, graphic prints. A simultaneous approach to the body can also be identified in the work of other textile-led designers such as Zandra Rhodes, Ossie Clark, Eley Kishimoto and Jonathan Saunders. Their desire to decorate the body is evident through design outcomes which harness textile imagery to not only embellish their garments, but to iterate the form of the wearer. Since the late 1920s Surrealism has influenced designers to explore conceptual styles of imagery. The further integration of computer, motion graphic software and digital printing technology has fostered post modern responses to trompe l'oeil that visually recontextualise the female form in fashion. This paper discusses how the creative use of traditional and new design technology can facilitate a more poetic approach to the body in fashion that resonates with Delaunay's simultaneous aesthetic.
School of Fashion & Textiles, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
The system of identifying clothing by a number or code that does not reference body size has become known as ad hoc sizing. However, 'Ad-hoc sizes have changed with time, often due to vanity labelling, an inflation in body dimensions associated with a size, to avoid confronting aging customers with uncomfortable anthropometric truth.' Is size inflation a deliberate strategy of deceit or simply a technical adjustment by apparel companies to produce garments to fit an expanding market demographic?
School of Architecture + Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
In the current economic climate we are questioning mankind's contribution to environmental damage. The fashion industry is a big contributor. 'Fashion is about obsolescence and innovation: throwing out the old to make way for the new' [Lieu Pham writing for Cream magazine]. It is speculated here that many of the fabrics in common use today have a potential to harm human wellbeing. Ours is a health conscious society. If human beings have the capacity to eat for healthy outcomes it should also be possible that we can dress for wellbeing. Were the fibres synthesised from petrochemicals ever meant to be worn against our skin, or have we unwittingly been absorbing harmful chemicals thereby affecting our physiological and psychological health? Heinrich Firgo the head of textile development at Lenzing (the Austrian fibre producer) states 'Nobody knows what impact the wearing of these fibres may have on our health and wellbeing' (WSA June 2007). Is it possible that the clothes worn by today's consumers have the potential to impact on health? Maybe they are so accustomed to wearing these fabrics that they are no longer consciously aware of them and therefore unable to read the signals that alert them of danger. Chemicals used in the production of clothing have been implicated as a source of the most toxic man made substances in the world, causing eye and skin irritations, and shown to be carcinogenic. Consumers have the right to be informed. This paper discusses the relationship between finished fabric and well being and in so doing, poses challenging questions for future designers and consumers.
School of Architecture + Design, RMIT University, Melbourne Australia
ABSTRACT
The exhibition catalogue Guys and Dolls Art, Science, Fashion and Relationships 2005 Brighton Museum and Art Gallery [UK] suggested that dolls should be considered as an adjunct medium to fashion along with better-recognised examples of film and popular music. Dolls with fashionable personae provide both a documentary mirror of fashion and a forum for the development of popular commentaries and discourse around fashion. Dolls offer information that can be read in direct terms of dress studies as empirical investigations of surviving items and in terms of the many conceptual and discursive visions of the body that are now prevalent in cultural discussions of fashion. This paper will look at some of the messages that can be read about fashion and popular cultural perceptions of beauty through dolls' bodies. The paper will present a general visual survey on the impact of fashionable style of the material design of the doll's body format over the past 200 years. Fashion in clothing and beauty image down the generations dictates the industrial design decisions aimed at developing doll products, thus the doll provides insight into the presence of fashion in design history beyond the history of garments, as well as the influence of fashion per se on representing the body. Attention will be paid to the last forty years and Mattel's output in particular, as well as some of the strange and unheimlich vision of the body offered by dolls and contemporary culture.
SUNY Buffalo State College, New York, United States
ABSTRACT
This research focuses on questions relating to the emergence of the body-tech avatar as a fashion marketing and product development tool. The avatar is a graphical image of the viewer that is widely used in massively multi-user online virtual reality environments (MMOVRE) and games. It can symbolise a range from fantasy to idealistic to realistic representations of the user. The avatar is also currently emerging in the retail sector as an idealised generic and/or customised marketing tool for an expanding variety of fashion products and uses. This industry/market exploration will address an array of questions relating to the avatar as a marketing and/or product development tool. What impact does it have with the merchandising of fashion products? How are potential customers reacting to developing an idealised generic and/or customised avatar to model fashion items? What types of products and/or services can be successfully marketed using this body-tech tool? What are the benefits of using 3D avatars for fashion product development? Can virtual in-world avatars promote real world fashion brands? Can virtual in-world avatar fashions be successfully produced and marketed in the real world? Divergent real and virtual world research will provide a convergent overview of how avatar body-tech marketing and product development tools are impacting each other, the users and their target markets.
Donghua University Fashion Institute, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
ABSTRACT
With the trend of globalised mass fashion industry, we need the fashion process from design to manufacture to be accomplished under more precise and efficient way. There are two main streams in fashion illustration now, one is art work style illustration, which has strong character of designer, and often cannot be used directly in the mass fashion industry. The other is standard fashion flat illustration, which is popularly used in the global fashion industry. Although the flat drawing plays the main role in today's fashion design performance, it has obvious disadvantages. Firstly, there is no human-body benchmark, design lines cannot be understood precisely by the sample maker, so the sample clothes should be redone many times, which reduces the efficiency. Thus, a precise model of human-body is needed. Secondly, the flat drawing usually represents the design only with the front view and back view, but many designs cannot be expressed well just from the front or back view, so a 3D model of design performance is necessary. Thirdly, most design sheets are hand drawn and cannot change easily, and not suitable for online transferring and adjustment. Now the design sheet is supposed to be interactive, to keep up with the rapid development of global fashion industry chain. According to above, the paper suggests a new model of interactive human-body based 3D fashion illustration. It is based on 3D digital human body data collection and interactive multi-viewpoint from technical cartography theory. It provides designer's precise shaping and proportion for the sample maker and manufacturer, which allow more efficiency of the global fashion industry chain, no matter how various the human bodies are.
School of Fashion, Department of Design, Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
Fashion is expressive of individual personality, socially constructed, and subjected to various influences, manipulations and changes, which have been institutionalised by the élite designers and through dominant mentality. It is torn between and a victim of various ambivalences of cultures, age, gender and race. It has travelled from the domain of a hierarchical society to individual boundaries, from modernity to postmodernity. These subjections have moulded the identity of fashion giving its ephemeral nature and at the same time power to alter external realities. At a personal level, meaning of the word 'fashion' has mutated. I have been subjected to the dominant processes defining multiculturalism and postmodernism, where experiences don't necessarily reflect linear progress and what emerges seems in order but springs from chaos. Living in Western cultures over a number of years, my Indian cultural identity has encountered an acculturation process. Subjections to multidimensional cultures, and the ever-changing Zeitgeist of societies we live in today, leave us exposed to an uncertain zone of identifying dressed bodies in fashion. Christopher Breward (2003, p. 217) in his book Fashion states that 'fashion can communicate individual passions and authentic cultural meanings as effectively as it contrives to disguise or mould them.' This paper explores fashion and its ever-changing identity in relation to various subjectivities that determine dressed bodies. The research is based on reflective studio practice engaging in fashion creation based around the plurality surrounding relationships between dress and wearer, wearer and society, the signifier and signified. These creations are analysed in light of the personal wardrobe of the researcher accumulated during the past two decades through documented photographs. Today fashion springs from pluralities characterising the postmodernist society. The individual clothed body is submerged in the vast pool of fashion which is difficult to define as it takes fluid form with changeable boundaries.
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
ABSTRACT
Fashion in Australia has always taken a back seat in the news. With the expanding cultural and economic importance of the fashion industry and lifestyle services within Australia, 'Mapping "Good" Fashion Journalism in Australia' aims to identify the current extent and condition of Australian fashion media and create a framework for its improvement. In a social context the field of study is abundant with information, newsstands are covered with glossy fashion magazines, newspapers flaunt fashion segments, and television shows dictate fashion trends, however, the subject of fashion media is a neglected area of theoretical and empirical study. It is important to identify the market by what fashion media titles exist and how many there are? But there are also ways and means of doing this. This paper will detail these problems and identify what current issues are associated with fashion media and in doing so will produce a map of the Australian fashion media. This research is part of a Phd study that seeks to map, evaluate and improve the Australian Fashion Media. In this paper, it is the media map, which is discussed in detail. The map includes fashion magazines, news and lifestyle media with fashion segments, imported fashion titles and e-zines. This research represents the first attempt to produce a comprehensive account of the extent of fashion journalism in Australia.
Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University,Melbourne Australia
ABSTRACT
Regardless of social status or location, fashion has played a pivotal role in the history of the family unit: how it wishes it was, and how it wants to be publicly perceived. A cleanly dressed and manicured family presents a public image of unthreatening respectability. An anonymous, seamless blend with the rest of the community. Alongside its outward celebration of 'family', it can also hide a multitude of closeted secrets: poverty, violence, sadness and depression. The tradition of 'portrait' is one that has moved across all social boundaries with the advent of photography. No longer only within reach of the wealthy and powerful, photography permitted the capturing of likeness regardless of status. Anyone could choose to disguise their reality and elevate their status through a carefully composed photograph. A poor working class miner can bedeck a hand-me-down Sunday suit to be photographed beside his wife whose torn and dirty hem is disguised by the addition of a cheap piece of lace. Never would they present an image of their true circumstance to be captured forever, to be pitied by, or humiliate future generations. Through the analysis of archived family portraits from the 1870s to the 1950s this paper aims to reveal the use of fashion as public disguise: a means of acceptance, denial and a stoic resistance to personal circumstance.
Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
ABSTRACT
Annette Kellerman, an Australian long distance swimmer, diver, vaudeville performer and silent movie star was arrested for indecency preparing to swim along the coastline at Revere Beach, Boston, in 1907. She was a controversial and innovative individual who expressed her independence and self-possession through bodily spectacle in daring swimsuits styled on the existing one-piece swimsuit design for men. There were initially no modifications made to the original, masculine design. No structuring to the contours of a woman's body, in particular the breast area, and it would not be until the 1930s that designers would feminise the swimsuit, and new technology would assist the development of textiles that would enhance its fit and performance. Kellerman's innovation was revealing the female body, which had been concealed beneath layers of clothes and corsets for centuries in the public arena. Her performances centred on her body, and were tailored to her water skills in the form of diving and swimming demonstrations that filtered her natural form through associations with sporting activities, neutralising any suggestion of indecency. She was a modern woman adoptive, adaptive and shaped for speed. A daring and bold performer, she influenced the evolution of the modern bathing suit fashioning a new bodily ideal for the twentieth century. This paper will explore how Kellerman was positioned to contribute a fresh and inventive approach to the design and stylistic development of the swimsuit through her ability to redefine and construct a modern look that other women could imitate, at a time when the ground rules for fashion were changing. Through the combination of her body, performative skills and the bathing suits she wore, she was an integrated package heralding a cult for physical fitness, healthy leisure pursuits and personal achievement for all; a democratic modernity that many could identify with across diverse sociocultural groups.
Textile Design, RMIT University (Zilka), Melbourne, Australia Architecture, RMIT University (Underwood), Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
Weaving buildings? Crocheting a room? Is it possible with the technological breakthroughs in hybrid or composite materials that we may be able to reconsider the construction of space and how woven and non-woven techniques could be used to deal with form and function? In order to innovate with this relationship, links need to be made between the parallel worlds of textile design and architecture. Each discipline looks to the other for conceptual inspiration but until now does not converse in order to pursue large possibilities. If the material breakthroughs allow for textile design to function at the scale of a building then terms such as twill, sateen, and plain weave could be added to beam, column and slab. Innovations in materials and technology are challenging what a 'textile' is and can do. New functions and aesthetics are able to be engineered, creating new appearance and performance characteristics in fabrics. Textile techniques such as weave, knit, crochet and embroidery are being expanded into broader categories of flexible skeletons, meshes, nets, membranes and skins. These lead to new ways of thinking about form, structure and construction. The inside and outside can blur. Concepts such as transparency can be explored through 'fabrication', opening the possibility for more creative and innovative sustainable design solutions. The aim of thinking about textile design in a building context is to consider the spatial opportunities that can be revealed. To sit under a woven structure that filters light and breeze relates to the most primitive shelters, built in a craft-like manner. But what if this was the condition in a highrise office space, or art gallery or even mass-produced housing? The potential and opportunities are endless.
University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
The analysis of computing technology in relation to the body has been a subject addressed from many perspectives, ranging from 'cyborg studies' which consider the social and cultural impact of integrating technology and nature, to technology / fashion crossovers in the practice-based development of wearable computers in projects such as those initiated at MIT and scrutinised at international academic conferences. An aspect, though, which does not appear to have been addressed, is the role fashion and image have played in determining the acceptance or rejection of various forms of mobile computing technology not overtly promoted as wearable computers or as fashion related objects. The development of mobile computing - in the form of laptops, tablet computers, personal digital assistants and smartphones - hasmore often than not been presented as a linear, logical progression of miniaturisation technical - determinism writ large. An alternative take on this process, and the one adopted in this analysis, is that of social constructionism - the view that the technology involved is only a part (and occasionally only a very small part) of the story of mobile computing. This paper explores the reasons why one form of mobile computer should succeed and another fail, and proposes that status, role-setting, semiotic association and body language are key elements of the process. The designed form of mobile computers has been almost completely ignored in the documenting of the history of the computer, as if it could not possibly be an influencing agent. This work evidences that, from 1970s executives emulating James Bond by carrying concealed technology, to the fashion house Prada entering the mobile phone market, the role of self-image has long been a significant factor in the development of mobile computing.
School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
Sequins and glitter are employed to produce spectacular effects on the human body. Sequins, small fragments of reflective material attached through needlework to clothing, or glitter, polyester dust adhered with glue to garments or directly to the skin, are used frequently in theatrical costumes, evening wear and cosmetics. The brilliant, moving glints they produce by reflecting light off the mobile body create a sense of material wealth and visual excitement. In this paper I examine how these materials from the fashion industry have been appropriated or imitated by twentieth century artists who took clothing and the body as their subject. As I will demonstrate, artists who used sequins, glitter and other reflective substances have sought to achieve two things. Early twentieth century avant-garde artists, such as the futurist Gino Severini, worked to overcome the limitations of traditionally static art objects by evoking fashion's dynamic realm of body adornment. Later in the century artists such as Andy Warhol used reflective substances imitating glitter to comment on the enervating effects of commodity culture on the individual's experience of embodiment. In the post-war context artists were more circumspect about the critical potential of crossovers between art and fashion.
Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney
ABSTRACT
The mannequin gives shape to the space between the body and its clothes, a space it occupies on both a pragmatic level, and a philosophical one. The mannequin, in giving clothing a body, relates to it as matter, while relating to the body as form. Thus the mannequin mediates between clothing and the body. This mediation not only creates a certain intimacy between the two, but, I argue, supports a sense of them as akin to one another. Part of this support is literal, and corporeal. The mannequin, in my reading, is a two-way prosthesis, serving a prosthetic function for both clothing and the body of its potential wearer. This prosthetic function complicates the traditional theorisation of the mannequin as an uncanny double figure, for it situates the mannequin in a relation not only to the female body, but to clothing. Relative to clothing, the mannequin is not merely an imitation of the human, but a hinge between the matter of clothes, and that matter which is the body.
Fashion Institute of Donghua University, Shanghai, People\'s Republic of China
ABSTRACT
Designer brand is an important symbol of fashion. In China, designer brand emerged more lately than Europe, USA and Japan. Firstly, the difference between China and abroad is compared. In the West, the development of the designer brand is mostly from Haute Couture to ready-to-wear. Due to typical traditional culture and politics, the development of China's designer brand is from middle grade to high grade. Based on marketing research in Shanghai, twenty-eight fashion brands are chosen to be samples of China's designer brand. Then the status quo of China's designer brand is analysed including category, designer studio, product combination, price positioning, and promotion strategy. Finally, some suggestions are forwarded for the development of China's fashion designer brand. Firstly, Chinese designers should positively go abroad to study advanced experience to be a world-class designer. Secondly, a designer brand company should strongly collaborate with a well-known enterprise to construct the designer brand together. Thirdly, Chinese designer brands may firstly develop in foreign market, and then return to domestic market. Chinese designers should have the chance to work in famous brand in the world first, and then register his/her own brand. Thus he or she would be more possible to be successful.
De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
With the well-documented changes in women's body mass index, the future consequences on intimate apparel fashion design cannot be ignored. The theories of fashion may be complex and diverse but the rapidly increasing average weight of the wealthy western woman may force the return to a curvy fashionable female shape, and since mildly overweight people live longer than those who are too thin they have more time to enjoy their wardrobe. Recent size surveys in the UK and America have identified body shapes that do not match intimate apparel manufacturers block patterns or size charts, thus substantially reducing sales and customer satisfaction. Linking closely to this increased and reshaped body size is the comfort factor. A trim figure type does not require the engineered fit of her plus sized sister and is unlikely to suffer the abrasive, posture-disturbing outcome of intimate apparel designed to reproduce a fashionable silhouette. Reproduction corsets have run their course so it becomes the task of new technology to offer a pathway between fashion, comfort and shape. The massive worldwide success of the molded cup bra is a fitting example. It does not relate to any fashion theory, aside from its seamless outline it is a great camouflage device for every woman. It disguises asymmetric body shapes, smoothes fullness or encourages the ego and provides the best business corporate shape. It will be this type of 'need to wear' fashion design that will promote the extension of seamless, fused, smart fabric constructions into the new twenty-first century underwear and performance support wear. This paper will compare recent studies into female body shape and offer some solutions to the direction that intimate apparel may follow in the future.
Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University,Melbourne Australia
ABSTRACT
Melbourne painter Howard Arkley (1951-1999) is best known for his images of suburban houses, but during his twenty-five-year-long career he explored a wide range of themes, including the human body and its embellishment. Fashion and textile design interested Arkley as forms of contemporary visual culture with popular, everyday and 'functional' dimensions. In the later 1970s, he recycled patterns derived from fabric and other everyday sources, as part of his investigation of the parallels and contradictions between abstraction and domestic decoration. In the early 1980s, he turned to figuration, incorporating references to Punk, graffiti, tattooing and other signs of 'subcultural' style. The body, in these works, became the site for contradictory forces. In 1984, Arkley made extensive plans for his own 'Fashion Show', and, even though this exhibition never eventuated, a clear sense of the works he planned for it may be gained from his detailed notes and sketches, and relevant source material extant in his studio collection. With these ideas still fresh in his mind, he came across the special fashion issue of Domus magazine, published in March 1985, which provided him with further inspiration. Alessandro Mendini's Domus editorial, treating fashion as a medium whereby everyone can behave as an artist, surely struck a chord with Arkley, in light of his long-standing interest in dissolving distinctions between art and the everyday, and his own taste for idiosyncratic clothing and masquerade. Finally, Arkley's own 'self-styling' is discussed, in connection with various images of and by him. And some consideration is given to the theoretical issue of 'fashioning the self' and its relationship to the construction of identity.
School of Creative Communication, University of Canberra Australia
ABSTRACT
A taxtile is a smart fabric that integrates sensors and actuators in the same flexible material, inspired by human skin. In earlier work we explored the idea of a taxtile through a prototype in which a fabric surface 'purrs' in response to stroking. In this paper we develop a theory for the use of taxtiles in wearable information systems based on the neuroscience of body image. Bodily illusions, such as the 'shrinking waist' or the 'stretching nose' can be generated through tactile stimulation of the nerves close to the surface of the skin. These illusions demonstrate the slippage between our physical bodies and our mental awareness of our bodies. Bodily awareness is fluid and can extend to a tool in the hand, or the boundaries of a car while parking. We propose that bodily awareness could also flow into a taxtile through 'tactile nerve extensions'. The design sketch for Fauxy the Fake Fur Coat with Feelings has vibrotactile buttons sewn on the inside to connect the fabric sensor to skin sensations. We hypothesise that these prototype 'tactile nerve extensions' enable bodily awareness to flow into the coat so the wearer can feel people behind them at a distance, outside of their usual perception.
De Montfort University,Leicester, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
As ethical values become increasingly important in the market place, students need to be responsive to alternative commercial approaches in order to develop their future design practice with full awareness of global issues. In order to build an ethical perspective into the Fashion Fabrics and Accessories course at De Montfort University, a partnership with a local fair-trade importer called Just Trade has been established. Based on the intention to marry the craft skills that are embedded within the importer's manufacturing bases, with the contemporary design aesthetic in which our students are engaged, a live project is being developed. The paper will present a case study on the development of the project to date.
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, Scotland
ABSTRACT
This paper will outline PhD research into the effect of electro deposition on complex fibre and textile structures. The intervention and consequence of hand skills makes this process a craft of the twenty-first century. Traditional skills of knit, weave and embroidery are synthesised with the industrial process of electroforming but the humanising effect remains. Electrolysis of an inert fibre transforms it into a replica structure with a fine deposition of metal. As well as form, the resultant structure also adopts the properties associated with whichever metal has been transposed, adding to potential applications. Research into conductive textiles has focused on the integration of metals through yarn structure. Stainless steel, copper and silver are some of the most popular metals and alloys spun with a plethora of man made and natural fibres to create conductive yarns. By encasing a completed fabric in metal the 'whole' is transformed into a conductive medium rather than an individual strand. The introduction of semi conductive fibre in the electroforming process challenges the overall structure and as a result the fabric handle. Shibori shaped resist methods, more akin to dye techniques can be utilised to simultaneously pattern and introduce breaks in the metal, increasing movement and articulation, particularly where deposition is so heavy it becomes rigid. By combining industrial tools and materials with a portfolio of inherent making skills, new materials and potential applications can be created.
Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Sub-cultural groups are defined by their shared dress code, which indicate an individual's sameness to their group, and difference from the mainstream. This paper looks at how individuals adapt to their social groups through the clothing they wear, and how these embodied identities are constructed through performative displays. A particular emphasis falls upon the margins of the body, and the ways in which the boundary between the 'body' and 'non-body' can be manipulated, as a means for individuals to both mark their shared style and also their individuality. This paper is based upon images and interviews collected as part of a mass observation into everyday fashion. Contrasting examples will be considered which range from 'wagabees' through to the nu rave scene, to consider the relationship between the items of clothing, accessories and the body. The relationship between non-body and body will be highlighted through looking at the agency of items of clothing, and the styling of hair, as one of the most ambiguous markers between the body and clothing. The examples are brought together to consider the everyday performance of identity through fashion, which is always a gendered performance of the body. On occasion this is explicit, for example in the ways in which many people that were photographed, often deliberately 'pose' and 'strut' for the camera. This performance is also implicit, being part of how people stand, walk and wear their clothing as part of the everyday performance of identity.
Department of Clothing Design & Technology, Hollings Faculty, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Analysis of garment construction methods shows patterns are created through the application of measurements and ease. Ease is shown to consist of comfort, functional and styling requirements, of which functional are the least subjective. Currently little objective guidance exists regarding ease and results of studies into dynamic changes are difficult to contextualise in the pattern. Historical methods and developing technology indicate that manual methods of measurement are still best suited to this type of research. Method is also an essential feature as this provides objective depth as well as minimising inter and intra subject variation and potential error. To support the development of the methods, database software was used to structure supporting information. Inductive methodologies were applied to determine key databases and fields for data presentation. Using these structured methods, important considerations regarding assessment of dynamic changes for functional ease and supporting reasoning could be investigated and developed. The databases successfully provided a framework from which to study dynamic measurement to determine functional ease and retain context in the pattern. Key areas were determined as anatomical landmarks to add measurement objectivity and postural descriptions to ensure less inter subject variation. Inclusion of this supporting data for the measurements and findings are important to allow for analytical depth and recognition of contributing variables. With technological development new approaches to pattern construction are becoming available and determination of functional ease requirements can be applied to provide garments with greater functional and performance characteristics.
University of Melbourne,Australia
ABSTRACT
Commoditisation of the corset in the eigtheenth and nineteenth centuries allowed for mass control of the female body and by extension the female psyche. The twentieth century saw a continued desire to maintain this control. This paper looks at the legacy of the corset for contemporary women, looking at who is controlled and who is controlling. Despite a shift away from the male gaze, and an increase in the influence of women in creating the feminine ideal, the object of the gaze has changed little in the last decades of the twentieth and first decade of the twenty-first century. Foucauldian concepts of discipline provide a framework to explore the notion of bodily control through clothing from a contemporary angle. The slim, well manicured body, is a disciplined body, an object of desire. The abject, heavy, untidy and fat body is undisciplined, undesired. Soaring sales of body control garments in present day Australia illustrate the ongoing belief that the body needs to be continually contained and controlled. Magic Knickers, the Wonderbra and high-heeled shoes are all everyday items which contribute to the production of a contemporary disciplined body. Cloth, along with alternatives such as surgery, diet and exercise, plays a crucial role in helping to maintain the objectified and disciplined feminine ideal.
London College of Fashion, University of The Arts, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
The paper exposes the findings of the design research methodology developed through my recently completed practice led PhD at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London. The work is informed by contemporary reactions against 'fast fashion' and the emergence of conceptual and experimental fashion. It exposes new and interdisciplinary approaches to creating and communicating at the intersection of fashion, fine art and performance from the perspective of the fashion designer. The process of design developed here focused on the body, experimentation and testing, reaffirming the emphasis on the creative process and addressing context as fundamental to the communication of clothing centred concepts. The research method within the practice explored the potential of communicating body-related concepts and behaviours to wearers and viewers through the medium of clothing. The collections of concept-based work were specifically designed to encourage particular movements or behaviours. The potential for these garments to physically and emotionally communicate messages to wearers and viewers has been tested and analysed on a range of wearers and in a variety of contexts and written up as three major case studies. The paper uncovers the complicated network of communication between designer, wearer and viewer of concept led fashion design. It will discuss how the individual's understanding of the body affects this communication and reading, specifically looking at experiential, emotional and physical factors and contextual effects of wearing and viewing clothing. The paper discusses how the design method and findings of the case studies have the potential to be employed in a range of disciplines that use the body and clothing to communicate meaning. It also demonstrates how the method has been employed in a live context in collaboration with Union Dance for 'Sensing Change' (2005), performed at venues such as The Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Linbury Space at the Royal Opera House, London. This will be illustrated with a series of photographs from the case studies and the final performance.
London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
According to Berger (1980) class and status can be decoded by reading the connotations of a suit in photographs. This opens the possibility of reading other key significations represented through the photographic lens of men's formal dress in advertising and editorial images. Over the last decade academic writers have revisited key notions of the construction of the contemporary male identity through studying sexuality and fashion (Hollander 1997, Nixon 1996, Mort 1996, Edwards 1997, and Jobling 2006). Ethnicity has been investigated through black style (Tulloch 1992, Breward 2003, Ross 2007). Building on this scholarship an archival and content analysis methodology was used to select key suit advertisements and editorial photographs from the last twenty-five years. These readings cover class, status, ethnicity and sexuality and are discussed using visual culture and discourse analysis. The aim is to assess if the wearing of the suit is still considered a homogenous formal means of dressing the body that is universally acceptable, or an important heterogeneous expression of self and identity. The readings provide an insight for stylists, advertising photographers and fashion marketers in effectively communicating to segmented target consumer audiences.
Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada
ABSTRACT
Fashion can be a multitude of things, from a business to an art to an attitude. But one thing that is consistent through these various notions is the experience of the body in space and time. This experiential and spatial dimension will be explored and how the current discourses surrounding fashion reduce it to a two-dimensional or worse a one-dimensional representation of what fashion actually is. Semiotic, psychoanalytic, gender, and socio-political readings of fashion, which are necessary and popular, typically provide an account of fashion reduced to a sentence or a photograph. Often the actual garments let alone the body are left unexamined. This leaves a large gap in scholarship on the actual experience of the dressed body. The development of a 'non-representational' approach to fashion can help overcome this omission. Much of current social theory is revolving around a critique of representational forms of knowledge. This critique emphasises notions of embodiment, performativity, affect and how the body interacts with objects in space. Non-representational theory's reflection on embodiment allows a consideration of the sensual experience of the entire body, not just the visual. The theory focuses on practice and practical expertise. It is concerned with thought in action and emphasises the particular moment - that of the present. It is dismissive of many current studies that focus on linguistic, literal, semiotic readings, which tend to ignore the affective practical experience of the body in space. Recovering this affective element demands a more poetic consideration. Affect, practice, experience, space and time each have a valid and significant relationship to fashion and the body. Understanding these relationships lies at the heart of a non-representational theory of fashion. All of these elements will be addressed in this presentation.
Institute of Textiles & Clothing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
ABSTRACT
Authenticity occupies an important position in contemporary consumer culture under the trend of mass production. This phenomenon resonates with the abundant research based on the ideology of authenticity in marketing and consumption that covers diverse fields, including fashion and art and such subcultures as hiphop. This research explores the application of the authentic identity of the artist in collaborations of fashion designers and artists based on case studies of the luxury brand Louis Vuitton and the sportswear brand Adidas. In recent years, under their respective marketing strategies that relate to the authenticity issue, both companies have collaborated with artists and developed crossover items. The objectives of this paper are: first, to explore the authentic identity of the artist within the context of fashion and art collaborations, and, second, to investigate the commercial implications of fashion and art collaboration from the brand perspective.
Fashion Program, School of Architecture + Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
'There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.'
(Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Why has the surface and the structure of clothing the body undergone such extreme changes over the last three decades? This paper will examine and trace the ways in which Postmodern fashion designers have appropriated the characteristic attributes of the radical, the ugly, the decadent and the distasteful and reconfigured a new body surface and silhouette. The incursion of such attributes has led to the development of extremely exaggerated practices that are highly radical in intention, especially when compared with traditional practices of haute couture. This new abrasive aesthetic direction appears both in current haute couture and ready-to-wear designers' work, but is particularly pronounced in the radically innovative and original works of Alexander McQueen and Rei Kawakubo. What are the components of this new aesthetic? Symbolic violence, cruelty, malformation and displacement run through new fashion like a discordant note that swings between surfaces and structures. This trend seems to privilege the deformed and rejected over the elegant and accepted. Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent and James Galanos, to name a few, have proclaimed to lament the loss of elegance and traditional beauty which they consider has been replaced by an 'ugly' aesthetic. I ask you to consider McQueen's torturous facial jewellery and models appearing as though caged or modelled on a Hans Bellmer doll sculpture. There is also his controversial Highland Rape collection that shows battered models with blood splattered and torn gowns. Additionally, Kawakubo's vision of the abject and the imperfect shows in her apocalyptic garments as evidenced in her Lace Sweater and Bump and Mind collection. One could argue that these types of new works might have arisen from a late Surrealist phenomena that was flavoured with a science-fiction ambience. It would seem that this paradigm shift in fashion has irritated and puzzled traditional couturiers.
Textile & Design Laboratory, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
The development of global systems to manufacture and distribute ready-to-wear clothing that occurred during the twentieth century, saw the demise of individually fitted garments produced by tailors and seamstresses across all but elite market sectors. Mass produced clothing, like most industrialised products, has depended on generalised sizing standards based on anthropometric norms. In New Zealand, as in many other smaller economies, garment sizes were based on standards developed in other countries. The huge demographic and lifestyle shifts that have occurred globally over the last half century are also reflected in changing body sizes and shapes. The need for more relevant global sizing standards has seen the development of new national sizing initiatives such as Size UK (2001) and Size USA (2005), which have been assisted by the development of 3D body scanning technologies and software. While the datasets generated from these surveys have been used to develop more accurate and current national sizing information, a number of other applications for scanning technology and body shape data are being explored in relation to both global and local markets. Some of these developments, such as the linking of scan data to CAD technologies and the potential this offers for pattern development, garment customisation and fit optimisation, are considered through a review of recent literature in the field. The potential of these new technologies are discussed in relation to the New Zealand fashion sector, where structural changes have seen domestic manufacturing decrease dramatically, while the high value end of the market, with an emphasis on niche products supported by more flexible and scaleable design and production processes, has grown. It will be argued that the new resource offered by shape information technologies supports the ethos of the New Zealand Fashion brand, supporting the use of quality materials, innovative design and new technologies to enable product value, better fit and greater customer satisfaction.
Fashion Program, School of Architecture + Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
Within the world wide rockabilly scene an obsession with mid twentieth century North American music, design and popular culture also extends to clothing. The music is the catalyst for this whole scene. It is rhythm and blues, jump blues, western swing, doowop, hillbilly, and rockabilly. There exists a search for authenticity, a passion for vintage textiles and garment construction, and a love of dressing up and a sense of performance. Currently the most collectible womenswear genres are:
· Hawaiian clothing
· Western wear
· Mexican tourist skirts
These garments all have origins in traditional ethnic costume - and indulge vacation nostalgia and fantasies of the American heartland. The golden days of country music performers and costume and the 'dude ranch' holidays of the immediate post-war period manifested in western wear entering the mainstream. Holidays to Mexico and Hawaii created industries that revolved around making clothing specifically for the tourist trade. This paper proposes a framework for the meaning behind the collection of vintage clothing then explores these highly collectable garments in a brief historical context, before illustrating pieces through individual profiles of collectors.
AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
Fashion commodities shape our experience of our embodiment and our relationships to other bodies. The discourse of fashion modifies bodies and helps to shape our responses to death, sexuality and loss. While fashion is used as a marker of personal individuality, its capacity to mediate complex and subtle shared meanings belie many of these same myths of individual identity, freedom and self-expression. It refers to an internal self, at the same time that it locates the self in a public realm mediated through consumer goods. The concepts that are often used to interpret these relationships between subjects and commodities, such as commodity fetishism and sexual fetishism, are classically defined in terms of loss, alienation or absence. However, drawing on Barthes, Derrida, Bataille and Deleuze, I will argue for a more positive understanding of this terrain as one that can also generate active and generative becomings. In recent decades, many designers and consumers have referenced the history of fashion as one way of suggesting stable and authentic, shared identities (even when the historical referent is fictional or received by way of popular culture). In contrast, Martin Margiela uses historical elements not to anchor a code of cultural meaning but as a way of addressing fashion as a discourse concerned with death, sexuality and loss. Martin Margiela's 'deconstructionist' fashion is a sophisticated response to modern consumer culture, and the intersection of a lived body with a world of cultural artefacts.I will use Margiela's fashion to challenge notions of the commodity as an artifice that either alienates consumers from themselves, or disguises or defers a true and authentic body.
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the way in which military uniforms in the 'industrious age' on the cusp of modernity, kick started the industrial revolution. The enormous quantities of clothing and accoutrements used by both the French and the British, resulted in new systems of manufacture. It was not only the making of uniforms, but the way in which the soldier represented the body politic: making the power of the monarch tangible. It also changed the meaning of clothing and the connection between private and public, society and the subject. The uniformed soldier held a position of high status in eighteenth century society. Much has been written on influence of the Pompeii excavations on neoclassic women's fashions. The connection between the female nude statues and the possibility of nakedness in dress was apparent particularly in France. However the influence on male fashion has been either dismissed outright or inadequately explored. Through intensive research on male military clothing of the late eighteenth century it has become apparent that a masculinity emerged which sought to replicate the classic body through military dress using helmets, epaulettes, the cropped Hussar jacket, the tight white breeches and particularly the horse (as an extension of the uniform). This paper argues that the key role of military uniforms is the performance of masculine gender and nationalism. This will be shown using military portraits such as Joshua Reynolds's Banastre Tarleton (1782).
School of Architecture + Design, RMIT University, Melbourne & National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
This paper will explore how representations of nature were worn on the body as fashion in the nineteenth century. At a time when urban life began to replace the rural as the dominant experience of many, how did nineteenth century fashion 'artificially' re-enact the natural world on the body? 'The landscapes of the body' as described by Walter Benjamin are 'traversed by paths which lead sexuality into the world of the inorganic.' Fashion in this instance is allied with fetishism and the object. The artificial flower is poised within these symbolic languages and the corporeal suggestiveness of the flower can be read as emblematic of sexual desire. An iconography is revealed in cultural fantasies of nature spirits, and fairy creatures depicted wearing wreaths, flowing organic robes and adorned with petals. Whilst in the drawing rooms of cities, women performed their social rituals accessorised by both fresh and artificial flowers. Surveying three terrains: the domestic and public interior, the garden or rural landscape and the body, this paper will examine the cultural fascination of the floral in the popular use of artificial flowers and foliage in fashion.
Pearl Academy of Fashion, New Delhi, India
ABSTRACT
The Indian Apparel Industry was previously driven by raw materials and physical output. At present, due to changes in the global environment, it is turning into an industry being driven by ideas, services and innovation. This has led to fundamental changes in the market and an increased demand for training and higher education. This paper analyses employability skills from the points of view of employers, educators, graduates and current students. It explores avenues for effective skills delivery and transferability into the work environment. Primary research was conducted through interviews and questionnaires. The results were analysed and focus group discussions were held to get further insights into the situation and possible solutions. The findings show that the delivered skill and aspiration set of the graduate does not match with the early career stage requirements of the employers in this industry. The analysis indicates that the graduate employability skill set should not be led by employer requirement but a combination of employer priorities, educator aims and graduate aspirations. This paper proposes an employability skills model that is agreed on by a working party of stake holders (employers, academics and graduates) and an Employability Skills Development Cycle which can be used as a tool to continuous updating. It also suggests that effective early stage career management may be enhanced through regulation of student expectation management by HE (higher education) institutions. Extensive research has already been done on employability skills. These studies are primarily from the points of view either of the employer or HE institutes. This paper looks at both of these along with graduate aspirations which have not been studied before. At the same time this paper focuses on employability in the fashion industry where existing data is scanty. In a future study the role of HE as an employability environment enabler may be further explored as a tool to enhance employability fit.
Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the biopolitics of smart design as it is realised in contemporary smart clothing and jewellery. The discussion hinges on our understanding of the meanings of technology and of the relationship between technology and human ontology, i.e. human being. It begins by exploring the assumed relationship between clothing and skin - that clothing is a form of skin, a second skin - which leads us to explore the ways in which skin operates as a technology. My argument is that skin is not a form of technology, and that making this assumption leads to a re-invocation of the mind-body split, which makes human subjects susceptible to ordering by their own technology. Instead the paper argues for recognition of clothing (and jewellery) as technology, and the examination of wearables as a more technical form of an existing technology. This enables us to explore the ways in which human being is modified and transformed by this new technology and to choose applications that enhance the potential of individual subjects.
Textile Design, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
Fashion and architecture have historically been concerned with understanding the relationship between structure and skin (cloth and the body). With the developments and innovations occurring with materials sciences and technology this relationship is even more critical. Techniques traditionally associated with fashion and textiles are being used and transformed to create large scale lightweight sustainable structures in architecture. Fundamental to this advancement is collaboration and the need to take a multi disciplinary approach, as the project Composite Space involving fashion and textiles, architecture, business and aerospace engineering students at RMIT demonstrates. The disciplines of fashion and architecture are coming together through the use of textile design techniques, processes and materials. Like fashion, architecture primarily deals with form (coverage, protection and shelter) as a reflection of self. The fashion discipline has developed an extensive language to describe and explain the interaction between body (self) and cloth (form) recognising the need to balance self expression and function. Architecture is drawing on this language, not only as a means to express form, but to develop new ways of thinking about structures and to reconsider the relationship between structure and skin. Essential to this is the use of textile composites with innovations occurring with materials sciences and technology. Textile composites, once exclusive to the aerospace industry are now being considered for the construction industry. As composites are textile based, architecture is looking to fashion and textile design to help expand the possibilities of composite materials. Techniques and processes associated with fashion are being explored. Concepts such as pleating, tailoring, pattern making, drape, weave and knit are being used in architecture not just as a way to describe a spatial form but as an integral element of design and construction. This reflects the shift in architecture towards more organic and fluid form.
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the place of artisanal garments and footwear within the structure of the system of fashion. The paper argues that, when considered in relative isolation, artisanal garments may represent the antithesis of or indeed an antidote to the systems of fashion and consumption. If, however, the place of such objects is examined more broadly within the hierarchy of the system of fashion, it is seen that they in fact represent the impetus for the relentless cyclicality of this system. The paper focuses upon the label Carpe Diem. Although no longer in operation, the label's pieces invariably embodied an artisanal production, and many items employed hand-worked materials. The label represents a particularly interesting object of study on account of the fact that it never engaged in advertising, whilst its founder, Maurizio Altieri, declined interviews and even refused to be photographed.
Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
Tinkering while designing is often a way to design and make ideas concurrently, and when working within the discipline of millinery, tinkering has become an integral part of my design process, a bodily experience. Computer software designed for fashion is skewed towards the technical processes of pattern making, replicating two-dimensional paper based methods. Three-dimensional fashion software exists in the form of components, systems and rules for the designer to follow. The software appears unintuitive, lacking the distinctive characteristic of the hand that is the designer's signature. The individual is homogenised, and the software writer is the author of the design by default. This need not be the case. The shifting practices of architecture (Burry et al. 2006), industrial design and engineering have modelled successful uses of digital technology in the design process. Designing and making millinery in the digital sense can be defined as creating individual hand made pieces which stimulate (or simulate) the imagination. One cannot touch or feel these conceptual pieces, they are contained in a three-dimensional digital visual diary. Experimental and critical methods of working have challenged me to remove millinery designing and making from the secure implicitly-known embodied environment and to relocate the practice of designing in an ambiguous disembodied CAD space. The traditional notion of hand - eye - material - tool exchanges are reconsidered, thus altering the definition of the bodily experience in the millinery design and making process. The design experience is informed by the methodology of action research. Furthermore the cyclic process of problem diagnosis, action intervention and reflective learning creates the opportunity to encompass new discoveries and directions, enabling the development of both questions and answers. This paper establishes new ways of working which maximise the creative opportunities offered when using three-dimensional CAD technologies in a millinery context.
University of Melbourne,Australia
ABSTRACT
Clothing design, for artist Andrea Zittel, is not a commercial enterprise but a means to critically explore the dynamics of the contemporary consumer world. A-Z Administrative Services, Andrea Zittel's commercial façade, is not a design studio so much as an experiment with contemporary life in the consumer realm. Zittel evokes the commercial sphere of fashion only to unsettle it, replacing the individualised fantasies of high design with a complex examination of social control. Each item of her clothing design, I argue, comes to stand as a marker for Andrea Zittel, a subject rendered melancholy through her attempts to escape the constraints of the consumer world. Zittel claims to reduce consumer choice and simplify the lives of her 'clients', yet despite her utopian ambitions the work points instead to a desperate attempt to control and manage the immediate environment. Her struggle to find freedom from the contemporary consumer world frames the auratic dimension of her work, complicating its commercial surface. She thus situates herself within both the art world and the commercial world of design. In this complex position, her works create spaces in which to think critically about the contemporary consumer world. This paper will explore Zittel's complex position between the realms of critical artistic practice and the consumer market. On the one hand, she compromises her aesthetic autonomy by declaring and exposing the exchange-value of her work, by claiming to be a commercial designer. Yet at the same time her works create a critical and artistic space within the commercial market. The complexity of this position reflects the complexity of the predicament to which it responds. Zittel's work insists that it is within the systems of production that such issues can be most carefully contemplated, and the dynamics of production renegotiated.
School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University,Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
Seamfree knitted garment technology is the fastest growing apparel technology in the world. Industry research indicates that Seamfree knitted technology has increased from 1% of worldwide total knitting production in 1977 to 7% in 2003 with further growth expected. Seamfree garments are manufactured with minimal cutting and sewing operations. Currently, products marketed in this product category are mainly produced by a cut stitch shape method that involves knitting tubular fabric blanks without side seams relating to the size and parts of the garment to be made. Some of the well-known brands such as Falke, Tao, Asics and Odlo utilise this technology in their performance sportswear products. In this paper we will examine the design and development process, principles, parameters and outcomes for engineering ergonomic seamless sportswear utilising integral seamless Shima Seiki WHOLEGARMENT® knitting technology. This technology allows an integration of the 'body zoning' design principles into garment design and style, where various functional materials and structures with specific characteristics are seamlessly incorporated into one garment. The principle of this technology is that these garment parts are knitted simultaneously and as knitting progresses they are merged into one integral seamless garment with differential 'zoned' properties. The paper will address the aspects of 'body zoning' for active sportswear and performance wear, some aspects of different fibre characteristics and suitability, body mapping and zonin, fabric construction engineering and selection, and styling and garment construction. Further we will address current limitations of this technology, design and construction constraints and future outlook.
University College for the Creative Arts, Rochester, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Between 1949 and 1951 the British fashion industry used the Sadler's Wells Ballet tours of America and Canada as a promotional vehicle. The dancers operated as unofficial ambassadors by wearing full travelling-wardrobes of 3,000 articles, donated by 145 members of the British Apparel Industry. This marketing exercise aimed to use the elegance and glamour of the clothed dancers to structure meaning and value into British fashion goods. This mixture of culture and commerce, responded to the British need for stronger consumer demand for its clothing in the North American market where attraction and desire were seen as critical to encourage demand. The use of the ballet company, an important cultural resource, as mannequins for the British fashion industry had clear political, cultural and industrial implications. This cultural mediation will therefore be viewed through an industrial and economic discourse that traces the tensions that arose within this path towards transatlantic promotion, distribution and consumption. This strategic attempt at mercantile seduction, clearly sought to convert the cultural capital of the ballet into a more commodified form of economic capital. Using archival research the paper aims to quantify the extent to which the publicity attending the Ballet and their offstage dressing was translated into actual demand within the American consumer cycle. Through mapping the conflicting and overlapping contexts of the ballet tour's promotional activity, the manipulation of consumer susceptibility will be shown to be a complicated process. This is an early example of what those involved in fashion promotion are well aware of today: that the mere placing of products onto the bodies of highly visible personalities does not necessarily ensure garments will fly out of the shops in a flurry of emulation. As this form of consumer demand management is not stimulated simply by the symbolic mixing of culture and commerce but as this paper will show by a hidden web of commercial, industrial and political activity.
Central Saint Martins. The Innovation Centre, London, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
This paper explores an ongoing interdisciplinary research project at the cutting edge of sensory, aroma and medical work, which seeks to change the experience of fragrance to a more intimate communication of identity, by employing emerging technologies with the ancient art of perfumery. The project illustrates 'holistic' clothing called the JENTIL® Collection, following on from the author's 'SmartSecondSkin' PhD research, which describes a new movement in functional, emotional clothing that incorporates scent. The project investigates the emergent interface between the arts and biomedical sciences, around new emerging technologies and science platforms, and their applications in the domain of health and wellbeing. The JENTIL® Collection focuses on the development of 'gentle', responsive clothing that changes with emotion, since the garments are designed for psychological end benefit to reduce stress. This is achieved by studying the mind and advancing knowledge and understanding of how known 'well-being' fragrances embedded in holistic Fashion, could impact on mental health. This paper aims to combine applied theories about human well-being, with multi-sensory design, in order to create experimental strategies to improve self and social confidence for individuals suffering from depressive illnesses. The range of methodologies employed extends beyond the realm of fashion and textile techniques, to areas such as neuroscience, psychiatry, human sensory systems and affective states, and the increase in popularity of complementary therapies. In this paper the known affective potential of the sense of smell is discussed, by introducing 'Aroma-Chology' as a 'tool' that is worn as an emotional support system to create a personal 'scent bubble' around the body, with the capacity to regulate mood, physiological and psychological state and improve self-confidence in social situations. The clothing formulates a 'healing platform' around the wearer, by creating novel olfactory experiences in textiles that are not as passive as current microencapsulated capsule systems generally are.
London College of Fashion, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Virtual worlds are being heralded as the next big thing in education technology. Many educators and institutions are already using virtual worlds such as Second Life (SL) to deliver online seminars, lectures and conferences, exhibitions and even virtual fashion shows. Fashion is big business in Second Life, designers and big businesses like Armani and Lacoste are using these spaces to sell and promote real and virtual garments. Alongside these technologies it is now possible to create a virtual version of yourself either through 3D scanning software or by manipulating an existing avatar on websites such as My Virtual Model. Virtual worlds offer opportunities for staff and students to get involved in creative collaborative projects and to develop new skills. Adjusting to a virtual world, creating and manipulating an avatar (virtual representation of oneself) and interacting in these spaces can be quite daunting. Not everybody is comfortable with seeing an accurate 3D representation of their body and some people may reject the notion of a virtual persona completely. Others see the avatar as a way of exploring other aspects of their personality and are happy to play with multiple representations of them selves that are not always humanoid. The paper will explore the implications of virtual fashion for educators and industry. It will highlight issues that can arise when interacting in a virtual environment where the norms of social interaction and even the laws of physics are not to be taken for granted where someone can change clothes or gender or even become an animal before your eyes. Guidelines for best practice in the use of virtual worlds for fashion education will be given and a vision of the future of virtual fashion will be explored.
Fashion Institute of Technology (State University of New York), United States
ABSTRACT
The prehistoric practice of body manipulation (also known as body modification) has manifested itself in many well known forms to anthropologists and dress historians. Body manipulation is distinct from surface body art forms of body modification - such as tattoos, scars and piercings - in that it changes the shape of a body part through various means including applied pressure, repeated stress, implanted objects and cutting. These include various practices such as the bound feet of the Chinese, dropped shoulders giving the illusion of an elongated neck practiced by tribal women in Myanmar, flattened foreheads, elongated skulls, and extended lips, nostrils and earlobes. Twentieth century western culture marginalised these practices as uncivilised. Today, many modern practitioners of the 'Neotribal' or 'NeoPagan' movement in popular body arts have included some forms of body manipulation along with the more commonplace of tattooing and piercing. This can be seen in the popularity of stretched earlobes, and also the use, to a lesser degree, of sub-dermal implantations. Although stretched earlobes have begun to make their way into mainstream fashion, nonetheless such practices continue to be marginalised as primitive. This same society that may marginalise these practices is in actuality composed of huge practitioners of body modification themselves in the guise of many other practices. These manifest themselves in a variety of ways, including an enormous range of plastic surgeries ranging from facelifts, to body contouring and augmentation, and genital enhancement. Hormonal therapies that can transform the body of an elderly man into the body of a thirty-year old abound in print media. Extremes of these modern practices have enhanced the celebrity of certain famous users, including Jocelyn Wildenstein, Michael Jackson, Pamela Anderson and Joan Rivers. By comparison to the primitive tribal examples of these practices, has our society accomplished something even more unnatural and grotesque?
Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Purchasing clothes not only involves making decisions about one's appearance but is also part of an overall life pattern that reflects attitudes towards fashion, aesthetics and materialism (Tatzel 1982). Men are starting to mimic the shopping habits of women by focusing on aesthetic beauty and grooming; a habit which has been historically associated with feminine traits (McFedries 2003; Atkinson 2007). According to Brent (2004) men have hesitated to vary from the norm of conservatism for fear of being considered effeminate and foppish and also because it is threatening to their masculinity. The current 'metrosexual' concept of masculinity (Simpson 1994) has however sought to change masculine constructs due to changes in society's ideals and acceptance. Furthermore, existing myriad of celebrity led fashion and lifestyle magazines, and advertising being targeted at fashion consumers has redirected the male consumer to view clothes for image projection and fashionability and not just as a utility. Marketers are increasingly recognising that it is outmoded not to view men as consumers of fashion, especially in the case of generation Y males (Bakewell et al 2006). Mintel (2007a) report that the clothing market is the second largest in UK retail; and the menswear market is beginning to see rising volumes, although the market value growth has been slow (Mintel 2007b). Traditional habits are changing, fuelled by celebrity endorsements and effective marketing strategies. The changes in male shopping habits have opened up a big gap in the fashion retail market, which is worth exploring. This study utilises data obtained from a survey of male consumers aged between 19 -38 years and focuses on body image (perception of physical appearance) and buying behaviour of the fashion conscious male consumer.
Department of Clothing Design and Technology, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
The theories of trickle-down, bubble-up and trickle-across aim to categorise the directional flow of a style's emergence, as it spreads through the market to mass acceptance, by identifying design concepts coming from the catwalk, the street, or proliferating between providers on the same fashion level. Traditionally, styles would be accessed through providers on a market level (for example, designer, middle market, or value fashion) relevant to the consumer's segmentation characteristics, with each provider having a sourcing strategy supporting the quality expectations of the level in which they positioned themselves. However, global off-shore sourcing strategies now pervade all levels of fashion marketing, with production location not necessarily an indication of quality. The contemporary consumer now has access to information presented by a multitude of media publications, with haute couture brands appearing next to similarly styled garments from mass produced value sources. Thus, consumption behaviour in the fashion sector has seen a paradigm shift in consumer attitudes and their perception of fashion levels relevant to them. Utilising a questionnaire, with a sample of 100 female respondents aged 18-26 based in Manchester (UK), this research considers the range of fashion providers they frequent, their level of spending on fashion, what factors they consider most important when deciding on fashion purchases. Finally, their information sources were established.
London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Over the last decade there has been a renaissance and growth of Orthodox Judaism, globally claimed to be in excess of 200,000 (www.rickross.com 29/07/2007). In the UK, the major communities are centred in localised districts of London and Manchester. However, despite growing numbers little has been written on the social aspects of Orthodox Judaism an important component of one of the three major Abrahamic faiths. This exploratory study aims to address this gap in the literature by attempting to understand the interplay and religious tensions of dress compliance by young Orthodox females and the desire within these parameters to be contemporary and fashionable. The paper outlines key Halachic laws on modest female dressing, which includes the covering of the majority of the arms and legs, loose fitting dresses and skirts and no gender cross-dressing which is interpreted as prohibition of trousers (Rabbi Falk 1998, Rabbi Henkin 2003). This discussion will be contextualised with discourse analysis from the (limited) cultural texts that exist on this subject (Boynton Arthur 1999 & 2002, Yadgar 2006 and Yafeh 2007). An empirical qualitative case-study methodology, using oral biographic interviews conducted with a sample of young Jewish Orthodox women mainly aged 18-35, explores their individual fashion styles, religious compliance and where or how they purchase their chosen apparel. This paper is at the work-in-progress report stage. However analysis of the sartorial biographies may still enlighten secular fashion companies on gaps in this niche market that are specific to this target sector of consumers, many of whom wish to be considered fashionable or stylish within their own communities. The study has developed a visualisation model of the religious Orthodox schisms and their community lifestyles relating to fashion attitudes and consumption patterns.
Pearl Academy, New Delhi, India
ABSTRACT
Fashion, as a cycle, always demands for new varieties in both fabrics and designs. This demand creates a need for exploration of applying new techniques in developing fabrics and garments. This paves the way for adopting inter and intra disciplinary technology like use of computers, electronics and polymers, which are incorporated in fabrics / garments, to produce certain effects, which are far beyond imagination. This not only satisfies the basic customer but also creates customers for innovative functional apparels. These functional garments exhibit marked differences in both structure and aesthetics of the apparel which has a massive impact on today's fashion trends. Functional textiles, which are also termed Smart textiles, are materials that respond to the environmental changes and manifest their functions according to the change. Smart developments in textiles includes deodorising fabrics, breathable fabrics, insect killer clothing, hazard warning clothing, functional sportswear, medical and safety wear, antistress wear, etc. Micro encapsulation of Stimuli sensitive materials in the fabrics helps the fabric to respond to physical / chemical or biological external stimuli e.g. temperature. The most important variety of smart textiles includes colour changing fabrics, shape memory textiles, sweat-free garments. Thermo chromic materials (TCM), when encapsulated in the fabrics, sense the changes in environmental temperature which accordingly changes the colour of the fabric to suit the external climate. Similarly, by encapsulating phase change materials (PCM) in fabrics, which absorb heat energy when it changes from solid state to liquid state and releases heat energy when it reverts back, a temporary cooling or heating effect on the clothing layer, thereby keeping the wearer comfortable. Textiles incorporated with shape memory polymers, helps the fabric / garment to retain to a particular shape under certain environmental conditions. Innovation of intelligent innerwear such as 'Smart Bra' which will tighten or loosen its straps and stiffen or relax its cups in relation to the breast movement, helps to prevent breast pain and sag, especially of large-breasted women. This would also add-on to the appearance of the body. These smart techniques are not only functional but also make major positive impact to develop high fashion products which will take the fashion industry to new heights.
University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Virtual worlds such as Second Life have received considerable media interest recently. The idea that consumers, virtually embodied as avatars, can indulge fashionista fantasies with little monetary risk is now much more familiar. The presence of big retail brands in virtual worlds has been noted, perhaps with some suspicion, but there seems to be little real understanding of the reasoning behind this creation of virtual retail space. This paper investigates online shopping in Second Life in the guise of the avatar, and compares the process of shopping in a virtual retail environment with the traditional high street shopping experience. The hyper-unrealistic and non-sensory interface of online shopping for clothes has been hotly debated over the last decade; the customer's inability to try on and experience the product has been the main inhibitor to shopping online, and the high levels of product return in home shopping dramatically reflects this reality. Faster broadband connections and improved 2D web sites are making clothes shopping on the web more accessible and the time when retailers can offer the customer the freedom to shop truly virtually is becoming increasingly near. Retailers are now confidently providing different shopping experiences by combining 2D and 3D interactive visualisation technologies with advanced marketing techniques, to create virtual spaces that attempt to actualise the true essence of shopping; browsing, socialising, trying-on before buying and, in a new twist, leaving the virtual store proudly wearing the item just purchased. An experiential and exploratory approach was used to investigate the virtual Second Life stores opened by a range of fashion brands, including Adidas, Armani and Bershka. The qualitative data gathered informs discussions about the value of the virtual shopping experience for consumers and retailers and the potential for Second Life as a new retail location is considered.