Fashion and Its Multi-Cultural Facets [1 ed.] 9781848883093, 9789004371439

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Fashion and Its Multi-Cultural Facets

Critical Issues Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Lisa Howard Dr Ken Monteith Advisory Board Karl Spracklen Katarzyna Bronk Jo Chipperfield Ann-Marie Cook Peter Mario Kreuter S Ram Vemuri

Simon Bacon Stephen Morris John Parry Ana Borlescu Peter Twohig Kenneth Wilson John Hochheimer

A Critical Issues research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ The Ethos Hub ‘Fashion’

2014

Fashion and Its Multi-Cultural Facets

Edited by

Patricia Hunt-Hurst and Sabrina Ramsamy-Iranah

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2014 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-309-3 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2014. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction Patricia Hunt-Hurst and Sabrina Ramsamy-Iranah Part 1

Fashion: Past and Future Fashioning the Other: Representations of Brazilian Women’s Dress in National Geographic, 1888-1988 Elizabeth Kutesko

3

Elizabeth Keckly and Anne Lowe: Constructing Fashionable Black Identity Elizabeth Way

13

Barbara Hoff: Polish Fashion Dictator in the People’s Republic of Poland (1945-1989) Dominika Łukoszek

25

The Atelier and the Apartment: Coco Chanel and the Interior Jess Berry

37

Phantom Red: Colour, Fashion and Film in the 1920s Victoria Jackson and Bregt Lameris The Siren Mode: Female Body Image in the Ballets Russes and Haute Couture c. 1927-1929 Katerina Pantelides Bring Me My Bow(s) of Burning White: Re-Reading the Literary Wedding Dress as Narrative of Refuge, Resistance and Revenge Sarah Heaton Part 2

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49

61

73

Society, Culture and Communication Fashioning Age: Dress, Identity and the Changing Body Linda Shearer

85

Clothing, Fashion and Control Anne Boultwood

95

Nameless Chic and National Identity Lioba Foit

109

Fashion as Identity in Steampunk Communities Jeanette Atkinson

123

When Ethical Fashion Is a Challenge: Polish Case Alicja Raciniewska

139

Fashion System Shanghai: The Advent of a New Gatekeeper Tim Lindgren

149

Dress, Comfort and Vulnerability: The Intimate Hijab and Religious Habitus Anna-Mari Almila

159

Choreographing Fashion Manrutt Wongkaew

169

Designing Tim Walker: Story Teller Book and Exhibition Tim Hossler

179

Simulation: Effectual and Applicable Learning in Fashion Curriculums Deidra W. Arrington

185

Three Case Studies on Russian Online Fashion Retailers Evgenia Tarasova

195

‘The Best Way I Knew – Through Fashion’: On Personal Style Bloggers and Self-Expression Rosie Findlay

209

Fashion Communication in Asia: Participant Observation and Qualitative Interview with Media Personnel at MILK X Monthly Tommy Ho-lun TSE

221

Part 3

Luxury Brands, Products and Innovation The Future of Global Luxury Fashion: Growth, Source of Design and Inspiration and Prime Markets for the Sales of Luxury Goods Rosalie Jackson Regni

235

The Unique Standard Clara Olóriz Sanjuán

247

Innovative Products: Bags by Tommaso Cecchi De’Rossi Cecilia Winterhalter

259

What Contemporary Jewellery Might Have to Say about Fashion Anne Brennan

273

Sequins, Snakeskin and Stilettos: Shoe Design and the Study of Material Agency Naomi Braithwaite

283

Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes in Contemporary British Culture Amy Twigger Holroyd

295

Supporting Local Craftsmanship through Fashion Sabrina Ramsamy-Iranah and Naraindra Kistamah

311

Introduction Patricia Hunt-Hurst and Sabrina Ramsamy-Iranah This book includes a variety of chapters that fall into one or more categories that reveal the multicultural facets of fashion. The chapters reflect the changing world of fashion from historic topics, to new fashion places, to new media outlets for fashion communication and to critical issues related to comfort, ethics, and innovation. The three sections include: ‘Fashion: Past and Future;’ ‘Society, Culture and Communication;’ ‘Luxury Brands, Products and Innovation.’ The chapters approach the subject of fashion in different ways and bring together authors form a variety of disciplines and cultural backgrounds. We begin with ‘Fashion: Past and Future.’ Most fashion curriculums include fashion and dress history as a required course. The chapters in this section extend the body of knowledge of fashion and dress history. The chapters introduce us to esteemed dressmakers of the past, provide us with a new understanding of Coco Chanel through her interior environment, introduce us to dress of Brazilian women from 1888 to 1988, extend our knowledge and understanding of the 1920s, and we learn about wedding dress as presented in 19th, 20th, and 21st century novels. Elizabeth Kutesko’s chapter, ‘Fashioning the Other: Representations of Brazilian Women’s Dress in National Geographic, 1888-1988,’ opens this section. Kutesko examines Brazilian women’s dress as documented in the publication National Geographic from 1888 to 1988 using Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of ‘conctact zone.’ Her chapter takes us through the images as presented through the American perspective of the photographers during the times recorded. The chapter also reflects on the changes in photography as recorded in the pages of the publication and reflected by the images of Brazilian women’s dress. Most of the chapters in this section deal, in one way or another, with the history of fashion through the lens of a particular designer like the internationally known Coco Chanel or the lesser known yet important Polish designer, Barbara Hoff (19451989). In ‘Elizabeth Keckly and Ann Lowe: Constructing Fashionable Black Identity,’ Elizabeth Way introduces us to the skill and work of two African American dressmakers. Keckly became well-known for her skills in designing and making dresses during the mid-nineteenth century for Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the 16th president of the United States. Way brings us to the 20th century through the work of Ann Lowe who was also known for dress design for socialites and the wedding dress of a future First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Dominika Łukoszek introduces readers to Barbara Hoff who designed European and American inspired clothing at a time when the polish government did not allow western dress on the streets of Poland. Łukoszek’s chapter, ‘Barbara Hoff: Polish Fashion Dictator in the People’s Republic of Poland (1945-1989),’ enlightens readers to one woman’s fight against communism through her creativity and sense of style. Jess Berry shows us a different side of Chanel through her private living spaces. Berry’s chapter, ‘The Atelier and

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__________________________________________________________________ the Apartment: Coco Chanel and the Interior,’ explains how Chanel reinvented herself through the design of her atelier and apartment. The decade of the 1920s is covered in three chapters. To begin, Victoria Jackson and Bregt Lameris in ‘Phantom Red: Colour, Fashion and Film in the 1920s’ address the promotion of the colour phantom red, from the movie Phantom of the Opera (1925). The authors studied several publications to discover the changing meanings and interpretations of the colour as used in dresses, shoes, hats, and cosmetics after its introduction. Katerina Pantelides, the author of ‘The Siren Mode: Female Body Image in the Ballets Russes and Haute Couture c. 1927-1929,’ presents the relationship between fashion and ballet as a more traditional image of femininity that reappeared in in the late 1920s to replace the slender and androgynous garçonne. She explains why the garçonne disappeared and why the feminine siren replaced her. Every great fashion show ends with a wedding dress and this section is brought to a close with Sarah Heaton’s chapter, ‘Bring Me My Bow(s) of Burning White: ReReading the Literary Wedding Dress as Narrative of Refuge, Resistance and Revenge.’ In her chapter, Heaton crosses time through the novels of Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Dorothy Baker, Stephanie Meyer, and Suzanne Collins with wedding dress and its various meanings as the common carrier. The second set of chapters are listed under the title, ‘Society, Culture and Communication.’ Society and culture are interlinked in more ways than one. Anthropologist Thomas Erisken in What Is Anthropology points out that ‘the flows of people who move temporarily between countries have grown leading to intensified contact between societies and cultures.’ 1 The chapters in this section cover cultural differences and identities which are dealt sensibly as they can be controversial; they address the female identity through age, dressing habit, ‘the hijab,’ and hip fashions via national identities amongst others. The section also introduces us to various fashion systems and forms of communication; with easy access to internet and satellite networks, online retailing and style bloggers are the way forward for future generations. The chapters also address fashion communication in art forms, such as choreographic dance and fashion photography. In the opening chapter, ‘Fashioning Age: Dress, Identity and the Changing Body,’ Linda Shearer addresses the issue of age in fashion. Her research examines the ageing female body and the transformative function of dress during the renegotiation of identity at various life stages. In ‘Clothing, Fashion and Control’ Anne Boultwood focuses on women’s self-understanding and its relation to the body. Her argument is that while for both men and women self-awareness includes body awareness, for women, the relationship is more fundamental and the body is a significant aspect of self. Other aspects addressed in this section included hipster fashion and Steampunk communities. Lioba Foit in ‘Nameless Chic and National Identity’ examines the processes of ‘hipsterdom’ and its involvement in branding. In comparison, Jeannette Atkinson relates to the craving for individuality and search for identity in ‘Fashion as

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__________________________________________________________________ Identity in Steampunk Communities’ which is linked with the past and a desire to escape to another time and world, a form of utopia. In ‘When Ethical Fashion Is a Challenge: Polish Case,’ Alicja Raciniewska points out the issue of ethical fashion in Poland and analyses its development in recent years. On another level of cultural setups, Tim Lindgren, examines the advent of a new gatekeeper through the fashion system in Shanghai. In his ‘Fashion System Shanghai: The Advent of a New Gatekeeper,’ he describes the fashion system as inter-relationships between consumption and production of fashion and how the latter is a collective activity. Lindgren also discusses how the legitimisation of the fashion system depends upon gatekeeper who control and judge the status, quality and cultural value of a designer’s work. The new gatekeepers’ role is to filter authenticity from fakes and foreign products, providing protection to Chinese fashion design. In ‘Dress, Comfort and Vulnerability: The Intimate Hijab and Religious Habitus’ Anna-Mari Almila provides us with an understanding of how dress is a second skin. She explores the intimacy of dress in both physical and emotional perspectives. The factors she puts forward contribute to the feeling of comfort and discomfort, protection and vulnerability experience by wearers of the hijab. The author examines the hijab as an example that portrays the embodiment of a dress form which contributes to the internationalisation of a religious habitus, the ‘islamic’ veiling. Communication can be perceived in many forms, one can use an art form to pass on a message which can impact and influence the society. The influence of modern dance on twenty-first century high-fashion is pointed out by Manrutt Wongkaew’s chapter ‘Choreographing Fashion.’ The author examines the exchanges between high fashion and modern dance and demonstrates how movement vocabularies feed into the socio-political economy of luxury fashion. Photography is another art form that is discussed in this section. Tim Hossler, states in his chapter, titled ‘Designing Tim Walker: Story Teller Book and Exhibition,’ that the role of fashion ‘is to distract society temporarily from its problems and give it material form which to dream;’ subsequently ‘fashion photography and its dissemination through print and exhibition presents the public with these fantasies.’ 2 He looks into photographer Tim Walker’s visual narrative rooted in fairy tales, most specifically the ‘story teller’ book and exhibition that portrays visions of high fashion couture engaging in worlds inhabited by fairy tale characters. The last chapters of this section cover simulation teaching methods in a creative learning environment, the approach to consumerism, through online selling and retailing, and the use of social networks and bloggers. Nowadays fashion curriculums are constantly evolving to adapt to the latest trends, skills and technology that the global economy require. Deidra W. Arrington, the author of ‘Simulation: Effectual and Applicable Learning in Fashion Curriculums’ gives us an understanding on how

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__________________________________________________________________ real world situation is simulated in teaching methods so that ‘learning transfers directly from the classroom to the workplace.’ The author Evgenia Tarasova researched the relationship between social media and online consumption for the Russian fashion market. Her chapter, ‘Three Case Studies on Russian Online Fashion Retailers,’ presents three case studies of online fashion retailers targeting middle class consumers. The other chapters in this section cover style bloggers and fashion communication in Asia. On another angle, Rosie Findlay’s ‘The Best Way I Knew – Through Fashion: On Personal Style Blogges and Self-Expression’ looks at the connection between personal style blogging and self-expression. Findlay’s central study is about the online performance of blogger Rosalind Jana. Tommy Ho-lun TSE in his chapter, ‘Fashion Communication in Asia: Participant Observation and Qualitative Interview with Media Personnel at MILK X Monthly,’ investigates the global fashion brands and Hong Kong print media through a high fashion magazine. The author joined the realistic work environment to examine the interactions of fashion media workers. The final section of the volume, ‘Luxury Brands, Products and Innovation’ includes chapters focused on products in general with both luxury and/or innovation components of some of the products. According to Michael Chevalier and Gerard Mazzalovo in Luxury Brand Management: A World of Priviledge, a luxury brand can be defined as ‘a very exclusive brand that is almost the only one in its product category and that can appear as a very selective symbol of scarcity, sophistication and good taste.’ 3 This is further discussed in Rosalie Jackson Regni’s chapter on ‘The Future of Global Luxury Fashion: Growth, Source of Design and Inspiration and Prime Markets for the Sales of Luxury Goods.’ Regni points out that luxury products should have high levels of craftsmanship, strong artistic quality and be able to trigger an emotional response from consumers. She also refers to the Mintel report on the increase of the luxury market and questions if this growth will continue and what products will sustain. In contrast Clara Olóriz Sanjuán’s ‘The Unique Standard’ discusses mass customisation and the paradigm shift from standard to non-standard forms of production and consumption. The author Cecilia Winterhalter on the other hand takes us to innovative products which are a mixture of alternative combinations, old and new knowledge and processes. Her chapter, ‘Innovative Products: Bags by Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi’ investigates the innovative characteristics of Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi’s bags and illustrates other examples of innovative products that strike us more with their smart re-invention. Anne Brennan’s chapter on ‘What Contemporary Jewellery Might Have to Say about Fashion’ examines Barthes essay which maps a shift in the meaning of jewellery from pre-modern times to the present. Brennan discusses Barthes argument on the change in the meaning of jewellery due to the rise of modernity and the fashion industry.

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__________________________________________________________________ The final chapters in this section deal with shoe design and materials, homemade clothes, and reviving crafts through a high fashion collection. Naomi Braithwaite explains the important role of materials in designing shoes in ‘Sequins, Snakeskin and Stilettos: Shoe Design and the Study of Material Agency.’ Her chapter reveals how materials stimulate and inspire the creative imagination of shoe designers. In ‘Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes in Contemporary British Culture,’ author Amy Twigger Holroyd brings forward her analyses on homemade knitted garments and how identities are constructed through amateur fashion making. Her research looks at the romanticism of homemade garments made with love and care and also the stigma of poverty and old fashion values in which it is associated. The last chapter brings together luxury products, innovation, and design. Sabrina Ramsamy-Iranah and Naraindra Kistamah’s chapter describes their project that upgraded the art and craft section in Mauritius through high fashion garments. In ‘Supporting Local Craftsmanship through Fashion’ Ramsamy-Iranah and Kistamah discuss the processes in associating innovative, creative, and value-added ideas to the development of products. Each chapter in this book enlightens readers to the multi-faceted nature of fashion from the historic perspective of Brazilian women’s dress to online retailers in contemporary Russia and finally to the creation of luxury products through sometimes very old processes of materials that inspire designers in Italy, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Mauritius. The contributors provide a multitude of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds to enlighten and teach current students of fashion of critical issues in the fashion industry, fashion’s past and future, fashion products, and means of communication.

Notes 1

Thomas Erisken, What Is Anthropology (UK: Pluto Press, 2004), 4. See Tim Hossler, ‘Designing Tim Walker: Story Teller Book and Exhibition’ in this volume. 3 Michael Chevalier and Gerard Mazzalovo, Luxury Brand Management: A World of Priviledge (Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), xv. 2

Bibliography Chevalier, Michael, and Gerard Mazzalovo. Luxury Brand Management: A World of Priviledge. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Erisken, Thomas. What Is Anthropology. UK: Pluto Press, 2004.

Part 1

Fashion: Past and Future

Fashioning the Other: Representations of Brazilian Women’s Dress in National Geographic, 1888-1988 Elizabeth Kutesko Abstract As a popular ‘scientific’ journal, National Geographic is a substantial source for the formation of many Brazilian stereotypes in the 19th and 20th-century American popular imagination. Analysing how National Geographic divided, organised, charted and narrated Brazil, through its visual and textual representations of Brazilian dress, reveals the oppressive arrangements of race, gender, sexuality and identity that masquerade as objective knowledge rather than subjective expression. This chapter will apply and develop Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the ‘contact zone’ to examine National Geographic’s representations of Brazilian dress and adornment from 1888 to 1988, within the context of the geo-political relations between Brazil and the United States. Pratt defines ‘contact zones’ as ‘social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power.’ 1 Here we can understand ‘contact’ not as a static, deterministic state but as an intricate and, crucially, continually shifting process of cultural exchange, one that is characterised by conquest and colonisation. Representation in such a zone emerges as a complex cultural process, in which meaning is not inherent in the clothing itself, but has been fashioned by National Geographic in response to modulations in the balance of power between North and South. Whilst the site of contact continually shifts, the determining of its outcome remains the same: the textual and photographic propagation of Western hegemony over the ‘Other.’ Key Words: Brazilian dress, Brazil-US relations, ‘contact zone,’ travel photography, representation. ***** 1. Introduction As a popular ‘scientific’ and educational journal, National Geographic has positioned itself as a voice of authority within mainstream American print media, offering what purports to be an unprejudiced ‘window onto the world.’ By the nature of the genre, newspapers and magazines are usually compiled for sporadic reading, easy digestion, and to be quickly discarded, but in National Geographic, feature articles are lengthy and intended not for a quick glimpse, but for extended reading and reflection. This chapter will examine the role that Brazilian women’s dress, and the representation of Brazilian women’s dress, have played in National Geographic as a means of framing and solidifying an idea of Brazil in the American popular imagination.

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__________________________________________________________________ It will approach dress not simply as cloth but as a system of communication, whose many meanings are not fixed but continually informed and to an extent, even performed, by its visual, material, and textual representation. Although images of Brazilian men’s dress do exist in National Geographic, it is through the wealth of information on Brazilian women’s dress that one can discern how differing modes of femininity are used to communicate larger cultural values, corresponding with Vron Wares’ argument that depictions of femininity articulate ‘powerful, if subtle, racist messages that confirm not only cultural difference but also cultural superiority.’ 2 In 1936 the President of the National Geographic Society (1920-1954), Gilbert H. Grosvenor, affirmed the importance of the National Geographic photograph: ‘Even more important than their aesthetic appeal is the educational, scientific and historical value of THE GEOGRAPHIC’s [sic] pictures.’ 3 What Grosvenor seemed unaware of is that the act of making a photograph automatically de-contextualises what is in front of the camera and places what is photographed into new contexts. Photography renders to visual representation a distinctive realism, in the sense of making real, that paintings and drawings cannot produce; as Susan Sontag acknowledges, whilst a drawing is always understood as an interpretation, a photograph is often treated as a transparency, even though it is, ‘as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.’ 4 This chapter will apply and develop Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the ‘contact zone’ to National Geographic’s treatment of Brazilian women’s dress and adornment from 1888 to 1988. Pratt defines ‘contact zones’ as, ‘social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power.’ 5 Here we might understand ‘contact’ not as a static, deterministic state but as an intricate and, crucially, continually shifting process of cultural exchange, one that is characterised by conquest and colonisation. Representation in such a zone emerges as a complex cultural process, in which meaning is not inherent in the clothing itself, but has been fashioned by National Geographic in response to modulations in the balance of power between America and Brazil. This chapter will identify three particular periods in which the ‘contact zone’ can be seen to have operated in three differing ways. 2. 1888-1938: National Geographic and an Ethnographic Aesthetic Although National Geographic was established in 1888, the first year that the magazine reported on Brazil was in 1906, when three articles were published. This coincided with the third Pan-American conference, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in July 1906. Pan-Americanism had emerged at the close of the nineteenth century as America actively sought to expand its commercial, social, political, economic and military contact with the nations of Central and South America. A narrative of American expansionism was mythologized in National Geographic by articles that stressed active, masculine pursuits in the Amazon region. See for

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__________________________________________________________________ example: ‘Exploring the valley of the Amazon,’ ‘Through Brazil to the summit of Mount Roraima,’ and ‘In Humboldt’s Wake,’ referencing the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who was renowned for his romantic descriptions of lush vegetation curving and swelling in the tropics. Within this locale, Brazilian women were presented as exotic specimens, divorced from culture and civilisation, awaiting discovery and interpretation by visiting American men. As Gillian Rose contends, ‘Woman becomes Nature, Nature becomes Woman, and both can thus be burdened with men’s meaning and invite interpretation by masculinist discourse.’ 6 Naturalising Brazilian women, by emphasising their nudity as a visible marker of primitiveness, reinforced a dynamic rhetoric of difference between fully clothed civilised American males and partially clothed uncivilised Brazilian females. Indigenous women’s lack of dress placed them as objects of fascination and racial inferiority, justifying American dominance in Brazil, a location perceived to be ripe for commercial exploitation and economic expansion in the early decades of the twentieth century. This is exemplified by the writings of Theodore Roosevelt, who participated in a scientific expedition in the Amazon region in 1913 to 1914. According to Roosevelt: ‘This country and the adjacent regions, forming the high interior of Western Brazil will surely someday support a large industrial population and will be a healthy home for a considerable agricultural and pastoral population.’ 7 In National Geographic, photography provided an order to the unfamiliarity of indigenous women, influenced and reinforced by its use in science as an observational and recording tool for Euro-American exploration, surveillance and classification. A clear example can be seen by comparing a National Geographic photograph from 1926, with a slave daguerreotype produced by Swiss Natural Historian Louis Agassiz in Brazil in 1865. In both photographs, difference is easily established by the formal and standardised mode of photographing the subject, which tends towards that of the anonymous type: the figure positioned centrally in the frame, facing the camera head on and gazing directly into the lens. Compositional effort on the part of the photographer is reduced, and variability in the resulting photograph rests on the particularities and peculiarities of the subject and her immediate environment. These images invite more attentive viewing from the audience, who becomes aware of cultural difference as provided through veritable physical characteristics. Another National Geographic photograph ‘documents’ the provision of clothing to three anonymous women. Two of the women are now fully clothed, whilst one is still partially naked except for a cloth covering her bottom half. The accompanying caption reads: ‘The ladies at the left, having just been garbed for the first time in their lives, look askance at their still naked sister.’ 8 These women were previously dressed, just not in a Euro-American style. Their adoption of Western clothing is understood as a sign of their receptiveness to reculturation in accordance with American standards of development, whereas notions of passivity,

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__________________________________________________________________ childishness, and backwardness, intrinsically linked to the concept of shame that is associated with nudity in the West, isolate the partially naked woman as part of a supposedly inferior group. The exploitative and reductive shot of her, head shyly tilted down and nakedness fully exposed to the camera, underscores her position as a dehumanised object. Norman Denzin writes that the camera operates ‘as an extension of the oppressor’s control over the oppressed,’ through the ability of the photographer to enforce his licence to control the actions and movements of the Other. 9 Many more photographs like this appeared in National Geographic until 1933, the year that Franklin Roosevelt took office and stressed reciprocal trade agreements between America and Brazil. As both countries worked to recover from the economic destitutions of the Depression, there was a lapse of six years in the magazine’s coverage on Brazil. 3. 1939-1945: National Geographic and a Fashion Aesthetic The outbreak of war in Europe signalled an intensification of Roosevelt’s ‘Good Neighbour’ policy of 1934, which had emphasised a less interventionist approach to relations within the Western hemisphere. A shift in the treatment of Brazilian women’s dress took place in National Geographic, which provided a new means of encoding America’s imperial ambitions, and continued until peacetime in 1945. A new style of fashion photography emerged which focused on white middle-class Brazilian women living and working in urban centres such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and drew upon documentary images of New York City produced by, for example, American photographer Berenice Abbott in the 1930s. A clear example can be seen by comparing a National Geographic photograph from 1939, with an image of New York City taken by Abbott in 1938. Shot from a distance, both photographs emphasise modernity and progress through dynamic architecture and busy streets, populated by workers and shoppers dressed in Western-style fashions. In National Geographic, Brazilian women’s adoption of Western dress was the ultimate expression of Brazil’s capability for political change, progress, and Americanisation in other spheres, extendable to her potential to join the Allied war effort. There is a sense of rhythm and drive that connects these photographs to contemporary American fashion imagery produced by practitioners such as Martin Munkacsi, Louis Dahl Wolfe and Toni Frissell in the 1930s and 1940s. This can be seen by comparing a National Geographic photograph from 1939, with an image of Diana Vreeland taken by Munkacsi for American Vogue in 1936. In both photographs the dominant female figure, admittedly exaggerated by Munkasci for dramatic effect, strides purposefully forward. She is dressed in expensive Western tailoring, with a clutch bag tucked under her arm, and a hat jauntily perched on her head. At one with the city, she is the sartorial embodiment of emancipation, modernity, and progress. Inscribing the National Geographic photograph into the genre of fashion photography marks a change in the way that we view the subjects. As opposed to the objectifying gaze

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__________________________________________________________________ of ethnographic photography, which rendered its indigenous subjects passive, the ‘snapshot’ aesthetic of fashion photography foregrounds the white subject’s potential for activity. Different photographic genres guide the reader’s interpretation of images, suggesting here a contrast between the inactivity of inferior indigenous women, and the activity of superior white women in Brazil. As Linda Steet has pointed out in her examination of the magazine’s coverage of the Arab world, different levels of civilisation and different styles of femininity are measured by, ‘evaluating the position of women against a “specifically white femininity.”’ 10 Images such as these stressed a dominant American sense in National Geographic, and were mobilised during a period when developing theories of race and eugenics reinforced the notion of the intrinsic superiority of the white race, above all other races. After America’s entry into the war in December 1941, Brazil played a significant role as a source of vital war materials, and as an aid in helping to maintain military security. 11 Once Brazil had formally declared war on Germany and Italy in August 1942, an idea of Brazilian women’s dress, which was heavily influenced by contemporary ideals of American fashion and femininity, was amplified and consolidated in National Geographic. A clear example can be seen in a photograph from 1942. Lined up in pairs with military precision, a group of fit, healthy young white Brazilian women drill at the inauguration of Sao Paulo’s Stadium. Dressed in white plimsolls, socks, polo shirts and dark shorts, they are primed and ready for action. Their adoption of sportswear feeds into contemporary American fashion trends, as can be seen in a 1941 Vogue advertisement for Best and Best’s line of Americana clothing, designed for women engaged in active pursuits, or taking on a broader range of work tasks. The caption that accompanied the National Geographic photograph reinforced this idea: ‘Freed from the traditional chaperon of Latin America is the maid of modern Brazil.’ 12 Yet there is a visual symmetry between this photograph and the one printed on the adjacent page in National Geographic, which depicts large quantities of Brazilian beef lined up in rows drying in the sun. Aligning Brazilian women with national industry has a dehumanising effect, showing that there is still a degree of conquest, whether conscious or unconscious, that pervaded the magazine’s representations of Brazilian women’s dress during wartime. 4. 1946-1987: National Geographic and a Snapshot Aesthetic One phenomenon of the ‘contact zone’ is the ‘anti-conquest’ narrative, which Pratt defines as ‘strategies of representation whereby European bourgeois subjects seek to secure their innocence in the same moment as they assert European hegemony.’ 13 Pratt explores the underlying desire of ‘anti-conquest’ writers to provide the intellectual apparatus of European capitalist expansion, whilst avoiding or even challenging ‘older imperial rhetorics of conquest.’ 14 The war marked the transformation of America into a leading global superpower, with strategic

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__________________________________________________________________ interests that extended beyond the Western hemisphere. There was a lapse of 8 years in National Geographic’s coverage on Brazil, echoing the waning American public and political interest in Brazilian affairs in the immediate aftermath of the war. The magazine returned its gaze to Brazil in 1952, reflecting America’s growing concern over the rise of Communism in Latin America. There was a focus on indigenous women living in the Amazon region and a distinctive ‘snapshot’ aesthetic was used to photograph them, which contrasted markedly with the measured and preconceived strategies formerly employed to document indigenous women in the pre-war period. Off-kilter composition and the un-posed manner of individuals or groupings suggest these photographs appear more by happy accident than by calculated design. The subjects seem to have forgotten the presence of the camera and the composition is casual: a mark of the photographer’s supposedly authentic connection to indigenous women, as someone who has gained knowledge otherwise inaccessible to outsiders, and is able to photograph them from a supposedly informed, albeit outsider’s perspective. Charlotte Cotton notes that ‘the use of seemingly unskilled photography is an intentional device that signals the intimacy of the relationship between the photographer and his or her subject.’ 15 An example of Cotton’s assertion can be seen in the apparent artlessness of a National Geographic photograph from 1959, which captures the author and his wife, dressed in ceremonial feathers, being carried on the shoulders of tribe members during, as the captions informs us, their inauguration as tribal ambassadors. 16 The ostensibly unselfconscious, day-to-day nature of the photograph seems to confirm the idea that we are looking at a spontaneous moment in the life of the subjects, emphasising that these are real people and real life situations that National Geographic is documenting. Nevertheless we can see a ‘contact zone’ in the form of the author’s perspective, which both manipulates and highlights Otherness; despite his integration into the tribe through the adoption of indigenous dress, there is a world of difference between him and the remainder of the tribe. Dressing up for the author is a form of recreation, which masquerades as an appreciation of indigenous society, but is undercut by the author’s ability to assume and exploit the duality of his identity. As Homi Bhabha has argued, mimicry ‘is the sign of a double articulation; a complex strategy of reform, regulation and discipline, which “appropriates” the Other as it visualizes power.’ 17 This photograph functions under the quasi-ethnographic pretence of the author as participant-observer, as someone who is intimately connected to the Other, and as such provides an example of the ‘anti-conquest’ narrative in operation. In addition to the persistent naturalisation of the photographic activity, indigenous women’s dress was captured from an observational perspective that suggested it was a cultural artefact in need of being saved, and that National Geographic had the authority and responsibility to undertake this assignment. The

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘salvage paradigm,’ to use Christopher Pinney’s term, finds its parallel in Pratt’s observation that, in their writing, colonial travellers frequently split ‘contemporary non-European peoples off from their pre-colonial, and even colonial, pasts.’ 18 This she characterises as a form of ‘archaeology’ in which actual living people are recognised not as part of the present, but of another pre-European era. This is exemplified by Claude Levi-Strauss’s memoir Tristes Tropiques, which recalled his explorations of the Brazilian interior in 1955. 19 Levi-Strauss lamented the loss of differentiated tribal cultures as a result of contact with a potent monoculture. His desire to rescue in writing a disappearing people finds its equivalent in a National Geographic photograph from 1971, entitled ‘The Three Graces.’ 20 Encoding the three women within a Euro-centric framework is a form of Othering, the association with Greek myth implied both backwardness and potential, since Greek culture provided the basis for and measure of European civilisation, but it was also a conventional way of using recognisable tropes to interpret a still unrecognisable culture. 21 The caption informs the reader that the women ‘wore necklaces of dyed nutshells and almost nothing else.’ 22 Whilst National Geographic was responsive to generalised sartorial indicators of indigenous women, it was unaware of the highly nuanced symbolism, the result of adaptations to their changing lifestyles, which governed the styles, patterns, materials and colours of their dress. By discussing indigenous women’s dress in the ethnographic present as if it had remained untouched since ancient times, National Geographic made manifest the maxim expressed by Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins, that: one means for determining if fashion in dress exists as a concept among a group of people is to consider fashion in relation to the lifespan…If people in a society are generally not aware of change in the form of dress during their lifetimes, fashion does not exist in that society. 23 5. Conclusion This chapter has identified three particular periods in which the ‘contact zone’ can be seen to have operated in three differing ways throughout a century of National Geographic’s representation of Brazilian women’s dress. In examining the subjectivities of the National Geographic photograph, it is important to recognise the limitations of my own interpretations, which are inevitably guided by, and constructed through, my experiences of living and writing within the ‘contact zone.’

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Notes 1

Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992), 7. 2 Vron Ware, Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History (New York: Verso, 1992), 13-14. 3 Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, ‘The National Geographic Society and Its Magazine’, National Geographic 69, No. 1 (January 1936): 128. 4 Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 67. 5 Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 7. 6 Gillian Rose, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 1. 7 Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness (New York: Scribner and Sons, 1914), 217. 8 Albert Stephens, ‘Exploring the Valley of the Amazon in a Hydroplane’, National Geographic 69, No. 4 (April, 1926): 360. 9 Norman Denzin, ‘Reflection on the Ethnographer’s Camera’, Current Perspectives in Social Theory 7 (1986): 121. 10 Linda Steet, Veils and Daggers: A Century of National Geographic’s Representation of the Arab World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), 111. 11 Joseph Smith, Brazil and the United States: Convergence and Divergence (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010). 12 Herbert Phillips, ‘Air Cruising through New Brazil: A National Geographic Reporter Spots Vast Resources Which the Republic’s War Declaration Adds to Strength of United Nations’, National Geographic 72, No. 4 (October 1942): 519. 13 Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 7. 14 Ibid., 7. 15 Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art (London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2004), 137. 16 Harold Schultz, ‘Children of the Sun and Moon’, National Geographic 115, No. 3 (March 1959): 358. 17 Homi Bhaba, ‘Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse’, in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, eds. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 153. 18 Christopher Pinney, Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs (London: Reaktion Books, 1997), 45-56; Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 135. 19 Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (New York: Atheneum, 1974).

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Jesco von Puttaker, ‘Brazil Protects Her Cinta Largas’, National Geographic 140, No. 3 (September 1971): 440. 21 Christine M. Guth makes this point in discussing European traveller’s responses to Japanese customs and arts in the second half of the 19th century. Christine M. Guth, Longfellow’s Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting and Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), 31. 22 Puttaker, ‘Brazil Protects her Cinta Largas’, 440. 23 Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins, Joanne B. Eicher and Kim K. P. Johnson, Dress and Identity (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1995), 395.

Bibliography Bhaba, Homi. ‘Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse’. In Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, edited by Frederick Cooper, and Ann Laura Stoler, 152–162. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Cotton, Charlotte, The Photograph as Contemporary Art. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2004. Denzin, Norman. ‘Reflection on the Ethnographer’s Perspectives in Social Theory 7 (1986): 105–123.

Camera’. Current

Guth, Christine. Longfellow’s Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting and Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004. Levi-Strauss, Claude. Tristes Tropiques. New York: Atheneum, 1974. Pinney, Christopher. Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs. London: Reaktion Books, 1997. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992. Roach-Higgins, Mary Ellen, Joanne B. Eicher, and Kim K. P. Johnson. Dress and Identity. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1995. Roosevelt, Theodore. Through the Brazilian Wilderness. New York: Scribner and Sons, 1914.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rose, Gillian. Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Smith, Joseph. Brazil and the United States: Convergence and Divergence. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. Steet, Linda. Veils and Daggers: A Century of National Geographic’s Representation of the Arab World. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000. Ware, Vron. Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History. New York: Verso, 1992. Elizabeth Kutesko is an AHRC funded PhD candidate at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. The title of her thesis is ‘Fashioning Brazil: Globalization and the Representation of Brazilian Dress in National Geographic since 1988.’

Elizabeth Keckly and Ann Lowe: Constructing Fashionable Black Identity Elizabeth Way Abstract Elizabeth Keckly (1818-1907) and Ann Lowe (1898-1981) represent an important transition in the history of African American fashion design, bridging a historical gap between enslaved dressmakers of the antebellum period and independent commercial fashion designers in the second half of the twentieth century. Wealthy white women like Mary Todd Lincoln and Jacqueline Kennedy depended on Keckly and Lowe, respectively, to create their sartorial personas at significant occasions like political events and society weddings, and the dressmakers received national press coverage for their designs. In addition to their coveted garments and their dedicated client networks, Keckly and Lowe’s own fashionable images played important roles in their success as desirable dressmakers to the social elite. Though separated by a century, Keckly and Lowe carefully crafted their identities as elegant, upper-middle class women to cater to a specifically white fashion tradition. As a former slave, Keckly constructed her fashionable image to erase all signs of her former bondage; photographic portraits show her in stylish mid- and late nineteenth-century dress that echoed, but did not compete with, the clothing of the Washington DC political wives for whom she designed. By the mid-twentieth century, Lowe was slightly freer to construct a more distinctive style, but continued to emulate a specifically white fashionable image. She adopted a severely chic style that visually aligned her with other successful women in the fashion business; one client recalled that she looked like Coco Chanel. Keckly and Lowe participated in a movement among black women to appear lady-like and respectable as a reaction against discrimination and abuse, but both designers did so in particularly fashionable ways that contributed to their success as elite dressmakers and solidified their status among their clients as vital participants in an exclusive fashion system. Key Words: African American women, fashion designer, self-image. ***** 1. Introduction: Elizabeth Keckly and Ann Lowe Elizabeth Keckly and Ann Lowe are little known in fashion culture, however they designed gowns for some of the most famous women in American history. They were both black women who served an elite, white clientele, and their gowns were seen on the national stage, thereby influencing the story of American fashion. These women’s histories and material culture are important because of their impact on fashion, but they are also significant to African American history because of

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__________________________________________________________________ their remarkable success and triumph over racial barriers. Though their careers were separated by a century, Keckly and Lowe occupy the same space within the continuum of African American fashion history because they worked in a transitional period, building on the labour and talent of the anonymous enslaved dressmakers before them and paving the way for late-twentieth century designers to find success in mainstream culture. Elizabeth Keckly was born in 1818 in rural Dinwiddie County, Virginia to an enslaved woman, Agnes Hobbs, and her owner Colonel Armistead Burwell. Young Elizabeth worked in clothing production for her family, both white and black, from a very early age, assisting Agnes in sewing clothing and knitting socks. 1 Keckly left Virginia at eighteen, relocating with Burwell children first to Hillsborough, North Carolina and then to St. Louis, Missouri. In both locations, but especially in St. Louis, Keckly established connections with white people beyond her owner’s family and she continued to hone her design and construction skills. 2 In Missouri she was hired out as a dressmaker to help support her owner’s family, who were impoverished despite their gentility. She successfully parlayed their social connections into her own; Keckly used her client network and the money she made to purchase her freedom in 1855. She then exercised her newfound mobility by moving to Washington D.C. in the spring of 1860. 3 She worked at first as a common seamstress, but used her networking talents to cultivate prominent dressmaking clients. 4 She soon established herself as the leading dressmaker to the elite political wives of Washington and her patrons included the wives of presidential cabinet members, leading socialites such as Mrs Jefferson Davis, and most famously, the first lady, Mary Lincoln. Ann Lowe was born around 1898 in Clayton, Alabama and learned dressmaking as a child from her mother and grandmother. Both were well-known society dressmakers in Montgomery. 5 Their skills had been passed down from Lowe’s great-grandmother, who, much like Keckly’s mother, had been a slave, ‘in charge of the needlework in one of the great plantation homes.’ 6 After her mother died in 1914, sixteen-year-old Lowe was left to complete four gowns ordered by Alabama’s first lady, Elizabeth Kirkman O’Neal. Lowe finished the orders to her client’s satisfaction and promptly took over her mother’s business. 7 She relocated to Tampa in 1916 after a Florida socialite, Mrs Josephine Lee, noticed the fashionable ensemble Lowe was wearing in an Alabama department store and hired her on the spot as the Lee family’s live-in dressmaker. Lowe soon became Tampa’s most highly demanded designer, sewing for the city’s wealthiest women. 8 In 1927 she moved to New York City, where she opened a dressmaking shop on West 46th Street. Though Lowe struggled at first, her exquisite work eventually caught the attention of prominent New York socialites. Lowe continually expanded her network, attracting clients with her creative and couture-quality gowns, and she placed herself among the most prestigious designers of debutante and wedding gowns for New York City high society by the 1950s. She is most known today for

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__________________________________________________________________ designing Jacqueline Kennedy’s wedding gown in 1953, though she was not publically acknowledged as the designer at the time. Despite their fame and influence in their times, there is little scholarship that examines either Keckly or Lowe as fashion designers. My research diverges from the biographical approach taken by previous scholars and focuses instead on the aspects of Keckly’s and Lowe’s careers that not only account for their success, but also link them together and into the history of African American fashion design. Keckly and Lowe were successful and exclusive fashion designers because they excelled at creating fashionable garments and cultivating elite networks of patronage, but their status within their respective fashion systems also relied on the self-images they presented. While providing essential services to wealthy and stylish women, it was vital that both designers exuded the confidence and style that demonstrated that they not only belonged to the world of high fashion, but also possessed fashionable authority within it. This authority, combined with the occasional national publicity they attracted, gave black fashion designers, and black women in general, a visibility that was rare in the nineteenth century and still uncommon in the mid-twentieth century. Though Keckly and Lowe inherited a complex and disturbing history in regard to the appearance of the black female body, the images they disseminated as fashion professionals contested such negative or stereotypical images of black women. 9 2. The Image of the African American Fashion Designer Keckly’s and Lowe’s self-images adhered to specific ideals within each woman’s era and maximised their credibility among their clients by conveying a shrewd understanding of the period’s visual language. Fashion historian, Claudia Kidwell, wrote in the foreword of Joan Severa’s book Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashions, ‘Photographs should not be accepted uncritically. It is possible, certainly, to arrange the truth – if not exactly lie – for the occasion of the photograph.’ 10 As fashion professionals, Keckly and Lowe would have consciously and skilfully controlled the details of their photographs to communicate the most appealing version of their professional selves. Both women ‘arranged the truth’ in their photographs to align with the mainstream, white standards for the fashion professional, but also lived up to these images in their professional lives to maintain their expert authority and demand respect from their high-class clientele. Joan Severa points out, The perception of culture in the United States in the nineteenthcentury was in very large part based on appearances and…there was a powerful drive toward a “proper” façade. It was of tremendous, almost moral, significance…that one appear cultured. 11

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__________________________________________________________________ Keckly, like all nineteenth-century middle-class women, would have styled her image on such Victorian dictates. By the 1950s, Lowe was fashioning her image to a much different visual standard, one that was set specifically within the fashion profession, but the goal was the same: to appear confidently and effortlessly cultured, elegant and tasteful. The images Keckly put forth in the 1860s highlighted her modesty, elegance, and Victorian style. In contrast, Lowe adhered to a very precise ‘fashion-insider’ look that drew inspiration from successful midtwentieth century fashion designers and tastemakers, both male and female. 3. Elizabeth Keckly’s Nineteenth-Century Image In the mid- to late nineteenth century, photographs tended to follow a prescribed style that imitated traditional portrait painting. Keckly’s photographs from the 1860s follow this prescription; of the three images examined here, two were obviously taken in a photographer’s studio, evident through props that were common at this time, such as the fringed cushion and drapery. 12 The third image is a sketch, based on a photograph, which served as the frontispiece in Keckly’s memoir, Behind the Scenes, published in 1868. These images recorded Keckly at the height of her career in Washington and show her as a beautiful and fashionable woman. Personal remembrances of Keckly, collected by John Washington, author of They Knew Lincoln, reveal how Washington’s elite black community regarded her, Mrs Keckly was a woman of refinement and culture…She carried herself gracefully and [was] well poised and had a striking and pleasing personality…She was a magnificentlooking woman, tall, stately and with an imperious-looking face. 13 Keckly’s appearance was certainly influenced by her profession and her clients, but she also lived within the elite black community in Washington and participated in the racial uplift movement through her charity work. Dressing in her way, described as ‘refined and rich, but not gaudy,’ 14 would have endeared her to both her white clients and the class-conscious African Americans in her social group. Middle class black women at this time were expected to follow the latest fashions and dress according to their respected positions within their communities. For example, Charlotte Forten Grimké (1837-1914), wife of Presbyterian minister Frances Grimké, was an abolitionist and teacher. 15 Her photograph (contemporaneous, but undated) shows her in fashionable and respectable, if sedate dress. Sarah J. S. Garnet (1831-1911), wife of the prominent abolitionist minister Henry Highland Garnet, was a pioneering black educator, seamstress and business owner, and again was photographed in fashionable clothing, adhering to mainstream standards of beauty in hair and jewellery. 16 For these black women,

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__________________________________________________________________ including Keckly, dressing in stylish clothing and presenting themselves as ladies were fundamental statements about their equality, social standing, and distance from slavery. In the first photograph, Keckly is posed seated with very straight posture. She gazes off to her right, showing off her stylish hair arrangement, and reflecting the photographic conventions of the period. She wears a silk dress, trimmed in velvet stripes, buttons, and fringe. Her accessories include a separate white collar, a brooch and chain, earrings and a wedding ring. Keckly is well and fashionably dressed in this image, yet her clothing is not overly formal or lavish. She conveys seriousness and stylish practicality, and although she does not smile, her expression is soft. In the two additional portraits of Keckly, she is more assertive, looking straight into the camera. The 1861 full-length photograph again shows a soft expression and stylish, yet practical dress and hair arrangement. Note that she wears her skirt with relatively low volume, but she shows off a good figure for a middle-aged woman. The sketched frontispiece of her book, however, hardens her features, and in this image she seems the most mature and sedate. This 1868 image accompanied her work as a published author and may have played down beauty and style to enhance an intellectual tone, similarly to Grimké’s photograph. In all these images Keckly shows herself as sensibly and appropriately adorned, yet in command of her beauty and style. Looking the part of a respectable Victorian middle-class woman, Keckly’s photographs conveyed her knowledge of the social mores that her clients practiced and informed them that she was able to act appropriately among them. For example, Keckly’s 1860s photograph bears similarity to the socialite, Varina Davis’s 1867 image, taken with her husband, Jefferson Davis. Though there are more details in this photograph, Varina Davis is similarly styled with an averted gaze and notably comparable dress and hair arrangement. These two images show women familiar with the same social ideals and Keckly’s ability to successfully portray herself as well-bred, appropriately demure, and stylish helped her gain respect from her clients as both a dressmaker and a woman worthy of their personal esteem. This skill not only increased her appeal to clients, but also fought widely held images of black women as low skilled and uncultured. Keckly managed her appearance to conform to her clients’ ideal of an elite mantua maker; well dressed and cultured, but did not attempt rivalry. For example, she was never photographed in the extravagant and overtly, and some considered inappropriately, youthful styles that Mary Lincoln showed in her 1861 photograph. 17 Even in comparison to one of Lincoln’s less formal photographs from 1863 in which she wears a frilled black gown with pagoda sleeves, Keckly’s appearance was simpler and more serviceable, with close fitting sleeves and a lack of ruffles and bows. Perhaps distancing herself from Lincoln’s criticised style, Keckly’s 1861 appearance aligns more closely to that of Lincoln’s chief social rival, Kate Chase Sprague. Sprague was popular in society and unlike the

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__________________________________________________________________ emotional and unpredictable Lincoln. 18 Keckly described Sprague in her memoir as, ‘a lovely woman, and…worthy of all the admiration she received.’ 19 In their photographs, Keckly and Sprague show similar fashionable silhouettes, hairstyles, and modest poses, but Keckly wisely left the bold patterns, voluminous sleeves and skirt, and more dramatic dress details to the younger Mrs Sprague. 4. Ann Lowe’s Mid-Twentieth Century Image By Ann Lowe’s time, the American and European fashion industry had developed a character separate from the generally well-dressed populace. The image of the fashion insider – a group made up of designers, editors, models and notably fashionable socialites – emerged as a distinct and recognisable persona. Fashion insiders tended to dress simply and professionally in suits and shifts, generally wearing neutral black, white and grey tones. These looks were not exclusive to fashion insiders, but effectively conveyed that status to the public. Unlike Keckly, Lowe’s professional image did not resemble the look of her clientele, many of whom were adolescent debutantes. Instead Lowe styled herself in line with the leading personalities in the mid-century high fashion world, promoting a look that exuded urbanity, artistic ability, and a haughty chicness. In her editorialised images published in the Saturday Evening Post, Ebony, and Sepia magazines, Lowe strikingly resembles designers such as Christian Dior in her poses and gestures, and tastemakers like Coco Chanel and Dianna Vreeland in her dress and appearance. Lowe’s 1966 full colour portrait accompanying her Ebony interview follows a specific photographic formula that identifies Lowe as an exclusive fashion designer. Posed with a model displaying her work, the image looks extremely similar to Vogue’s 1957 portrait of Christian Dior. Lowe is depicted as lord of her spacious atelier, both artist and dictator, and like Dior she is smartly dressed in simple black. These two images portray these designers as the embodiment of a rarefied world of high fashion, inaccessible to the masses. Ebony and the Saturday Evening Post published several more photographs of Lowe as a designer at work, and again she followed formulaic stances that easily communicated her profession, such as sketching and fitting. These photographs correspond to similar images of Dior and Cristóbal Balenciaga and associate Lowe with the most recognised talents in French haute couture. Through these images, all three designers conveyed their artistic gifts and technical skills, implying through the depictions of their creative process, that both were rare and desired traits. Though her poses recall the male geniuses of the design world, Lowe’s clothing and appearance are distinctly feminine. Her simple, severely chic dresses and coordinating accessories, including smart hats, shoes, and glasses, recall images of Dianna Vreeland and Coco Chanel. The 1966 photograph of a smiling Lowe fitting a gown on her assistant conjures up Vreeland’s joyful attitude towards fashion, but the more thoughtful image of Lowe putting the final touches on a

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__________________________________________________________________ wedding gown, evoke a similarly focused 1962 image of Chanel at work. All of these images are obviously posed and editorialised, but they speak the multifaceted, yet strictly proscribed, visual language used in the mid-twentieth century to define fashion professionals. The look was sophisticated and simple, above the vagaries of the fashions they created, yet exemplary of refined and stylish taste, shown in accessories, such as a well-chosen hat or brooch. Even Lowe’s thin, fragile physique affiliated her with women like Vreeland, Chanel and Harper’s Bazaar editor, Carmel Snow. This image of the thin, fashionably chic tastemaker was endorsed by popular culture in Kay Thompson’s magazine editor character in the 1957 film, Funny Face. While this look connoted severe chic, professionalism, and mid-century lady-like appropriateness, it also hinted at an air of wealth, superiority and exclusivity. This haut monde attitude can be further traced in Lowe’s actions as a fashion authority, such as strictly limiting her clientele by social status, traveling to Paris to report on the couture fashion shows, or taking tea with Christian Dior. 20 Lowe seemed to have an innate sensibility not just in creating fashionable gowns, but also in fashioning herself; even as an adolescent, her style was sophisticated enough to impress Mrs Lee from across a department store. 21 When a Lee family descendent, Joan Apthorp, finally met Lowe, she recalled the experience to the Tampa Tribune, I heard about her all my life. She was really quite attractive. She was dressed completely in black, with a small hat and beautifully tailored suit and stockings and a lovely black cane. 22 Apthorp partially attributed Lowe’s success to these ‘demure and attractive’ qualities. 23 Lowe continued to make her own clothing and dressed in the chic, urbane style promoted by the elite fashion industry, even when her financial circumstances were poor. Thomas Congdon of the Saturday Evening Post noted in 1964, ‘The clothes Miss Lowe herself wears, always black, are cut well but well worn.’ 24 There is no doubt that Lowe dressed to associate herself with the mostrespected fashion influences of her time and that she was well-versed in the nuances of this look. Through her appearance in photographs and in person, she sent the message to her clientele and the American public that, not only was she a lady of refined taste and style, but she was an authoritative fashion insider. 25 Her clients understood these visual communications; Betty King, a 1950 debutante, recalled her memories of Lowe, Some of the pictures that you see of Chanel…I think of Ann Lowe, that sort of simple, elegant…different coloured skin, but a lady beautifully dressed with a hat, who was making clothes. 26

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__________________________________________________________________ The fact that Lowe successfully looked the part, conveying her talent, taste and professional status through her image without regard to her race in this racially charged era, is a testament to her image building skills. In doing so she made the American public slightly more receptive to successful and chic black fashion designers. 5. Conclusion Keckly and Lowe’s images and the skill with which they constructed them served as important a role in their success as their considerable design and networking talents because these images informed not just their clients, but all who saw them, that these black women were fashion – and fashionable – experts. They rose above the indignities inflicted on their race and conducted themselves through behaviour and dress as professional women, well-bred enough to interact with the crème of American society. They refined their images to promote the best picture of their professional selves, innately familiar with the elite style and social conventions of their times, and their visibility on the national level prepared the American public for the next generation of African American fashion designers who would participate in the mainstream fashion industry.

Notes 1

Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave and Fours Years in the White House (New York: G.W. Carlton and Co. Publishers, 1868), 21; Jennifer Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave (New York: Broadway, 2004), 38-39. 2 Armistead Burwell lent Keckly out to his son to ease Robert’s financial burdens and she passed into Anne Burwell Garland’s (Armistead’s daughter) ownership upon Anne’s marriage. Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 32 and 45. 3 Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 54-56 and 64-65; Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly, 183. 4 Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly, 131 and 190. 5 Lois K. Alexander, ed., Designer Ann Lowe: A Sixty-Five Year Retrospective (New York: Black Fashion Museum, 1986), 4. 6 Maxine Cheshire, ‘Miss Lowe Puts Her Heart into this Wedding Dress’, Washington Post, 21 May 1968, C1. 7 Alexander, Designer Ann Lowe, 4-5; Margaret Powell, ‘The Life and Work of Ann Lowe: Rediscovering “Society’s Best-Kept Secret”’ (Master’s Thesis, Smithsonian Associates and Corcoran College of Art and Design, 2012). 8 Thomas B. Congdon Jr, ‘Ann Lowe: Society’s Best-Kept Secret’, Saturday Evening Post, 12 December 1964, 75; Powell, ‘The Life and Work of Ann Lowe’.

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Fashion and appearance have historically been complex issues for black women, especially as slaves. As Katie Knowles explains, ‘Enslaved people who dressed in cast-off clothing or made their own hoop skirts challenged the social system by participating in the current fashion system.’ Katie Knowles, ‘Fashioning Slavery: Slaves and Clothing in the United States South, 1830-1865’, Dress 38 (2012): 33. After emancipation, black women were freer to make their own fashion choices and those who could afford it dressed in fashionable styles, yet many whites disparaged these fashions as mimicry of white ladies and dressing beyond black women’s social position. Tamika Richeson argues that black women who ‘played the lady’ were not trying to imitate white women; dressing fashionably was an attempt by black women to demand the respect that white women received and combat white male attitudes that led to sexual abuse. Tamika Richeson, ‘Behind the Seams: Elizabeth Keckly’s Interwoven Stitches across Race and Class in Black Washington’ (Master’s Thesis, University of Virginia, 2012); Patricia K. Hunt, ‘Clothing as an Expression of History: The Dress of African American Women in Georgia, 1880-1915’, The Georgia Historical Quarterly 76, No. 2 (1992): 462463. Even in the twentieth century, stereotypes persisted about black female appearance as related to sexuality, painting black women as physically powerful (from manual labour) and sexually promiscuous. Shirley J. Yee, Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism 1828-1860 (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1992), 41-42. 10 Claudia Kidwell, Preface to Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashions 1840-1900, by Joan Severa (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1995), xi. 11 Ibid., xv. 12 Nancy Hall-Duncan, The History of Fashion Photography (New York: Alpine Book Company, 1979), 18. 13 John Washington, They Knew Lincoln (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1942), 216 and 218. These statements were collected in the 1940s by John Washington, and were taken from people who had known Keckly as an old woman. However, her 1860s photographs attest to their relevance in her middle age. 14 Washington, They Knew Lincoln, 218; Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly, 192. 15 Jessie Carnie Smith, ed., Notable Black American Women (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992), 358-364; Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly, 324-325. 16 Smith, Notable Black American Women, 388-390. Again this photograph is contemporaneous to Keckly’s images or slightly later, but the date is unknown. 17 Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly, 210; Donna McCreary, Fashionable First Lady: The Victorian Wardrobe of Mary Lincoln (Charlestown, IN: Lincoln Presentations, 2007), ix-x.

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Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly, 269. Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 128. 20 ‘Miss Anne Lowe Covers Paris Fashion Opening for the New Age’, New York Age, 24 September 1949; Gerri Major, ‘Dean of American Fashion Designers’, Ebony, December 1966, 142. 21 Congdon, ‘Ann Lowe: Society’s Best-Kept Secret’, 75. 22 Cloe Cabrera, ‘For a First Lady of Style, It All Began in Tampa’, Tampa Tribune, 30 January 2007, accessed 20 February 2013, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=n5h&AN=2W6682953313 &site=ehost-live. 23 Cabrera, ‘For a First Lady of Style, It All Began in Tampa’. 24 Congdon, ‘Ann Lowe: Society’s Best-Kept Secret,’ 75. 25 Major, ‘Dean of American Fashion Designers’, 138. 26 Betty King, interview with author, 9 August 2012. 19

Bibliography Alexander, Lois K., ed. Designer Ann Lowe: A Sixty-five Year Retrospective. New York: Black Fashion Museum, 1986. Exhibition Catalogue. Cabrera, Cloe. ‘For a First Lady of Style, It All Began in Tampa’. Tampa Tribune, 30 January 2007. Accessed 20 February 2013. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=n5h&AN=2W6682953313 &site=ehost-live. Cheshire, Maxine. ‘Miss Lowe Puts Her Heart into This Wedding Dress’. Washington Post, 21 May 1968. Congdon Jr., Thomas B. ‘Ann Lowe: Society’s Best-Kept Secret’. Saturday Evening Post, 12 December 1964. ‘Fashion Designer of the Elite’. Sepia, August 1966. Fleischner, Jennifer. Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship between a First Lady and a Former Slave. New York: Broadway, 2004. Hall-Duncan, Nancy. The History of Fashion Photography. New York: Alpine Book Company, 1979.

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__________________________________________________________________ Hunt, Patricia K. ‘Clothing As An Expression of History: The Dress of African American Women in Georgia, 1880-1915’. The Georgia Historical Quarterly 76, No. 2 (1992): 459–471. Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave and Fours Years in the White House. New York: G.W. Carlton and Co. Publishers, 1868. Kidwell, Claudia. Preface to Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashions, 1840-1900, by Joan Severa. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1995. Knowles, Katie. ‘Fashioning Slavery: Slaves and Clothing in the United States South, 1830-1865’. Dress 38 (2012): 24–36. Major, Gerri. ‘Dean of American Designers’. Ebony, December 1966. McCreary, Donna D. Fashionable First Lady: The Victorian Wardrobe of Mary Lincoln. Charlestown, IN: Lincoln Presentations, 2007. ‘Miss Anne Lowe Covers Paris Fashion Opening for the New Age’. New York Age, 24 September 1949. Powell, Margaret. ‘The Life and Work of Ann Lowe: Rediscovering “Society’s Best-Kept Secret”’. Master’s Thesis, Smithsonian Associates and Corcoran College of Art and Design, 2012. Richeson, Tamika. ‘Behind the Seams: Elizabeth Keckly’s Interwoven Stitches Across Race and Class in Black Washington’. Master’s Thesis, University of Virginia, 2012. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992. Washington, John. They Knew Lincoln. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1942. Yee, Shirley J. Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism 1828-1860. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1992.

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__________________________________________________________________ Elizabeth Way holds a master’s degree in Costume Studies from New York University. Her current research focuses on African American fashion designers, particularly between the 1860s and 1960s.

Barbara Hoff: Polish Fashion Dictator in the People’s Republic of Poland (1945-1989) Dominika Łukoszek Abstract Barbara Hoff worked as a fashion journalist for a weekly magazine Przekrój for 48 years (1954-2002). During these years she educated generations of Polish women and men about what one should wear to be fashionable and, what is the most important, how to achieve this effect in a country where until 1989 fashion industry was controlled by the government which did not allow anything ‘western’ to appear on the streets. She was a pioneer of DIY – one of her most famous inventions was how to make fashionable ballerina flats out of sport shoes available then at shops: one had to cut out the part with laces and dye the ‘new’ shoes black at home. Barbara Hoff also promoted trends popular in western countries with her simple hand drawings. The drawings allowed the readers to understand what silhouette was fashionable and how one can create a similar outfit at home out of available materials. Since 1969 she had designed mass collections that were available in department stores ‘Centrum’ in Warsaw. Her first collection was created in 11,000 pieces and was a huge success. Very often she used textiles that nobody wanted or that were perceived as unsuitable for production. She perceived her work as a way of fighting communism in Poland and it was her true mission. For most of the years her work was usually badly paid or not paid at all. In 2004 Barbara Hoff was chosen as one of the 50 most influential women in Polish history by the readers of Polityka (a weekly magazine). Key Words: Barbara Hoff, history of fashion, fashion in Poland, Polish fashion designers. ***** 1. Introduction Describing the activity in the field of promoting and creating fashion undertaken by Barbara Hoff in the times of the People’s Republic of Poland (19451989) is still an undiscovered land. The effects of research presented below have an introductory character to a broader project reflecting upon how fashion was perceived, promoted (or on the contrary, fought against) and created in the times of communistic regime in Poland. In a system in which every sphere of a person’s life is supposed to be controlled by the government, was fashion at all possible? The attitude presented by Mrs. Hoff towards the regime proves that it was. By presenting new trends in fashion to the readers of Przekrój or influencing the tastes of consumers by designing her own collections, she showed that in the world of limited possibilities some

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__________________________________________________________________ individuals could find the way to create a ‘window to the West’ and convinced others that there is a choice – even if in such a trivial matter as what to wear. The image that emerges from the collected materials presents a determined and decisive person, a person, who has an unshaken belief that what she does is right and desirable. 2. Barbara Hoff: A Short Biography Barbara Hoff was born in 1932 in Katowice, in southern Poland. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a housewife who took care of the house with servants’ help. Barbara was to be a lawyer but due to her ’inappropriate’ social origin she was rejected as a candidate at law faculty. But when she discovered art history she did not care about law anymore. To understand why she decided to fight with communism by means of fashion it is crucial to mention her family’s history: in 1962 her father was taken by the Secret Service Officer (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa – UB) for an interrogation. Mr. Hoff for some time had misgivings that such a situation might happen: he was a lawyer and his clients were examined, he felt that the UB was collecting evidence against him. Three days after arresting him the UB officers informed Barbara and her mother that Mr. Hoff hung himself in a cell with his own torn shirt. He was 56 years old. Hoff’s family never received any explanation about what happened and Mrs. Hoff, who was given that shirt back, has had it in her wardrobe until today.The shirt is undamaged. 1 Her family was always against communism and for Barbara designing fashionable clothes for ordinary people was a mission, she perceived it as a ‘breath of fresh air’ that helped to avoid ‘sovietisation.’ 2 In fulfilling her mission she worked as a fashion journalist for Przekrój (a weekly Polish magazine) since 1954 until 2002 and from the 1960’s she also designed her own collections being the first Polish fashion designer who created clothing under her own name. In one of the interviews she said: I was a fashion dictator. I wanted power. I love power and I always wanted to be a politician. In the past a political career for a person with my political views was impossible but in fashion I ruled in a dictator manner. I wrote in a manner that did not tolerate opposition. 3 3. Przekrój Przekrój is a weekly newspaper created in 1945 and still existing today. In its beginnings it was supposed to be a humorous magazine that made its name as a medium that was not supposed to be taken seriously. Agnieszka Osiecka called Przekrój ‘a school of smile, tact, tenderness.’ 4 It turned out to be an effective strategy and the magazine managed to keep some sort of a neutral position, i.e.

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__________________________________________________________________ during most of the years the newspaper’s workers were relatively independent of the ruling party in Poland. The first editor of Przekrój Marian Eile wanted to create a ‘window to the West:’ Przekrój published pieces of contemporary French literature, American advertisements or gossip from England. Of course, such materials needed to be balanced by ideological texts from Moscow but nevertheless editorial staff had a mission to civilise Polish society after the Second World War ended. 5 Eile promoted intelligent, non-communistic lifestyle. His mission was to show a piece of world to Polish people who were ‘locked’ in the People’s Republic of Poland. Although Eile left Przekrój in 1968, the profile of the magazine was continued in the next decades. Barbara Hoff started working in Przekrój in 1954. Together with another employee at Przekrój, Janina Ipohorska, they worked as a duo under pen names: Lucynka and Paulinka. To illustrate their conversations and articles about fashion and lifestyle, they cut out photographs from western magazines and created intriguing collages. 6 Hoff had access to British Vogue thanks to a milliner from Katowice, Mrs. Pacanowska. 7 Przekrój also subscribed to Elle, but access to the magazine was limited because everyone in the editorial staff wanted to read it. When it was impossible to get photographs of fashionable clothes, Hoff did the drawings herself. Her drawings were very simple, they showed what was en vogue then and how to achieve a desired effect. 8 It was her way to fight with socialistic regime that perceived fashion as ‘an ulcer in the healthy body’ of socialism. To wear elegant clothes was dangerous because it showed that intelligent, educated, classy people are against the regime. 9 But it turned out that her female readers not only wanted to read about fashion but first and foremost wanted to know how to achieve a fashionable look. The designs that Hoff presented in the beginnings were perceived as impossible to realise with very humble amount of materials available then in Poland. But this did not discourage Hoff. On the contrary, she wanted to prove that it is possible to follow the western trends. She bought textiles with her own money and asked her friend’s mother to sew dresses based on her drawings (Hoff herself never sew clothes, she always said she suffered from ‘needle phobia’). 10 Hoff recalls, that when she started working for Przekrój her first revolution was how to make fashionable ballerina flats out of sport shoes (called ‘pepegi’) available then at shops: one had to cut out the part with laces and dye the ‘new’ shoes black at home. They were called ‘trumniaki’ (‘coffin shoes’) and were an immediate success. Originally ‘trumniaki’ were cardboard shoes that the deceased were buried in but somehow people associated Hoff’s idea with them and the name stayed. 11 When she suggested wearing a white, transparent headscarf like Grace Kelly or Brigitte Bardot, it was even noticed by a speaker on Sunday evening news on television: he said he noticed eighteen girls with such headscarves on that day in Warsaw. 12

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__________________________________________________________________ When in 1966 Yves Saint Laurent showed his ‘Mondrian Dress’ on the runway, Hoff advised her readers that this model is very easy to create with small pieces of textiles. Another possibility to create ‘Mondrian look’ was to broaden a dress that was too small by using black pieces of textile and ‘persuade oneself that one is looking slim.’ 13 About one month later she drew a few possible solutions of how to use YSL’s ideas and create one’s own ‘Mondrian Dress.’ 14 When in 1969 mini-dress was en vogue, she advised women to buy a tight, men’s T-shirt and dye it at home. 15 Marian Eile was sometimes called to Warsaw to explain why Mrs. Hoff presented ‘imperial’ ideas that were against the communist system. 16 He used to say that the fashion presented in Przekrój is indeed awful, but unfortunately there is no money to make anything better. 17 In 1975 a new initiative appeared in Przekrój: Hoff decided to award a ‘Golden Hand’ for ‘outstanding achievements in fashion or costumes.’ 18 The award was given for several years only and the recipients of ‘Golden Hand’ were: Magdalena Telesławska (in 1975), Ewa Starowieyska (in 1976), Spółdzielnia Cepelii ‘Nowa Praca Niewidomych’ (in 1977), Maryla Rodowicz (in 1978), Jadwiga Grabowska (in 1979) and Artur Turalski (in 1980). Throughout the years of writing articles about fashion for Przekrój, there were some topics that appeared regularly in Hoff’s column: ski clothing, beach wear, make-up novelties, hairstyle trends, ball dresses and haute couture reviews. The reviews from Paris were possible thanks to Halina Kłobukowska, art director at Polish Fashion Group (Moda Polska) who visited the shows and reported on them to Hoff. While working for Przekrój, Hoff and Ipohorska also wrote a book What to Wear? (1958) that even appeared on a national list of bestselling books. 19 Sometimes Hoff also presented collections designed by Polish Fashion Group that was an official organisation for promoting Polish fashion. 20 According to Hoff, ‘PFG shops promoted a new, socialistic townsman who reconciled himself with the system, was satisfied and satiated.’ 21 From the articles she wrote we can also discover a few other Polish fashion designers who tried to develop their own collections either individually or by working for national companies. 4. Hoffland The fashion articles, ideas and advice that Barbara Hoff published in Przekrój were very important but it was not enough for her. Being a fashion advisor did not satisfy her, she not only wanted to present contemporary fashion trends from the West but she also wanted to create them, to influence directly what people wear according to her own designs. She was not interested in fulfilling individual orders, she wanted to dress entire Poland. As early as in 1956 her first designs appeared in Przekrój as ‘Przekrój’s own collection’ but the designs were signed with Hoff’s name. 22

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__________________________________________________________________ In 1967, to allow people from all over Poland to buy clothes designed by Hoff, Przekrój published four times a coupon – this was meant to avoid the accusations that the clothes are available in Warsaw only. 23 The idea behind it was to create good publicity around this action. When Hoff designed velvet dresses, the organisers prepared 200 pieces of them. But there were around seven thousand letters from people who wanted to get the dress designed by Hoff, some even from abroad, containing rubles or dollars. Additional amounts of clothing were produced on the spot but there were not enough textiles to answer all the requests, and not enough paper and string to send the packages. The whole action turned out to be a failure and, of course, Hoff was to blame. 24 When designing her first full collection, Barbara made an offer to Józef Syroka, director at Cora (a clothing company): she would design a collection that would be sold at the department store ‘Centrum’ in Warsaw. Her offer was very unusual: at that time between a national clothing company and a national shop, unions existed that mechanically, according to established distribution rules, divided consumer goods into regions, towns and shops. There was no place for an individual designer. Barbara discovered how to avoid being involved in the socialistic system of ordering and distributing: the contract was signed between the clothing factory Cora (the producer of Hoff’s collection) and the department store ‘Centrum,’ that was to sell the collection, but Hoff’s name was nowhere. 25 Syroka agreed on that offer without even seeing Hoff’s drawings. The first collection designed by Hoff was sold in 11 000 pieces (11 models, 1000 pieces each). All clothes were made of corduroy and in few colours. The photos of the collection appeared in Przekrój. 26 On the day when Hoff’s clothes were to be sold in ‘Centrum’ in Warsaw, people stormed the shop: windows were broken, the clothes were stolen from mannequins, milicja (police in the communist regime) was called to handle the situation. In case the whole idea turned out to be a failure, Barbara risked nothing because she had no contract and her name was not mentioned in any document. Also for the producers the situation was safe because producing things that nobody wanted was not a problem as long as the amount of the produced goods reached a required level. 27 Designing clothes was the second step after finding available (usually not desirable) textiles. In that period there was no possibility that Hoff, as a fashion designer, would decide herself what textiles or prints she wanted to use. She was dependent on choices and decisions made by a person who planned the production of clothing. The challenge was to find a textile suitable to make clothing of it, to find a factory that would make the clothing in a certain time and to place the collection in shops before it becomes unfashionable. During years of cooperation with different factories all over Poland, Hoff managed to convince some of the producers to create patterns and textiles that were fashionable. Sometimes she herself suggested an idea for a new textile but then it was produced ‘outside the system;’ it was not dependent on the official orders. 28

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__________________________________________________________________ There was also a problem when Hoff promoted the maxi-dress. Central Committee (KC – Komitet Centralny) forbade dresses of this length because there were still mini-skirts in storehouses, but luckily for Hoff the manager at ‘Centrum’ did not follow KC’s instructions and maxi-dresses could be sold. But probably it would not be possible without Hoff’s tricky idea to write an article about a collection from Moscow where she presented a patterned maxi-dress designed by a Russian fashion designer. 29 In one of her collections in 1976 appeared leather shoes with round toes, inspired by the boots worn by Brazilian peasants. 30 This model was created in cooperation with Polish factory Radoskór from Radom. First nobody believed that shoes can be made of this kind of leather (tanned cowhide). Employees at Radoskór had never seen Italian shoes; most of them had never visited Warsaw or any other big city. To convince them to produce a model different from what they were used to produce was a real battle. Hoff also had to explain to government officials of her idea because shoe producers were rather skeptical about manufacturing such ‘strange’ shoes. But again, it was a huge success because in the People’s Republic of Poland there were always problems with buying welldesigned good-quality shoes for men and tanned cowhide leather was available in big amounts because nobody thought it is suitable for shoes production. 31 First the collections designed by Hoff were simply called ‘Przekrój’s own collection’ or ‘Hoff’s collection.’ The name Hoffland appeared first in the 1970’s and it was a result of a contest held in 1977; students from Warsaw Academy of Arts were supposed to prepare a stand for Hoff and the winning project was to be financed by the department store ‘Centrum.’ Three girls – Barbara Danicka, Barbara Kontkiewicz and Ewa Siwek – won the contest and invented the name Hoffland and so the brand name appeared. 32 In each collection Hoff tried to design something avant-garde, because, as she once said: ‘ordinary clothing is boring for me.’ 33 In the 1980’s she created a female shirt based on a men’s tailcoat, 34 sometimes the shirts were buttoned on the back on one button only, and sometimes a part of her shirt could be rolled up. But it was a small part of a collection because it was – in her own words – amateurish. Asymmetrical clothes also did not sell very well. 35 During the first years Barbara Hoff designed clothes for free – as mentioned above her name was not included in any contract. She cooperated with dozens of factories but she drove to them with her own car. She could not have been paid because she was not a member of a union for artists-designers. Only the people who studied at University of Arts could be members of this union and Hoff studied art history at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. With such a diploma she could not be accepted as a member. She was also poorly paid by Przekrój, because editors thought she earned a lot for designing collections for Hoffland. Problems started in the 1970’s when artists fought for high wages with the government (successfully). Hoff, as the most prolific designer, could not have worked for free

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__________________________________________________________________ because this badly influenced the whole artistic business. Then her situation was regulated, she became not only a member but she was given a position in the union’s board. She also received a part-time job as a designer for ‘Centrum.’ 36 5. Conclusions It is crucial to understand the importance of Barbara Hoff’s activity in the times of communism when all centers of design were controlled by governmental institutions. Nevertheless, she managed to create her own collections despite all the difficulties and shortages of all possible means to design and produce a clothes range. Research on Hoff’s activity is essential not only to describe her achievements but also to discover other fashion designers, clothing companies and manufacturers who were involved in dressing Poland in the period between 1945 to 1989. Barbara Hoff created the first fashion brand in Poland. Today we would use the term fast fashion brand because the clothes she created were intended for mass consumers; ‘It is not worth getting up from your bed for ten pieces’ 37 – she used to say. Her idea was always to design fashionable and affordable clothing. The 4th of June 1989 is the symbolic date of the end of communism in Poland. After 1989 Barbara Hoff thought about retiring, the regime has collapsed, there was no enemy to fight with, the colonisation of minds done by the USSR finished. But she quickly discovered that together with democracy came a wave of bad taste and she decided to continue her work for Hoffland until 2007. 38 Almost a complete collection of clothes created by Barbara Hoff for Hoffland is archived in the department of National Museum, in the Design Centre in Otwock (Poland). 39 But in an interview from April 2013 Mrs. Hoff said that she is against organising an exhibition of her work as long as she lives. 40 Her efforts in promoting fashion throughout the years were appreciated in 2004 when she was chosen as one of the 50 most influential women in Polish history by the readers of Polityka (a weekly magazine). 41

Notes 1

Marcin Kołodziejczyk, ‘Hoff Misja’, Polityka. Sztuka Życia 5, No. 5, (20 April 2011): 34-39. 2 Aneta Borowiec, ed., Kobiety, Które Igrały z PRLem (Warszawa: AGORA SA, 2012), 39-54. 3 Ibid., 46. 4 Agnieszka Osiecka, Szpetni Czterdziestoletni (Warszawa: Prószyński i S-ka SA, 2008), 54.

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Justyna Jaworska, Cywilizacja Przekroju: Misja Obyczajowa w Magazynie Ilustrowanym (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2008), 72. 6 Joanna Sabak, ‘PRL Ubierał się u Hoff’, 13 September 2010, accessed 3 June 2013, http://gazetapraca.pl/gazetapraca/1,90443,8370544,PRL_ubieral_sie_u_Hoff.html. 7 Natalia Wrzesień and Barbara Hoff, ‘Rozmowa z Barbarą Hoff i Robertem Kuleszą’, 26 January 2010, accessed 3 June 2013, http://www.moda.com.pl/moda/projektanci/17011/Barbara_Hoff/. 8 Anna Pełka, Teksas-Land. Moda Młodzieżowa w PRL (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio, 2007), 41-42. 9 Borowiec, Kobiety, 44. 10 Pełka, Teksas-Land, 41. 11 Borowiec, Kobiety, 39-40. 12 Piotr Rypson, ‘Dziwny Igłowstręt: An Interview with Barbara Hoff’, Piktogram, ed. Michał Woliński (Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Piktogram, No. 16, 2011/2012), 52. A photograph of Brigitte Bardot and an illustration of headscarfs appeared in Hoff’s article in Przekrój in 1959 (Przekrój 749 (16 August 1959): 16-17). But while Bardot-style headscarf was also mentioned a few months later in 1960 in a dialogue between Lucynka and Paulinka (Przekrój 779 (13 March 1960): 20), it is difficult to state which situation Hoff recollects in the quoted interview. 13 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 1090 (27 February 1966): 12. 14 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 1094 (27 March 1966): 12. 15 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 1259 (25 May 1969): 12. 16 Kołodziejczak, ‘Hoff Misja’, 34-39. 17 Pełka, Teksas-Land, 45. 18 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 1552 (5 January 1975): 21. 19 Rypson, ‘Dziwny Igłowstręt’, 52. 20 E.g. Hoff’s articles in the following issues of Przekrój: 569 (4 March 1956): 12; 1164 (30 July 1967): 12; 1356 (4 April 1971): 12; 1646 (24 October 1976): 21; 1719 (19 March 1978): 21; 1747 (1 October 1978): 21; 1824 (23 March 1980): 21. 21 Wrzesień, ‘Barbara Hoff. Rozmowa z Barbarą Hoff i Robertem Kuleszą’. 22 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 580 (20 May 1956): 12. 23 The coupons were published in the following issues of Przekrój: 1179 (12 November 1967): 12; 1180 (19 November 1967): 12; 1181 (26 November 1967): 12; 1183 (10 December 1967): 12. 24 Joanna Solska, ‘Hoff bez Landu’, Polityka 26 (2610) (30 June 2007): 42-44; Sabak, PRL Ubierał się u Hoff. 25 Rypson, ‘Dziwny Igłowstręt’, 55. 26 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 1268 (27 July 1969): 12. 27 Borowiec, Kobiety, 50.

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__________________________________________________________________ 28

Pełka, Teksas-Land, 43-44. Sabak, PRL Ubierał się u Hoff. This information might refer to an article Barbara Hoff wrote in 1972. Polish Fashion Group had a delegation from Russia as guests. Russian designs were part of a collection prepared for GUM – a famous department store in Moscow. One of the models was wearing flower-patterned maxi dress. Przekrój 1430 (3 September 1972): 21. 30 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 1651 (28 November 1976): 21. 31 Wrzesień, ‘Barbara Hoff. Rozmowa z Barbarą Hoff i Robertem Kuleszą’. 32 Rypson, ‘Dziwny Igłowstręt’, 54; Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 1682 (3 July 1977): 21. 33 Pełka, Teksas-Land, 48. 34 Barbara Hoff, Przekrój 2143 (6 July 1986): 21. 35 Pełka, Teksas-Land, 48; assymetrical blouses were presented in Hoff’s collection in 1986. Przekrój 2142 (29 June 1986): 21. 36 Kołodziejczak, ‘Hoff Misja’; Solska, ‘Hoff bez Landu.’ 37 Rypson, ‘Dziwny Igłowstręt’, 57. 38 Sabak, PRL Ubierał się u Hoff. 39 Piotr Sarzyński, ‘Niepospolite Rzeczy Pospolite’, Polityka 5 (2690) (31 January 2009): 56-58. 40 Monika Zieleniewska, Moda kapeluszników. Barbara Hoff o związkach mody ze sztuką (29 April 2013), accessed 3 June 2013, http://fashionweare.com/loza_mistrzow/moda-kapelusznik%C3%B3w-barbara-hof f-o-zwi%C4%85zkach-mody-ze-sztuk%C4%85-370. 41 Joanna Podgórska, ‘Po Niej Już Nigdy Nie Było Tak Samo’, Polityka 10 (2442), (6 June 2004): 80-82. 29

Bibliography Borowiec, Aneta, ed. Kobiety, Które Igrały z PRLem. Warszawa: AGORA SA, 2012. Hoff, Barbara. Fashion column in Przekrój in the period 1954-1989. Jaworska, Justyna. Cywilizacja Przekroju. Misja Obyczajowa w Magazynie Ilustrowanym. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2008. Kamyczek, Jan, and Barbara Hoff. Jak Oni Mają się Ubierać. Warszawa: Iskry, 1958. Kołodziejczyk, Marcin. ‘Hoff Misja’. Polityka. Sztuka Życia 5, No. 5 (20 April 2011).

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__________________________________________________________________ Kot, Wiesław. PRL. Jak Cudnie się Żyło! Poznań: Publicat, 2008. Modelski, Łukasz. Fotobiografia PRL. Opowieści Reporterów. Kraków: Znak, 2013. Osiecka, Agnieszka. Szpetni Czterdziestoletni. Warszawa: Prószyński i S-ka SA, 2008. Pełka, Anna. Teksas-Land. Moda Młodzieżowa w PRL. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio, 2007. Podgórska, Joanna. ‘Po Niej Już Nigdy Nie Było Tak Samo’. Polityka 10 (2442), (6 June 2004): 80–82. Roszkowski, Wojciech. Historia Polski 1914-2005. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN SA, 2006. Rypson, Piotr. ‘Dziwny Igłowstręt. Rozmowa z Barbarą Hoff’. Piktogram, edited by Michał Woliński, 51–57. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Piktogram, No. 16, 2011/2012. Sabak, Joanna. ‘PRL Ubierał się u Hoff’. 13 September 2010. Accessed 3 June 2013. http://gazetapraca.pl/gazetapraca/1,90443,8370544,PRL_ubieral_sie_u_Hoff.html. Sarzyński, Piotr. ‘Niepospolite Rzeczy Pospolite’. Polityka 5 (2690) (31 January 2009): 56–58. Solska, Joanna. ‘Hoff bez Landu’. Polityka 26 (2610) (30 June 2007): 42–44. Wrzesień, Natalia. ‘Barbara Hoff. Rozmowa z Barbarą Hoff i Robertem Kuleszą’. 26 January 2010. Accessed 3 June 2013. http://www.moda.com.pl/moda/projektanci/17011/Barbara_Hoff/. Zieleniewska, Monika. ‘Moda Kapeluszników. Barbara Hoff o Związkach Mody ze Sztuką’. 29 April 2013. Accessed 3 June 2013. http://fashionweare.com/loza_mistrzow/moda-kapelusznik%C3%B3w-barbara-hof f-o-zwi%C4%85zkach-mody-ze-sztuk%C4%85-370.

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__________________________________________________________________ Dominika Łukoszek is a PhD student in the Institute of Philosophy at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Her PhD thesis concentrates on research methodology of fashion and dress. She is also interested in the history of fashion in Poland after 1945. Since February 2011 she has run a webpage on fashion: http://www.modologiablog.pl.

The Atelier and the Apartment: Coco Chanel and the Interior Jess Berry Abstract The myth of the couturier-as-artist was first conceived by Charles Fredrick Worth in 1858, when he established his house label. In an effort to distance himself from the industrialised aspects of fashion, he used his salon at Maison Worth as a stage for his wealthy clients to observe his self-presentation as an artist. Later, earlytwentieth-century designers, including Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet, Jeanne Paquin, and Coco Chanel, would recognise and exploit the possibilities of the salon’s interior design as a spectacular exhibition environment – a theatre for catwalk models to display haute-couture garments. Interestingly, while the salon offered a gilded frame through which to consider the commercial performance of fashion, the private interior spaces of early twentieth century designers would also play a significant role in publicly developing the self-image of the couturier. Specifically, this chapter will argue that the atelier and the apartment were an integral part of Coco Chanel’s self-staging and performance of professional identity. In particular, Chanel enacts what Walter Benjamin describes as ‘the phantasmagoria of the interior – the reverie that the subject experiences within private space that provokes creative thought. As such, Chanel associates herself with the contemplative musing of the artist in his studio, rather than the traditional roles of the feminine domestic sphere. Through an analysis of photographs of Chanel in these private spaces, this paper will argue that the atelier and the apartment represent her reinvention from a kept woman into a liberated woman, thus affirming her brand identity as a modern woman. Key Words: Fashion, interior design, Coco Chanel, Walter Benjamin, modern woman. ***** 1. Introduction Gabrielle (‘Coco’) Chanel’s ability to create a mythic public image for herself has assured her position as an iconic figure in fashion history. As historian Rhonda Garelick claims, Chanel was ‘the first celebrity fashion designer, [who] made use of the layering of the extra-textual narrative characteristic of the media celebrity.’ 1 Chanel’s self-promotion provided an important underpinning to her brand identity as a modern woman. This was achieved through establishing an image of herself that represented emancipation through her symbolic appropriation of masculine dress, sexual freedom evidenced by her many high-profile lovers, social mobility offered by both high society and avant-garde friendships, and financial

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__________________________________________________________________ independence achieved through her work but often conveyed through the appearance of leisure. Specifically, this chapter will argue that an integral part of Chanel’s selfstaging and performance of professional identity was her visible engagement with the interior spaces of her Rue Cambon Maison. By analysing photographs of this designer in her atelier and her apartment, I will argue that Chanel enacts what Walter Benjamin describes as ‘the phantasmagoria of the interior’ – the reverie that the subject experiences within private space that provokes creative thought. As such, Chanel associates herself with the contemplative musing of the artist in his studio, rather than of the feminine in the domestic sphere. While Chanel often denied the genius status of the designer, I propose that her experience of interiority, as represented by the atelier and the apartment, contributed to an enactment of an artistic persona that couturiers had established since the time of Worth. Further, engaging with this persona marked her reinvention from a kept woman to a liberated woman, thus affirming her identity as modern. 2. The Designer as Artist The dressmaker as artist was a myth first conceived by Charles Fredrick Worth in 1858 when he established his couture house. In an effort to distance himself from the industrialised aspects of fashion, he used his salon at Maison Worth as a stage for his wealthy clients to observe his self-presentation as an artist. As Nancy Troy argues in her book Couture Culture, 2 Worth constructed a ‘singular and charismatic identity for himself.’ By modelling his appearance after Rembrandt, he enacted a comparison to the great masters. Such aspirations were also reflected in his business practices; for example, by employing his name as the label’s signature (la griffe), he anointed his garments with the mark of the consecrated painter, and so established a system in fashion, as in art, where the designer’s name became a ‘function of rarity.’ Significantly, Worth also understood the importance of interior to this display, constructing show-rooms that resembled the well-appointed drawing rooms of manor houses as a backdrop to his fashions, and in doing so, reinforced the association between the Worth name and the demonstration of exceptional taste. Early twentieth century designers Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet, and Jeanne Paquin also recognised and exploited the possibilities of the salon’s interior design as a spectacular exhibition environment – a theatre for catwalk models to display haute-couture garments. For example, Doucet’s classical tastes and vast collection of Louis XVI furniture not only provided a fitting backdrop for his romantic empire line dresses, but, similarly to Worth, emphasised the display of his connoisseurship for the purpose of reconstructing his individual persona as an artist. Interior decoration was also particularly important to Poiret who actively embraced the ideals of the Weiner Werkstatte by positioning his garments within the framework of a total work of art. As Poiret claimed of his couture house, ‘You

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__________________________________________________________________ will not feel that you are in a shop, but in the studio of an artist, who intends to make of your dresses a portrait and likeness of yourself.’ 3 It would seem that designers of the 1910s and 1920s were well aware of the symbolic power associated with a sumptuous and well designed interior; as Marie Clifford argues, the French fashion industry reinvented itself around (such) aggressive marketing strategies…with each fashion house arranging itself as a kind of consumer product, “selling” distinctive settings for the display of furniture and art alongside the latest mode. 4 While the salon offered a gilded frame through which to consider the commercial performance of fashion, private interior spaces also provided the backdrop to the artistic concerns of the designer. Both Poiret and Paquin extended their interest in the interior beyond the salon to their homes, which also played a role in publicly developing the couturier’s self-image. For instance, Poiret’s wife Denise was often photographed wearing his creations in their home for promotional purposes, while Paquin’s employment of interior decorator Louis Sue and architect Robert Mallet Stevenson to remodel her villa in conjunction with her shop front was an exercise in status building. These examples would suggest that the branding of the couturier as artist was not only reliant on the theatrical stage of the salon to provide an aura of discernment, but that these designers recognised that the interior spaces of the private sphere could also be adopted as a commercial strategy. 3. Chanel’s Interiors: The Atelier and the Apartment Throughout her career, Chanel publicly denied the position of fashion-designer as artist, dismissing her rival Elsa Schiaparelli as being ‘that artist [who] makes clothes’ 5 and stating of the profession, ‘we are not artists but producers of dresses.’ 6 However, I argue that in many ways Chanel’s public persona appeared to cultivate the very associations she denied. Her friendships and collaborations with Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, and Jean Cocteau embedded her artistic credentials. As Cocteau wrote of his friend, ‘Coco Chanel was to couture what Picasso was to painting.’ 7 For Chanel to be considered a member of France’s avant-garde was an extraordinary achievement, since, according to Valerie Steele, during Chanel’s early career, women in the fashion industry were largely seen as technicians whereas men were seen as creators of high art. 8 While by the 1930s, women had gained some dominance within the industry, by the 1950s, prevailing views of the male genius were again prevalent with Jacques Fath stating, ‘Fashion is an art. Art is creative, and men are the creators.’ 9

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__________________________________________________________________ Chanel’s careful self-styling in masculine fashions also contributed to the perception of her avant-garde tendencies; Dali described of her style, ‘Chanel always dressed like the strong independent male she dreamed of being.’ 10 By associating herself with a masculine style through her dress she was seen as an innovator rather than a humble female dressmaker. Both dress and social mobility contributed to her public persona as a modern woman, which was a recognisable component of her business strategy. As Steele and Garelick both argue, Chanel’s style was evocative of a female dandy, not least due to the fact that she was her own best model. I contend that the photographs that represent her in the atelier and the apartment are also important to this promotional project, where she used the interior spaces of her public and private life to connect her product with glamour and wealth but also female independence and emancipation. Thus, she not only marketed Chanel as a brand but as a way of living. As David Nye argues, that in ‘relation to early twentieth century “image worlds,” modern corporate imagery was increasingly predicated on self-representation.’ 11 I propose that because Chanel insisted that her own image was her business, her couture garments and public persona, as well as the interiors of the salon, the atelier, and the apartment all became a marketable entity. The building at 31 Rue Cambon, the House of Chanel, features in photographs of the designer throughout her career. Her previous boutiques in Deuville (1913), Biarritz (1916), and Chanel Modes, Paris (1917), had been bought for her by her lovers Etienne Balsan and ‘Boy’ Capel. As Steele contends, ‘Chanel herself once told Dali “I was able to open a high fashion shop, because two gentlemen were outbidding each other for my hot little body.”’ 12 The House of Chanel, bought in 1918, was built on her own success and symbolised her independence. Prominent spaces, including the couture salons on the first floor, the mirrored staircase that led to her private apartment on the second floor, the atelier on the third floor and her suite across the road at the Ritz, all provide a backdrop to the Chanel myth. The significance of these spaces to the construction of her persona is indicated in her own words, where she states that, ‘an interior is the natural projection of one’s soul, and Balzac was right in giving it the same importance as to dress.’ 13 For the couture client, the salon was the public space of the Chanel brand, where the parade of minimalist garments was framed by the understated elegance of twentieth century modernism. Designed by Jean-Michel Frank, the interior of the salon conveyed his trademark art deco aesthetic of austere luxury, which also complemented the Chanel image, epitomised by her little black dress. By employing Frank, Chanel further reinforced her modernity, as the photographer Therese Bonney stated in an essay of this period, ‘the Parisienne is becoming used to the new lines of the modernistic school, she instinctively demands that the same spirit repeat itself in the furniture and accessories of her interior.’ 14 In fact, the trend for engaging modernist architects and interior designers was common among Parisienne socialites and artists during the 1920s and 1930s, where figures

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__________________________________________________________________ including Bonney, the American dancer Josephine Baker, and the artist Tamara de Lempicka among others, employed the combination of artistic self display and urban spectacle to indicate social and financial success and convey a modern woman status. Strangely, photographs of Chanel in the public space of the salon are few, the closest being those of her sitting on the stairs watching the reception of her garments from a hidden vantage point. As Chanel’s biographer Axel Madsen claims, the designer was rarely seen in the salon, a move that enhanced her mystique and suggested that she lived a life of leisure. 15 While it appears that Chanel might not want to have been seen conducting her business she was happy enough to stage her craft. In particular, Mark Shaw’s photographs from the 1950s and Douglas Kirkland’s photographs from the 1960s portray the designer deeply involved in her work in the atelier, absorbed in the practicalities of dress-fittings and direction. As with the salon, the rooms of the atelier are sober and modernist in their design, and, while this could be attributed to the need for functionality in spaces of work, they do contribute to Chanel’s staging as modern. Here Chanel is seen engaged in the act of creating; like Worth before her, she conceals the industrial aspects of her trade, and instead insists her presence is important to the garment’s resolution. Thus, she engages the concept of the artist’s hand as central to her image as a couturier. Surprisingly, Chanel’s private spaces – the apartment at 31 Rue Cambon, and her suite at the Ritz – display an aesthetic contradictory to the pared-back simplicity that the designer cultivated as central to her public image. Instead, these spaces are more akin to what architectural historian Charles Rice describes as nineteenth-century bourgeois manifestations of the interior as a practice of selfrepresentation. 16 Her tastes for Baroque sculptures, gilded wood, lacquered Coromandel screens, chandeliers, and marble surfaces are in direct contrast to the rigorous geometric modernism and impersonality of the more commercial spaces of the salon and the atelier. Further, I would suggest, this demonstrates her desire to decorate her home in a way that reflected her personal history rather than in a mode compatible with her brand identity. 17 According to Chanel biographer Isabelle Fiemeyer, the decorative features of the designer’s apartment were highly symbolic. Some of the souvenir reminders of Chanel’s friends and family that decorated her Rue Cambon apartment included bronze wheat sheaves, representative of her father; a Virgin-and-child statue that harkened back to her childhood at an orphanage; a Japanese Buddha statue that she associated with her lover Arthur Capel; and Venetian figures acquired on her travels with Misia Sert. As Chanel’s niece Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie describes, ‘She constructed her own myth out of mysteries, signs and symbols, she lived it and was imbued with it, symbols were everywhere and were constant companions throughout her life.’ 18 In this way, Chanel’s relationship with artefacts from her past demonstrate Walter Benjamin’s reflections on the interior outlined in the Arcades Project,

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__________________________________________________________________ where he identifies the domestic interior’s decorations, upholsteries, and textiles as a reaction to the alienating effects of the modernisation of the city and practices of commerce. 19 Benjamin describes the experience of personal traces in the interior in the following way: ‘Happiness of the collector, happiness of the solitary: tête-à-tête with things.’ 20 He terms this cultural spectacle of inner life ‘the phantasmagoria of the interior,’ a site for the public display of private dreams and the reverie of the subject experienced within private space. Edmond de Goncourt makes similar observations regarding nineteenth-century interior spaces, specifically, ‘The House of the Artist,’ which he describes as a place of refuge from the modern city, full of objects that ‘refresh and renew him, and allow him to forget himself in the satiation of art.’ 21 For Goncourt, the interior was ‘an artistic arrangement…a personal creation…where work could be performed in an enchanted place.’ 22 Feimeyer makes a similar argument regarding Chanel’s relationship with her apartment, where the recherché interior offered her an escape and freedom, a place of imagination and daydream; Chanel herself stated, ‘I make all my best trips on this couch.’ 23 Given that as Alexandra Palmer claims, other Parisian couturiers of the 1920s and 1930s, for the most part, established salons reminiscent of ‘plushy residences of the nineteenth century,’ it would not have been unusual for Chanel to carry her personal tastes into the business domain. 24 Clearly, the choice of decor for the public areas of 31 Rue Cambon was a purposeful device in building the Chanel image. However, that this same aesthetic does not carry over into Chanel’s private sphere, despite her willingness to display these spaces publicly as part of her selfstaging, is an evident inconsistency that is intriguing and yet, I argue, paradoxically reinforces her modernity. Benjamin conceptualises the ‘phantasmagorical’ experience of the interior around the male inhabitant and his relationship with spaces that mediate with the outside world, in particular he identifies the study and the library as such spaces, as opposed to the feminine domestic sphere of the boudoir or the dining room. That these same male gendered spaces are the backdrop to Chanel’s performance as an independent modern woman does not appear co-incidental, but rather, suggests that Chanel as an artist in her private space is engaged in the same ‘independent male sphere’ that has been associated with the way she dressed. Photographs of Chanel in the private sphere are almost always concerned with her undertaking an activity; when lying on her couch, she is not passive like an inert odalisque but rather reading, framed by the books in her library, or alternatively sitting at her desk engaged in some important task. Thus, to the viewer these images do not reveal anything of Chanel as woman at home, but rather present a space that is a nexus between public and private spheres. She is not at leisure, nor is she at work; she is engaged in reverie of a world of her own making, and so associates herself with the intellectual criticism of the artist rather than of a woman engaged in the tasks of domesticity. While Chanel uses the

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__________________________________________________________________ sumptuous décor of the apartment to convey that the viewer is privy to her private world, it is a world where she is master; she is not a kept woman but a woman with the ability to make her own way. Thus she conveys her status as modern. This becomes particularly evident when comparing the representation of Chanel and her apartment in the No.5 Advertisement that featured in Harper’s Bazaar (1937) with publicity photographs of the artist Tamara de Lempicka from around the same period. Lempicka’s portrait, staged in the bedroom of her apartment at 29 Rue Mechain, conveys her position as a modern woman through the advanced modern design of the interior. As Tag Gronberg argues, de Lempicka used her apartments to represent her personality and lifestyle. This staging provided not only a context but also status…for her paintings…Like many other architect-designed studio houses…De Lempicka’s …apartment constituted the means for the performance of professional identity…and she was able to present herself publicly in ways that successfully negotiated longstanding cultural prejudices and stereotypes…women artists could still be accused of being “defeminised” by their work at this time; De Lempicka countered this with numerous photographs showing herself…seductively posed in her bedroom. 25 Conversely, Chanel, as photographed as the face of her No.5 perfume in her suite at the Ritz, chooses what appears to be a more antiquated mise-en-scene. The classical fireplace and Chinese lacquer screen are at odds with the symbols of modernity in Lempicka’s images. Rather, Chanel’s enactment of the persona of the modern woman is seen through her bodily action and engagement with her personal space. She poses in an authoritarian manner with her arm draped across the mantel of the fireplace, surveying her apartment. Despite the femininity conveyed through her long black gown and lace over-shirt, her masculine stance dominates the image and suggests Chanel’s understanding that power could be achieved by adopting a mannish style. Unlike De Lempicka’s photograph, which conveys modernity through association with the modern interior, Chanel’s advertisement enacts modernity. The designer is master of her domain, independent and self-determining within the interior space. 4. Conclusion This chapter has argued that since the beginnings of couture, as exemplified by Worth, the interior has become an important backdrop to the spectacle of fashion. Further, many couturiers recognised that both the public space of the salon and the private space of the home could be used for promotional purposes, assuring the

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__________________________________________________________________ role of the designer-as-artist through associations of discernment and connoisseurship. Photographic portraits of Chanel within the interior spaces of her Rue Cambon Maison similarly act as a significant aspect of her self-staging and performance of professional identity. The aesthetic inconsistency between the modernist design of her salon and atelier as compared to the nineteenth century interior of her apartment raises questions as to the totality of the Chanel brand identity of austere luxury and modernity. I have proposed that close analysis of these images in relation to Benjamin’s concept of the ‘phantasmagoria of the interior’ reveal that Chanel’s apartment offers a more nuanced account of her image as a modern woman then might first be apparent. In particular, the symbolic associations she attributed to the collection of objects in the apartment evoke both Benjamin’s discussion of the interior trace, and Goncort’s musings on the artistic refuge, and so, images of Chanel in her apartment establish her performance as artist in a state of reverie, as opposed to the image of a female engaging in the performance of domesticity. This persona is further reinforced through pose and action that confirms her masculine styling. As with her dress, Chanel stages her dandy status in the interior, as a female bachelor. It is clear that Chanel packaged her image and lifestyle for consumption on a number of levels where her portraits as staged in the atelier and the apartment provide an alluring consumer spectacle that affirms the cultural capital of her fashion house through its association with modernist design, but also showcase the manipulation of her own image in nuanced ways to convey her persona as modern.

Notes 1

Rhonda Garelick, ‘The Layered Look: Coco Chanel and Contagious Celebrity’, in Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture, ed. Susan Fillin-Yeh (New York: New York University Press 2001), 39. 2 Nancy Troy, Couture Culture: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003), 27. 3 Paul Poiret cited in Ibid., 51. 4 Marie J. Clifford, ‘Helena Rubinstein’s Beauty Salons, Fashion and Modernist Display’, Winterthur Portfolio 38 (2003): 83-108. 5 Gabriel Chanel cited in Valerie Steele, ‘Fashion’, in Fashion and Art, eds. Adam Gezcy and Vicki Karaminas (London: Berg 2012), 17. 6 Ibid., 17. 7 Garelick, ‘The Layered Look’, 41. 8 Valerie Steele, ‘Chanel in Context’, in Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, eds. Juliet Ash and Elizabeth Wilson (London: Harper Collins 1993), 119. 9 Steele, ‘Fashion’, 17.

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__________________________________________________________________ 9

Ibid. Salvador Dali cited in Steele, Ibid., 119. 11 David Nye cited in Clifford, ‘Helena Rubinstein’s Beauty Salons’, 97. 12 Steele, ‘Chanel in Context’, 119. 13 John Potvin, ‘The Velvet Masquerade: Fashion Interior Design and the Furnished Body’, in Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity, eds. John Potvin and Alla Myzelev (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 1. 14 Therese Bonney cited in Tag Gronberg, ‘Femininity and the Woman Painter’, in Tamara de Lempicka: Art Deco Icon, eds. Alain Blondel and Ingried Brugger (London: Royal Academy of Arts London, 2004), 48. 15 Axel Madsen, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own (New York: Henry Holt, 1991), 127. 16 Charles Rice, The Emergence of the Interior: Architecture, Modernity, Domesticity (London: Routledge, 2006), 3. 17 Edmonde Charles-Roux, The Worlds of Coco Chanel: Friends, Fashion, Fame (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005), 368-369. 18 Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie cited in Isabelle Fiemeyer, Intimate Chanel (Paris: Flammerion, 2011), 7. 19 Rice, Emergence of the Interior, 9. 20 Benjamin cited in Ibid., 17. 21 Edmond de Goncourt cited in Diana Periton, ‘The Interior as Aesthetic Refuge: Edmond de Goncourt’s La Maison d’un Artiste’, in Tracing Modernity: Manifestations of the Modern in Architecture and the City, eds. Mari Hvattum and Christian Hemansen (London: Routledge, 2004), 151. 22 Ibid., 152. 23 Chanel cited in Fiemeyer, Intimate Chanel, 66. 24 Alexandra Palmer, ‘Inside Paris Haute Couture’, in The Golden Age of Couture Paris and London 1947-57, ed. Claire Wilcox (London: V&A Publications, 2009), 68. 25 Gronberg, ‘Femininity and the Woman Painter’, 51. 10

Bibliography Charles-Roux, Edmonde. The Worlds of Coco Chanel: Friends, Fashion, Fame. London: Thames and Hudson, 2005. Clifford, Marie J. ‘Helena Rubenstein’s Beauty Salons, Fashion and Modernist Display’. Winterthur Portfolio 38 (2003): 83–108. Fiemeyer, Isabelle. Intimate Chanel. Paris: Flammerion, 2011.

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__________________________________________________________________ Garelick, Rhonda. ‘The Layered Look: Coco Chanel and Contagious Celebrity’. In Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture, edited by Susan Fillin-Yeh, 35– 58. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Gronberg, Tag ‘Femininity and the Woman Painter’. In Tamara de Lempicka: Art Deco Icon, edited by Alain Blondel, and Ingried Brugger. London: Royal Academy of Arts London, 2004. Madsen, Axel. Chanel: A Woman of Her Own. New York: Henry Holt, 1991. Palmer, Alexandra. ‘Inside Paris Haute Couture’. In The Golden Age of Couture Paris and London 1947-57, edited by Claire Wilcox. London: V&A Publications, 2009. Periton, Diana. ‘The Interior as Aesthetic Refuge: Edmond de Goncourt’s La Maison d’un Artiste’. In Tracing Modernity: Manifestations of the Modern in Architecture and the City, edited by Mari Hvattum, and Christian Hemansen, 137– 154. London: Routledge, 2004. Potvin, John. ‘The Velvet Masquerade: Fashion Interior Design and the Furnished Body’. In Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity, edited by John Potvin, and Alla Myzelev, 1–17. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010. Rice, Charles. The Emergence of the Interior: Architecture, Modernity, Domesticity. London: Routledge, 2006. Steele, Valerie. ‘Fashion’. In Fashion and Art, edited by Adam Gezcy, and Vicki Karaminas, 13–27. London: Berg, 2012. Steele, Valerie. ‘Chanel in Context’. Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, edited by Juliet Ash, and Elizabeth Wilson, 118–126. London: Harper Collins, 1993. Troy, Nancy. Couture Culture: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003. Jess Berry is Lecturer, Art Theory, Griffith University, Australia. Her research is concerned with the relationship between fashion and art, the fashion city, fashion new media and Australian fashion history. Recent articles have appeared in Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, Journal of Design History, Craft + Design Enquiry and Catwalk: The Journal of Fashion, Beauty and Style. She is editor of

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__________________________________________________________________ Fashion Capital: Style Economies, Sites and Cultures (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2012).

Phantom Red: Colour, Fashion and Film in the 1920s Victoria Jackson and Bregt Lameris Abstract During the second half of the 1920s a ‘new’ colour called Phantom Red was introduced to the American fashion industry, following the success of the film Phantom of the Opera (1925). The colour was inspired by the phantom’s cape that appeared in colour thanks to a Technicolor II sequence in the film. The colour was presented as a tie-up with the film, advertising the film and various items linked in some way to the colour shade. The advertising discourse on the colour slowly changed over its lifetime. In this chapter we describe and analyse the ways the colour was used and presented and the changes in discourse that occurred, from the moment it was introduced until it became less popular around 1933. Key Words: Colour, advertisements, 1920s, Phantom Red, fashion, cosmetics, film. ***** In 1925 a new shade of red called Phantom Red was introduced to the American fashion trade. Regularly described as scarlet with a hint of yellow it was inspired by the red cape worn by the Phantom in the Technicolor II sequences of Universal Film’s new production The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925). Technicolor II was an early colour process produced by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation that enjoyed some commercial success in the mid 1920s. Whilst the process was unable to record blues it could capture vivid and eyecatching reds as in the case of the Phantom’s cape. Phantom Red was officially named by Margaret Hayden Rorke, President of the Textile Color Card Association of America (TCCA), an organisation that predicted colour fashion trends for manufacturers and named new colour shades normally brought over from Paris. 1 The shade was active in the American market from 1925 into the early 1930s and was used commonly, but not exclusively, for dresses, shoes and hats. 2 Alongside the use of the colour in textiles it also gave its name to a range of cosmetics produced by Carlyle Laboratories. The brand grew from Phantom Red Lipstick to include Phantom Brow, Phantom Red Compact Rouge and Phantom Eye Shadow. This range enjoyed a significant degree of success in the USA operating until the late 1930s and appears to have had some degree of further success abroad. 3 In this chapter we will examine some of various meanings which circulated around the shade Phantom Red from its introduction in 1925 through to the mid1930s. Once a colour is introduced into the cultural sphere it is open to interpretation and changing meanings. We will argue there could be multiple

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__________________________________________________________________ meanings attached to the colour Phantom Red, some even conflicting, for the consumer to negotiate and identify with or aspire to. As we will demonstrate, where at first Phantom Red was defined by its association with the film it later developed new meanings and connections for the consumer as she interacted with it, meanings that were not standardised but fluid, as in the case of Dorothy Blankenship a student at the Peace Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her junior student yearbook entry written either by herself or her classmates states ‘a full blown rose, Phantom Red lipstick, Juliet.’ 4 The entries for junior students were limited to a list of two to three objects or things with no explanation of their selection. The inclusion of Phantom Red Lipstick into Blankenship’s entry suggests she either sought to be or was identified with the brand, which prompts the question what identity and meaning did she seek from it? Of the multiple sources of meanings that Blankenship may have identified to, or have been influenced by, we will consider those generated within the promotional material for the fashion shade and the cosmetics. However it is important to note that this chapter is not attempting to identify every possible interpretation of the colour by contemporaries and associated influences. Any number of experiences, some unique to an individual could help create a meaning and identity for the colour. For example the term ‘Phantom Red Army’ was used in an article in The San Antonio Light in 1928 to describe a guerrilla communist army. 5 Therefore for readers of that publication the colour could form an association with communism which depending on the political affiliations of the consumer could be a positive or negative identity. In addition, a further influence on consumers’ interaction with Phantom Red may have been contemporary discourse on colour and the psychology of colour. Writing in 1922, George Audsley noted in his book Colour Harmony in Dress ‘colours are symbols or emblems, that is they have the power of suggesting to the mind certain ideas,’ while in 1915 the actress Clara Kimball Young similarly aligned red to ‘passion’ and ‘tremendous emotion’ in Photoplay. She also stated ‘every woman knows…that certain colours bring out certain elements latent in herself.’ 6 Many consumers would have been exposed to and in turn engaged with these discourses, which may have influenced their understanding of Phantom Red. One of the strongest influences on consumers’ understanding of the shade was its commercial promotion. It was common practice by the 1920s for studios to arrange a wealth of national tie-ups or tie-ins as we call them today, which could be exploited by exhibitors in conjunction with local businesses. 7 For Universal, looking for ways to promote The Phantom of the Opera, Phantom Red provided an innovative new tie-up opportunity. A variety of retailers including clothes shops and drug stores featured window displays and newspaper advertisements including Phantom Red merchandise to coincide with the local theatre’s exhibition of the film. As Phantom Red became established it inevitably began to be advertised independently from the film. Nevertheless, initially these tie-ups were how many

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__________________________________________________________________ consumers made first contact with the colour and which informed their impressions of it. Surviving promotional material demonstrates Phantom Red could be linked to the film or more directly to the figure of the phantom and his cloak. 8 Similarly surviving packaging for the cosmetics brand range show that the image of the Phantom was prominent. What did the image of the phantom bring to the meaning of the fashion shade and cosmetics range? It was a symbol of the movie and Hollywood so perhaps for some consumers it made them feel closer to that glamorous world? Did, however, the image of the Phantom bring any other meaning to the colour? For example, did some consumers link the colour to the character of the phantom and the passion of his emotion towards Christine? The same image of the phantom reoccurs in advertising and packaging in which he is in mid action, one arm raised to the sky in a forceful, impassioned pose. Coupled with the vivid red of Phantom Red this powerful image would have certainly suited the shade. Could the association of the Phantom have created this passionate connection for some consumers? Adverts for Phantom Red Cosmetics suggest that the company attempted to control the meaning of the term phantom in the brand name. They changed the context of the word by using it to describe the application of the make-up as ‘phantom-like.’ 9 In doing so they distanced the term phantom from the Phantom’s character in the film and the meanings that came with him. This may have been a conscious decision by the cosmetics company to tame the power of the phantom over the brand. Alternatively it may simply have been a clever play on the name Phantom Red introducing a new link between the name of the brand and the characteristics of the lipstick. The Cosmetics range certainly was not seeking to distance itself from the film altogether. They selected Mary Philbin, the female star of the movie, as the face of the range from its inception first with Phantom Red Lipstick, and from 1927 for Phantom Brow used for colouring eyebrows. This association inevitably re-stressed the product’s link to the film. Indeed, until 1926 the advertisements explicitly stated Phantom Red Lipstick was ‘[c]reated for Mary Philbin, star from Phantom of the Opera.’ 10 Even after the direct tie-up with the film disappeared in 1927, she still remained the face of Phantom Red Cosmetics for several more years. Philbin’s endorsement of the brand not only strengthened the cosmetic ranges’ links to the film and to Hollywood but it also offered a whole set of new meanings surrounding Philbin for the consumer to identify with. Philbin was portrayed throughout her career in fan magazines as a sweet and innocent, ‘child-woman’ type. Photoplay described her in 1929 as ‘a strangely unrebellious little person.’ 11 She was normally presented in her publicity with a slightly old fashioned appearance and long curly hair even when the fashion was for short bobs. Nearly all of the adverts for Phantom Red Cosmetics in this period seem to reflect the image of the angelic child-woman projected by Philbin. With the exception of

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__________________________________________________________________ three cases, the photos used for the adverts show Philbin with the typical long, curly hair and an angelic look in her eyes. The text in the advertisements complements this image using terms such as ‘nature’s warmth, dream lips, velvet smooth.’ 12 The adverts offer Phantom Red lipstick as a means to gain a natural, youthful looking beauty. They take a quite passive tone with no suggestion of passion or sex appeal. This is in direct contrast to the contemporary, outgoing flapper image personified by actresses such as Colleen Moore and Clara Bow, who wore their hair short and were portrayed as having outgoing personas both on and off the screen. However, there were two exceptions to this advertising strategy. In the April and June editions of Photoplay in 1928 the Phantom Red Cosmetics adverts contained a decidedly more assertive and sexual tone: ‘Lips that tantalize. Red -and what red...smouldering fire... the heart-break color…’ 13 and ‘Plenty of It…personality-plus…appeal that gets what it goes after….’ 14 Both adverts also included images of Philbin with shorter hair. The image of Philbin and the language used in these adverts suggests a much more outgoing and sexualised persona than the other adverts from this period with their associations to softness, sweetness and naturalness. A similar tension can also be found in the descriptions of the fashion shade. Phantom Red was often described in the press and in retailer adverts as something vibrant and strong. Terms such as ‘a brilliant scarlet,’ ‘snappy crimson,’ ‘flaming,’ ‘glowing,’ ‘startling,’ ‘violent…with nothing of the phantom about it’ were commonly used. However in announcing the colour Rorke described it as ‘a soft, elusive shade’ in direct opposition to these press descriptions. Like the cosmetics company, Rorke appears to have attempted to tame the emotive power of the word phantom. Redirecting the meaning of the word phantom from the character of the film to a more literal definition of the word, something that is elusive, is an intangible element. Certainly the image of the phantom appears to have been difficult to control as a promotional tool, unlike the simpler association with Philbin as the female star that consumers might choose to emulate. To return to the cosmetics adverts in the April and June editions of Photoplay in 1928, the traditional connotations of lurid reds to passion and perhaps even violence most certainly informed the more racy discourse of Philbin. However, there seems to have been more at stake, namely a broader change occurring in the representation of women, particularly in Hollywood films. The article ‘Wilder and Wilder Women: The Badder the Better, Cries Popular Taste of Its Celluloid Loves’ from 1928, explains how Hollywood’s child-women from ‘yesteryear’ had unmistakenly been replaced by hard-boiled girls that were not so shy anymore. 15 In order to illustrate this change various actresses were discussed and interestingly, sweet and angelic Mary Philbin was one of them. She is said to have gone ‘Vampire with a Vengeance’ in the 1928 Griffith-film Drums of Love, the release of which coincided with the two ‘more vampy’ advertisements from Photoplay. 16

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__________________________________________________________________ Another actress mentioned in the article was Marian Nixon, who in 1929 became the first actress after Philbin to appear in a Phantom Red advertisement, 17 probably because she played the main character in a film with the appropriate title Red Lips from 1928, a film that, according to the article, changed her from the ‘sweetest girl in Hollywood’ into a ‘wildcat all over the place.’ 18 The advertisement also connects her to Red Lips in which she is presumed to demonstrate ‘[..] the power of appealing lips – lips that glow with the youth-fire and ruby color that only Phantom Red Lipstick can bestow.’ 19 In all, it seems that the identity Phantom Red constructed for the women using it shifted, in these series of adverts at least, from sweetness and softness towards passion and wildness, reminding us of the 1920s flapper. Remarkably, after this series of more daring advertisements, Phantom Red returned to the sweet and docile face of Mary Philbin with the accompanying text on sweetness and naturalness. The pattern is broken however in September 1930 when Marian Nixon’s picture reappears, this time alongside Mary Philbin’s. The girls are presented in contrasting ways, Philbin with the aforementioned long, blond curly hair associated with the stars from the 1910s and Nixon more as a modern bob-styled young flapper type. The two discourses are now included in one and the same advertisement, seemingly stressing the tension between them. However, when looking at the text of the advertisement, we find a completely different discourse: Pearly blonde, creamy brunette and the maid with coppery curls, find in Phantom Red Cosmetics the true accent for individual charm. [...] Because they harmonize with every type of beauty, Phantom Red Cosmetics have set the new fashion of make-up. [...]. 20 The text no longer emphasizes one type of woman the consumer was supposed to identify with when wearing Phantom Red lipstick. Instead, it advised women that individual charm was important and should be accentuated by using the right make-up that fitted their type. Conveniently, Phantom Red harmonised with every type. The pictures of the two Hollywood stars depict two of those types: blond and brunette, emphasising that Phantom Red lipstick suited both. This trend towards diversity and variety in types continued when in November 1930 two new faces appeared in a Phantom Red Cosmetics advertisement. 21 These faces belonged to First National stars Lila Lee and Dorothy Mackaill, extending the variety of stars connected to Phantom Red. The difference between old-fashioned, more romantic girl and modern flapper is gone, both are modern, fashionable girls. With these changes, the advertisement strategy used to promote Phantom Red Cosmetics clearly altered. This becomes even clearer in an advertisement from 1931 which showed four different actresses, representing four different types of women. 22

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__________________________________________________________________ Other adverts that year dispensed with the actresses and used illustration to depict the four different types of woman, all wearing Phantom Red lipstick. 23 Actually, this emphasis on various types was nothing new in the fashion and make up advertisement industry. In 1926 another brand of make up called Tangee had adverts with the following text: ‘My dear this is the Only Make-Up for both Blondes and Brunettes....’ 24 And in 1928 Tangee was advertised with an image showing three faces of women, representing blonde, brunette and redhead. Over their heads a stick of Tangee lipstick floats, sending rays of colour to the lips of all three faces. 25 In addition, in 1928 Max Factor introduced the notion of ‘color harmony,’ as it was already known in dress and design, into the make-up market. Max Factor – also known as the Hollywood make-up wizard or genius – initiated a new strategy, accentuating the need to harmonise colours in make-up. In an advertisement for Max Factor’s ‘Color Harmony’ from July 1930, the emphasis on variety and diversity of types is clear. Every element of it stresses the importance of diversity with its headline ‘Blonde, Brunette, Redhead or Brownette!,’ the photographs of various movie stars and the captions indicating the types they represent. Finally, the advertisement text foregrounds how every type calls for her own colour harmony. 26 Similar to Max Factor, Phantom Red also emphasized the diversity of types illustrated by a series of movie stars. However, Phantom Red was never associated with colour harmony. There is only one colour – Phantom Red – which can be used for every type. The reason why it suits all is its phantom-like character, ‘blending perfectly,’ ‘revealing your own complexion tone’ and giving ‘individual beauty.’ The colour even adapted itself to the defined types and their complexions: To the white skin of fairest blondes, it brings the tint of primroses; to skin of ivory tone, it brings a golden blush; to brunettes of suntanned shades, it gives that brilliance and depth that only such complexions may use. 27 Phantom Red Cosmetics was presented for every type of woman, revealing her individual beauty with its ‘subtle, shadowing effect.’ Once again we are seeing a shift in meaning attached to the colour Phantom Red. It started as a colour linked to the film Phantom of the Opera and its Technicolor II inserts with the red phantom cape. In early promotions of the colour its association with the Phantom and his cape were often highlighted. Alongside this connection to the film the image of sweet and innocent Mary Philbin was added to the promotion of a cosmetics range. This corresponded with the connotations Margaret Hayden Rorke gave the colour, presenting it as ‘a soft, elusive shade.’ Simultaneously, the image of the phantom remained on the packaging of the cosmetics for several years. However, in accordance with new Hollywood trends in depicting women, the make-up was more and more associated

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__________________________________________________________________ with passion, fire, danger, vamps and flappers with short hair. Finally, towards the 1930s, make-up and cosmetics were more and more presented in a differentiating way, to fit every single type of woman. Here the prefix ‘phantom’ was re-used and re-defined, not referring to the phantom of the opera, but to shady, perfectly natural and blending in result. In conclusion, Phantom Red was presented in a stunningly flexible way, adapting to the discourses surrounding it and changing its main connotations to whatever was convenient at a specific moment. With this in mind we return to Dorothy Blankenship and the inclusion of Phantom Red lipstick in her student yearbook. We can never be certain who wrote her entry or the reason for the presence of the lipstick in it. It may have been Blankenship wanted to associate herself with one of the many and fluid identities surrounding the brand. Alternatively, perhaps for her classmates her use of it may have caused them to develop a new association for the brand relating to Blankenship herself. In either case this example demonstrates the plethora of meanings that could be attached to colour in the 1920s and the power of colour to adopt meaning. It also demonstrates the importance of colour to the new commercialism of America and its strategy for promoting the definition of self though the consumption of goods. The ability of colour to adapt to various connotations, to be connected to different types and ideas at the same time, made it an ideal selling tool for the more and more rapidly changing market of fashion, beauty and stars.

Notes 1

For more information on the TCCA see Regina Lee Blaszczyk, The Color Revolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press in association with the Lemelson Center, Smithsonian Institution, 2012). 2 We have found limited examples of the shade abroad but because most of our sources are from America, this chapter will look at the colour only in the US market. 3 ‘Picture Exploitation Tie-Up Develops into Big Business’, Motion Picture News 36, No. 21 (25 November 1927): 1640, accessed 20 March 2013, http://www.archive.org. 4 Peace Institute, The Lotus (Raleigh, N.C.: Peace College, 1929), accessed 31 May 2013, http://www.archive.org. 5 ‘Blue Forces to Defend S.A. Against Phantom Red Army’, San Antonio Light, 22 October 1928, accessed 3 June 2013, http://www.ancestry.co.uk. 6 George Ashdown Audsley, Colour Harmony in Dress (New York: R. M. McBride, 1922): 110-111, accessed 1 May 2013, http://www.archive.org .

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__________________________________________________________________ 7

John Francis Barry and Epes Winthrop Sargent, Building Theatre Patronage (New York, Chalmers, 1927), 236-261, accessed 19 February 2013, http://www.archive.org. 8 ‘Colorful Dresses for Summer Wear’, Kingston Daily Freeman, 17 July 1926, 5, accessed 14 May 2013, http://www.ancestry.co.uk. 9 For example [Phantom Red advertisement], Motion Picture Magazine, February 1926, accessed 11 April 2013, http://www.archive.org. 10 [Phantom Red advertisement], Motion Picture Magazine, March 1927, 103, accessed 5 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 11 ‘Home Rules of Hollywood Flappers’, Photoplay, March 1929, 32-33, 134-136. accessed 19 April 2013, http://www.archive.org. 12 [Phantom Red advertisement], Motion Picture Magazine, August 1928, 106, accessed 5 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 13 [Phantom Red advertisement], Photoplay, April 1928, 146, accessed 5 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 14 [Phantom Red advertisement], Photoplay, June 1928, 145, accessed 5 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 15 Of course this was a change that had been going on in society since at least the beginning of the 1920s. 16 Hall Wells, ‘Wilder and Wilder Women: The Badder the Better, Cries Popular Taste of Its Celluloid Loves’, Motion Picture Classic (November 1928): 63 and 77, accessed 20 October 2013, http://www.archive.org. 17 [Phantom Red advertisement], Motion Picture Magazine (March 1929): 110 accessed 5 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 18 Wells, ‘Wilder and Wilder Women’, 63 and 77. 19 [Phantom Red advertisement] Motion Picture Magazine (March 1929): 110. 20 [Phantom Red advertisement] The New Movie Magazine, September (1930): 110, accessed 3 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 21 [Phantom Red advertisement], The New Movie Magazine (November 1930): 104, accessed 3 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 22 [Phantom Red advertisement], Radio Digest (May 1931): 109, accessed 27 August 2013, http://www.archive.org. 23 Note that all types show variations of white women. 24 [Tangee advertisement], Motion Picture Classic (July 1926): 91, accessed 11 April 2013, http://www.archive.org. 25 [Tangee advertisement], Motion Picture Magazine (August 1928): 92, accessed 28 June 2013, http://www.archive.org. 26 ‘Blonde, Brunette, Redhead, Brownette! Do You Know Your Color Harmony in Make-Up?’, Photoplay (July (1930: 19, accessed 2 October 2013, http://www.archive.org.

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__________________________________________________________________ 27

See accessed 2 October 2013, http://www.tias.com/11382/PictPage/39231817 59.html.

Bibliography Audsley, George Ashdown. Colour Harmony in Dress. New York: R. M. McBride, 1922. Accessed 1 May 2013. http://archive.org/details/colourharmonyind00auds. Barry, John Francis, and Epes Winthrop Sargent. Building Theatre Patronage. New York, Chalmers Publishing Company, 1927. Accessed 19 February 2013. http://www.ancestry.co.uk. ‘Blonde, Brunette, Redhead or Brownette! Do You Know Your Color Harmony in Make-Up As All Hollywood Stars Do?’ Photoplay (July 1930). Accessed 1 May 2013. http://www.archive.org. ‘Blue Forces to Defend S.A. against Phantom Red Army’. San Antonio Light 22 October 1928. Accessed 3 June 2013. http://www.ancestry.co.uk. Blaszczyk, Regina Lee. The Color Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. ‘Colorful Dresses for Summer Wear’. Kingston Daily Freeman, 17 July 1926. Accessed 14 May 2013. http://www.ancestry.co.uk. ‘Home Rules of Hollywood Flappers’. Photoplay (March 1929). Accessed 19 April 2013. http://www.archive.org. Peace Institute. The Lotus. Raleigh, NC: Peace College, 1929. Accessed 31 May 2013. http://archive.org/details/lotus1929peac. [Phantom Red Advertisement]. Motion Picture Magazine (February 1926). Accessed 11 April 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. Motion Picture Magazine (March 1927). Accessed 5 June 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. Photoplay (April 1928). Accessed 5 June 2013. http://www.archive.org.

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__________________________________________________________________ —––. Photoplay (June 1928). Accessed 5 June 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. Motion Picture Magazine (August 1928). Accessed 5 June 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. Motion Picture Magazine (March 1929). Accessed 5 June 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. New Movie Magazine (September 1930). Accessed 3 June 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. New Movie Magazine (November 1930). Accessed 3 June 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. Radio Digest (May 1931). Accessed 27 August 2013. http://www.archive.org. ‘Picture Exploitation Tie-Up Develops into Big Business’. Motion Picture News, 25 November 1927. Accessed 20 March 2013. http://www.ancestry.co.uk. [Tangee Advertisement]. Motion Picture Classic (July 1926). Accessed 11 April 2013. http://www.archive.org. —––. Motion Picture Classic (August 1928). Accessed 28 June 2013. http://www.archive.org. Wells, Hal. ‘Wilder and Wilder Women: The Badder The Better, Cries Popular Taste of Its Celluloid Loves’. Motion Picture Classic (November 1928). Accessed 20 October 2013. http://www.archive.org. Victoria Jackson, Research Assistant: University of Bristol. She is currently employed as a Research Assistant on the project, ‘Colour in the 1920s: Cinema and Its Intermedial Contexts.’ Her PhD was on the distribution and exhibition of Kinemacolor in the UK and USA. Her research interests include, colour film history and the reception, distribution and exhibition of silent cinema. Bregt Lameris, Research Fellow: University of St Andrews. PhD in Media and Culture Studies (Utrecht University). BA and MA in Cinema and Theatre Studies (Radboud University Nijmegen). Bregt is currently employed as a Research Fellow

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__________________________________________________________________ at the University of St Andrews, and engaged within the project ‘Colour in the 1920s: Cinema and Its Intermedial Contexts.’ Other research interests are: the history of film archiving, film historiography, colour in silent cinema, medical images and the representation of madness. Bregt’s PhD, Re-Exposed: The Pas-deDeux between Film Archival Practices and Film History Writing, in 2007, will be published by Amsterdam University Press in 2015.

Appendix ‘Colour in the 1920s: Cinema and Its Intermedial Contexts’: The project aims is to investigate the major spheres of colour expression in commercial and experimental motion pictures of the 1920s. Taking cinema as its galvanising focus, it will contextualise colour’s intermedial role in other arts – including commercial and print culture; fashion and industry; theatre and the performing arts – in order to produce a fully comprehensive, comparative and interdisciplinary study of the impact of colour during a decade of profound social, economic and cultural change. The project team also includes Principal Investigator Prof. Sarah Street and Dr. Josh Yumibe Co-Investigator and is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

The Siren Mode: Female Body Image in the Ballets Russes and Haute Couture c. 1927-1929 Katerina Pantelides Abstract From 1920-1927 the garçonne, an androgynous female icon dominated Paris fashion and Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, as a boyish silhouette and youthful, unsophisticated mannerisms were promoted by fashion arbiters and the Russian émigré ballet company alike. However, during the late 1920s, the garçonne gave way to more traditional visions of femininity. Couturiers, most notably Madeleine Vionnet, pioneered complex garment constructions that alternately clung to and flowed from the body, thus exaggerating its feminine form, while Diaghilev’s ballets began to feature chimerical sirens and goddesses whose appearance and reality were discordant. From about 1927 gender difference was accentuated as women from both the spheres of fashion and ballet began to be portrayed as seductive, fascinating and remote. This chapter seeks to explore the relationship ballet and fashion in the late 1920s through this supremely feminine and mysterious siren figure. It will firstly consider how and why the siren evolved from the garçonne and eventually replaced her, and will then compare evocations of siren-like femininity in ballet and fashion. The influence of the Neoclassical and Modernist artistic movements will be evaluated alongside the ballet dancers’ prolonged exile from Russia, as the chapter examines why woman was mythologised as a muse and seductress during this period. Key Words: Balanchine, ballet, bias-cut, classicism, body, dance, essential, femininity, light, movement, shadow, siren, Vionnet. ***** This chapter examines manifestations of siren-like femininity in Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and Parisian haute couture between 1927 and 1929. 1 In the early to mid-1920s, the garçonne, an androgynous female icon dominated both disciplines; however, around 1927 notions of essential femininity based upon the body’s appeal and the legendary feminine enigma prevailed. Couturiers, most notably Madeleine Vionnet, pioneered complex garment constructions that alternately revealed and transformed the body in motion, while Diaghilev’s ballets began to feature chimerical sirens and goddesses whose appearance and reality were discordant. In both ballet and fashion, these enigmatic manifestations referenced Freud’s discussion of the feminine ‘riddle.’ 2 Freud, who acknowledged the patriarchal psychoanalytic discipline’s limited knowledge of femininity hypothesised that women’s sexuality was largely narcissistic owing to ‘the effect of penis-envy’

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__________________________________________________________________ whereby females attempted to compensate for ‘their original sexual inferiority’ by accentuating their physical charms. Freud’s added emphasis on feminine mystery and narcissism promoted a generalised conception of woman that objectified her and exaggerated her difference from man. Simone de Beauvoir analysed this notion of woman as an Othering fantasy, writing that: ‘the dream incarnated is precisely woman; she is the wished for intermediary between nature the stranger to man, and the fellow being who is too closely identical.’ 3 Arguably, as a dream positioned between nature and humanity, woman was a mythologised entity, to be discovered and defined by man, even, paradoxically, when she was cast as unknowable. In Classical mythology, the Sirens, woman and bird hybrids who combed their hair on the rocks and lured sailors to their deaths by singing sweetly, became such emblems of chimerical femininity. 4 Though the sirens were defined by their alluring physicality, their choral activity rendered them seductive objects and seducing subjects simultaneously. Comparably, the dancers and style arbiters who displayed sirenic body image occupied a liminal position between objectification and subjectivity as they appealed to the (often male) spectator’s gaze, but simultaneously expressed their difference from conventional notions of feminine passivity. The chapter addresses sirenic body image in the Russian émigré choreographer George Balanchine’s ballets La Chatte (1927), Apollo (1928) and Prodigal Son (1929) alongside parallel developments in haute couture. It will adopt the psychoanalyst Paul Schilder’s definition of body image as the ‘tri-dimensional image which everybody has about himself.’ 5 This notion incorporated both the body’s appearance and an individual’s multi-sensory corporeal experience. For Schilder, who was writing in the context of the 1930s Western cult of bodily improvement through physical exercise, the body’s postural model was ‘in perpetual inner self-construction and self-destruction’ and therefore aligned to fluctuating notions of personal and interpersonal identity. 6 Schilder’s conception of constant adaptation in body image and identity is especially pertinent for discussing women’s external appearances and personal experiences within the transitioning disciplines of dance and fashion. There were elements of the siren’s otherness within representations of postarmistice new women prior to 1927, both in fashion and in the Ballets Russes, as an equivocal approach to gender and sexuality reflected the ambiguity of postarmistice feminine identity. Rebecca Arnold notes how ‘as gender roles altered under the impact of the First World War’ in both the workplace and social life ‘women needed to renegotiate their relationship to public spaces.’ 7 Young, metropolitan women signalled this alteration sartorially through an uncorseted silhouette that revealed the natural body’s outlines. Yet as Coco Chanel, one instigator of these changes declared, this new woman became ‘a caterpillar by day and a butterfly by night. Nothing could be more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly.’ 8 Such dualism was reflected in haute

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__________________________________________________________________ couture from the early to middle 1920s. Daywear utilised masculine fabrics and the simplified cuts of sportswear, thus accommodating women’s active pursuits, while eveningwear was often made from lightweight, lustrous fabrics and decoratively embellished. Eveningwear then, revealed the new erogenous zones of back and limbs, and created wing-like dimensions around the wearer’s body that exaggerated gender difference and rendered women spectacular entities. As Liz Conor has identified, during the 1920s women’s bodies were exposed on stage, in the media and on screen to an unprecedented degree. According to Conor the flapper courted a ‘specifically’ male gaze in asserting ‘her modernity as a sexual subject by paradoxically constituting herself as an object within the new conditions of feminine visibility.’ 9 Like the Classical siren, then, she actively portrayed herself as a seducing object in combining the new woman’s masculine agency with the coquette’s attention-seeking exterior. Plural manifestations of femininity also infiltrated the Ballets Russes in the 1920s. On the one hand, Diaghilev aligned his company’s aesthetic to modernity, and from 1920 onwards had sought Chanel’s advice in costuming his female dancers, who in turn adopted a lean, streamlined silhouette both on and off stage. 10 However, as Russian émigrés and ballet dancers, Diaghilev’s women equally embodied multiple othering qualities. As the artist Edgar Degas summarised, ballerinas were perceived as ‘Queens... made of distance and greasepaint,’ in other words, supremely feminine creatures who moved in an ethereal, non-pedestrian manner and inhabited a shadowy theatrical realm. 11 By the mid-1920s the Ballets Russes dancers’ professionalism had to some extent redressed stereotypes that equated female dancers with courtesans. However, an aura of sexual provocation still surrounded female stage performers, given their dualistic identities which comprised public-facing and private elements. Moreover, Russian ballet dancers possessed additional layers of difference because they were expatriates who had been severed from their native Russia and its Imperial ballet tradition after the1917 Bolshevik Revolution. This difference was exacerbated by their numerous costumed guises in Diaghilev’s iconoclastic productions. Subsequently, these ethnically displaced, performing women’s liminality meant that they embodied notions of enigmatic femininity. The year 1927, marked a peaked interest in the sirenic femininity that was beginning to displace the garçonne mode in the Ballets Russes and Paris fashion. That year George Balanchine, who had emigrated from Bolshevik Russia in 1924 and had subsequently proven his choreographic talent to Diaghilev, became the company’s dominant choreographer and was permitted greater artistic control over his work. From the outset of his choreographic career Balanchine had found his greatest inspiration in his female dancers. According to Yuri Slonimsky, Balanchine’s peer at the State Academic Theatre in Petrograd, the young choreographer ‘searched tirelessly for a girl with talent who would inspire him in turn to affirm the beauty of a dance created in honour of his love and in admiration

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__________________________________________________________________ of her gifts.’ 12 This emphasis on admiration, or love from a distance, indicates Balanchine’s interest in incorporating the dancer’s particular talent into his scheme of distant, idealised beauty. This was apparent in La Chatte, a ballet based on Aesop’s fable about a cat who transformed into a woman when a young man wished for it, and then resumed her feline form when tempted by a passing mouse. 13 La Chatte’s eponymous protagonist embodied this distant, mercurial model of femininity by becoming an elemental construct of light and movement in the Russian Constructivist designer Naum Gabo’s experiment with the ‘dynamic potential of form in space.’ 14 Gabo’s elaborate set featured mobile constructions made from transparent plastics against a black background. The costumes which ‘were contrived as moving entities so that when the dancers performed their steps, the light would catch the edge of the plastic or cause reflections to shimmer on its surface’ contributed to the luminous, kinetic set. 15 Balanchine’s choreography which the Ballets Russes ballet-master Sergei Grigoriev noted was ‘... full of invention, particularly as regards its poses, which were highly sculptural’ aided this impression of luminous movement. 16 Alice Nikitina, who danced the cat in the ballet’s Paris premiere found that Balanchine’s choreography and Henri Sauget’s music ‘inspired me remarkably and I was in such harmony with the fairylike background of transparent, colourless creations.’ 17 Nikitina’s costumed integration into the dance destabilised her body’s boundaries and thereby emphasised the cat’s chimerical character. While her body image disrupted notions of fixed femininity, its combined intangibility and feline coyness was gendered in evoking Freud’s conception of feminine mystery and self-absorption. In 1927, Parisian couturiers also began to develop a new female body image based upon cinematic movement and feminine seductiveness after a period of perceived creative stagnation. 18 A 1927 article by the couturier Lucien Lelong for the periodical L’Officiel de la Couture et la Mode described how ‘la ligne kinetique’ was designed to promote transparency and sculptural movement. 19 In 1928 L’Officiel described one printed Chanel chiffon dress with a triple flounced skirt and free-floating panels of irregular length as ‘an immaterial thing, fairylike and extremely simple, but studied in such a way that the line of the woman who wears it, is made the best of.’ 20 The dress was paradoxically revealing and illusionist: in the manner of La Chatte’s transparent yet intricately constructed costumes, the immaterial garment purported to expose the figure but simultaneously deceived the eye about its true shape through a complex network of panels. The dress thus diverted attention away from the wearer’s natural body and onto her stylised dressed body, which demonstrated the couturier’s craft and implied the woman’s consciously discerning self-presentation. Moreover, the wearer’s body image would appear different from varying angles and transform in motion, thus rendering her like Nikitina in La Chatte, a mobile sculpture, who transgressed static corporeal boundaries. This aesthetic conceived of a woman who was paradoxically as simple and direct as light, and yet a composite of illusionistic

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__________________________________________________________________ devices. The female body, and perhaps by extension the woman inside it, like La Chatte’s hybrid cat, was portrayed as equivocal. This paradoxical femininity was further developed in Balanchine’s 1928 ballet Apollo and Vionnet’s bias-cut dresses as both pursued a body image that married classical sculpture’s universalising ideals and the individual body’s movement. Balanchine and Vionnet’s innovations were conceived during the period of fine and decorative art’s renewed interest in classicism. Around 1927 artists including Picasso and Giorgio de Chirico responded to the Cubist and Futurist movements’ experiments with fragmentation and abstraction by exploring how Classicism’s unifying principles could redefine modern experience. Arnold argues that Classicism in relation to dress ‘presents a facade of effortlessness... It is revered within Western culture as an emblem of simple, natural truths, the beauty of geometric forms draped upon supple flesh, yet it takes considerable skill to create and wear.’ 21 Here, Arnold’s emphasis on the conscious artistry behind the classical aesthetic’s apparent essentialism is important, as it indicates that though women who adopted a neoclassical body image could appear impenetrable, their realisation of this ideal relied upon careful adaptations to their body image. In Balanchine’s Apollo, where the Muses of poetry (Calliope), mime, (Polyhymnia) and dance (Terpischore) competed for the Music god’s favour it was Terpsichore’s ability to present a persuasive classicising body image that marked her chosen status. 22 The ballet’s composer Stravinsky, viewed that Terpsichore’s persuasion consisted of ‘combining in herself both the rhythm of poetry and the eloquence of gesture,’ and thereby ‘reveal(ing) dancing to the world.’ 23 This revelation of dancing, an art which welds the body’s living solidity to choreography’s intangibility denotes a marriage between the dancer’s imminent appeal and classical art’s universalising aesthetic. This was enhanced by the ballet’s choreography, which featured frieze-like compositions in perpetual motion and thereby oscillated between art’s stillness and dance’s movement. 24 Balanchine, whose choreographic method involved collaborating with his dancers in ‘creat(ing) particular works for particular persons by drawing out what is in them,’ exploited the specific talents of his first Terpsichores, Nikitina and Alexandra Danilova. 25 Subsequently, the dancers who both felt that Terpsichore’s choreography fitted them like a ‘glove’ revealed highly different body images in publicity photographs. 26 Whereas Nikitina was emotionally restrained and embodied the challenging choreography in a fluid arabesque, Danilova turned her head towards the camera and engaged the spectator’s gaze as though to make them aware of her status as the favoured Muse. 27 Furthermore, the dancers’ different body images attest to Balanchine’s interest in the kinaesthetic immediacy of individual bodies, and the dancers’ own desires to emerge as distinctive artists within classical ballet’s prescribed, idealised forms. The tension between the living body and classical art in Vionnet’s work manifested in her dual inspirations of ‘the beautifully clothed women depicted on

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__________________________________________________________________ (Greek vases), or even the noble lines of the vase itself’ and the agile, uncorseted female body. 28 Vionnet, who disdained fashion’s ephemerality wanted haute couture to emulate classical art’s allegedly timeless celebration of the wellproportioned natural body’s lines. As Pamela Golbin has observed, Vionnet’s chief innovation to this end was to use the bias cut, which traditionally lined bodices, for the entire garment. This caused the fabric to alternately delineate and flow from the body’s contours, thus enabling it to gain elasticity and become a sort of ‘second skin around a body in motion.’ 29 Like Balanchine’s glove-like choreography Vionnet’s innovations with the bias cut enabled her to refine and flatter her clients’ bodies in motion. Vionnet’s dresses then, much like Apollo’s choreography, reinvigorated classical feminine body image by pursuing the synaesthetic trope of bodily movement and warmth within visual clarity. This paradox evokes Michel Serres’s discussion of Cinderella’s slipper, which in Charles Perrault’s original fairytale was ‘vair’ (Old French for fur), but transubstantiated to ‘verre’ (French for glass) in eighteenth-century variants of the tale. While Balanchine and Vionnet strove for the transparent homogeneity of ‘verre’ in their classical bodily schemas, in reality the transformative, contrasting forms that they grafted onto the body resembled ‘vair’, whose etymology lies in variety. Serres wrote that the ‘vair’ slipper unlike its rigid ‘verre’ antecedent was ‘flexible but specific, with the potential for all shapes but fitting one only... holding the foot firmly but allowing it to dance.’ 30 The ‘vair’ slipper’s contrapuntal precision and flexibility, along with its contained support of the wearer’s expressive foot, renders it a fitting analogue to Vionnet and Balanchine’s creations. Thus supported and permitted to dance, the women who inhabited these creators’ variegated constructions were refined but encouraged to beguile through expressive, personalised bodily movements. More overt displays of sirenic femininity manifested in ballet and couture through notions of entrapping animalistic body image. In the Ballets Russes this was most directly imbued in the 1929 ballet Prodigal Son’s Siren who tempts the eponymous protagonist to sin. 31 Balanchine, the ballet’s choreographer instructed Felia Dubrovska, the dancer who played the Siren, to relinquish her humanity by becoming a ‘snake’ who hypnotises her prey and almost kills him. 32 Dubrovska related that ‘everything was in my eyes and in showing myself’ as her act’s power lay in executing Balanchine’s intricately geometric choreography of folding and unfolding legs with a steady stare. 33 She described how ‘because at that time I had lovely legs, Balanchine used that... he asked me to lie down on the floor on my back, just flat, and to bend my knees and then slowly kick, one leg straight, then the other....’ 34 Balanchine further achieved the Siren’s body image by exaggerating Dubrovska’s five-foot six inch physique, which by contemporary standards was strikingly tall for a female dancer, through placing the latter on pointe and in ‘a high hat to make her appear even taller.’ 35 The character’s serpentine otherness was heightened through heavy orientalised eye make-up and the artist George

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__________________________________________________________________ Rouault’s slimming, tight wine-red velvet bodice with darkened side panels and the web-patterned tights that accentuated her leg length. There was a un-balletic emphasis on weight and multiplicity in Dubrovska’s stylised provocative body image, which embodied Freud’s conception of female vanity as compensation for original sexual inferiority, a notion tailored to the biblical parable’s moral. Dubrovska’s provocative body image, along with the slow, supine, coitally suggestive aspects of her choreography which jarred with the ballet’s otherwise accelerated tempo, evoked seductresses in contemporary silent film. For example, a similar mode of sirenic femininity was revealed in The Woman He Scorned (1929), where the actress Pola Negri’s body was revealed and later defeated in a similar manner to Dubrovska’s and thus pandered to bourgeois society’s simultaneous fascination and fear of female sexuality. 36 Still, the magnetism of such stage and screen seductresses, whose imagery was accessible to all who encountered it in the theatre or press, coupled with a relaxation of sexual mores in the 1920s, meant that adaptations of their webbed costumes filtered into the evening wear and lingerie of middle class women. Under the umbrella of bourgeois consumption it became socially acceptable for women to portray elements of the femme fatale, albeit in a less overt manner than Dubrovska and Negri. This was often achieved through lattice-like fabrics that embodied the feminine riddle through their contrapuntal translucency and highly-worked, intricate surfaces. A 1929 promotion of the Russian émigré fashion house Annek’s airborne nightgowns trimmed with lace was titled ‘Lingerie of Cobweb Texture.’ 37 In its cobweb analogy the promotion evoked not only the garments’ unparalleled lightness, but their ability to ensnare and captivate their intended victim. Like Dubrovska’s slowly unfolding Siren, the woman in lacy trappings attempted to still time, by stopping the spectator in his tracks, inciting him to look at her and become suspended in her power. In the late1920s whereas Siegfried Kracauer noted, the working day was increasingly regulated and society’s very pastimes appeared to mark time, sirenic bodily seduction with its ability to disrupt quotidian chronologies, became a powerful distraction. 38 As a figure who oscillated between the contraries of avant-garde and retrospective femininity, the siren in Ballets Russes productions and haute couture between 1927 and 1929, evoked contemporary society’s ambivalence towards notions of feminine agency and sexuality. The technical innovations in choreography and couture that simultaneously revealed and enigmatised the female body, released its potential for movement on an unprecedented level and challenged its relationship to subjectivity and objecthood. However, while the siren mode served to destabilise conceptions of universalising, static femininity, its appeal relied upon exaggerating notions of feminine otherness. This model set a precedent for the early 1930s, when after the global Great Depression and the economic uncertainty that accompanied it, consumers’ desire for escapism led them to seek refuge in escapist visions of feminine embodiment.

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Notes 1

Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes was a famous company of travelling Russian dancers, known for its innovation and promotion of collaboration between different production elements. The company debuted in Paris in 1909, and after a brief interval during the war period, remained a company in emigration until Diaghilev’s 1929 death. 2 Sigmund Freud, ‘On Femininity’ (1933), in On Freud’s Femininity, eds. Leticia Glocer Fiorini and Graciela Abelin-Sas Rose (London: Karnac Books, 2010), 128. Freud sustained this view on female narcissism over 19 years. In his 1933 essay ‘On Femininity’ he refers readers back to his 1914 text ‘On Narcissism.’ 3 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (New York: Modern Books, 1968), 182. 4 In Homer’s Odyssey the Sirens were the daughters of the river god Achleous and various deities including the Muse of dance Terpsichore, the Muse of tragedy Melpomene and the Pleiades. Odysseus instructed his men to plug their ears with wax when sailing past the Sirens so that they would not be lured into the rocks by their song. 5 Paul Schilder, The Image and Appearance of the Human Body: Studies in Constructive Energies of the Psyche (New York: International Universities Press Inc., 1950), 3. 6 Ibid., 201. 7 Rebecca Arnold, ‘Vionnet and Classicism’, Madeleine Vionnet, 15 Dresses from the Collection of Martin Kamer, Judith Clark Costume, 15 March - 26 April 2001, ed. Judith Clark (London: Judith Clark Costume, 2001), 3. 8 Chanel quoted in Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda, Chanel (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991), 73. 9 Liz Conor, The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the 1920s (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 252. 10 The Ballets Russes’ ballet master Sergei Grigoriev noted that Diaghilev was accused of pursuing what was as ‘any moment fashionable in the arts’ in ballets ‘where the leading object was surprise.’ Sergei Grigoriev, The Diaghilev Ballet 1909-1929, trans. Vera Bowen (London: Constable, 1953), 156. 11 Edgar Degas, Sonnet V (1889), trans. Richard Kendall, in Degas and the Dance, Richard Kendall and Jill de Vonyar (New York: Abrams, 2002). 12 Yuri Slonimsky, ‘Balanchine: The Early Years’, Ballet Review 3, trans. John Andrews (New York: Dance Research Foundation, 1975-6): 29. 13 The ballet La Chatte premiered on April 30, 1927. The choreography was by George Balanchine, the music by Henri Sauget and the set and costume design by Naum Gabo.

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Martin Hammer, Constructing Modernity: The Art and Career of Naum Gabo (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 159. 15 Ibid. 16 Grigoriev, Diaghilev Ballet, 235. 17 Alice Nikitina, Nikitina: By Herself (London: Wingate, 1959), 59. 18 The couturier Premet said in an interview ‘If fashion stays the way it is, it will become a public menace. Clothes nowadays don’t vary enough from one season to the next.’ Premet interview with M. Winters in Les Cahiers, January 1927, trans. Jacqueline Demomex. Quoted in Jacqueline Demomex, Lucien Lelong (London: Thames & Hudson, 2008), 56. 19 Translation by author: ‘the line is kinetic and the effect is obtained by treatment of different parts of the silhouette.’ Lucien Lelong, ‘La Mode Kinoptique’, L’Officiel de la Couture et la Mode de Paris, March 1927. 20 L’Officiel de la Couture et la Mode de Paris, May 1928. 21 Arnold, ‘Vionnet and Classicism’, 3. 22 Apollo was originally titled Apollon Musagète and premiered on 27 April 1928. It was choreographed by George Balanchine, designed and costumed by André Bauchant, with music by Stravinsky. 23 Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (London: Boyars, 1990), 134. 24 Stephanie Jordan, Stravinsky Dances: Re-visions across a Century (Alton: Dance Books, 2007), 147. 25 George Balanchine, quoted in Arnold Haskell, Balletomania: the Story of an Obsession (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1934), 146. 26 Alexandra Danilova, Choura: The Memoirs of Alexandra Danilova (New York: Knopf, 1986), 99; Nikitina, Nikitina: By Herself, 89. 27 See G. L. Manuel Freres, Alice Nikitina as Terpsichore in ‘Apollon Musagete’, Paris, 1928, In Musee Nationale de l’Opera de Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris and Danilova as Terpsichore in ‘Apollon Musagete’, c. 1928. In Choura: The Memoirs of Alexandra Danilova by Alexandra Danilova (New York: Knopf, 1986), 9. 28 Madeleine Vionnet quoted in Betty Kirke, Madeleine Vionnet (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998), 27. 29 Pamela Golbin, Madeleine Vionnet (New York: Rizzoli, 2009), 25. 30 Michel Serres, The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies, trans. Margaret Sankey (London and New York: Continuum, 2009), 62. 31 The Prodigal Son was choreographed by George Balanchine, designed by George Rouault with music by Prokofiev. It premiered on 21 May 1929. 32 Felia Dubrovska quoted in Barbara Newman, Striking a Balance: Dancers Talk about Dancing (London: Elm Tree Books, 1982), 7. 33 Ibid.

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Ibid. Danilova, Choura, 78. 36 The Woman He Scorned, dir. Paul Czinner (Charles Whittaker Productions, 1929). 37 ‘Lingerie of Cobweb Texture’, Harper’s Bazaar, March 1929. 38 Siegfried Kracauer, ‘Travel and Dance’, in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, trans. Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 66. 35

Bibliography Arnold, Rebecca. ‘Vionnet and Classicism’. Madeleine Vionnet, 15 Dresses from the Collection of Martin Kamer. Judith Clark Costume 15 March – 26 April 2001. Edited by Judith Clark. London: Judith Clark Costume, 2001. Bolton, Andrew, and Harold Koda. Chanel. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991. Conor, Liz. The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the 1920s. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Danilova, Alexandra. Choura: The Memoirs of Alexandra Danilova. New York: Knopf, 1986. De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Translated from the French by H. M. Parshley. New York: Modern Books, 1968. Degas, Edward. Sonnet V (1889). Translated by Richard Kendall. In Degas and the Dance, Richard Kendall and Jill de Vonyar. New York: Abrams, 2002. Demomex, Jacqueline. Lucien Lelong. London: Thames & Hudson, 2008. Freud, Sigmund. ‘On Femininity’ (1933). In On Freud’s Femininity, edited by Letcia Glocer Florini, and Graciela Abelin-Sas Rose. London: Karnac Books, 2010. Golbin, Pamela. Madeleine Vionnet. New York: Rizzoli, 2009. Grigoriev, Sergei. The Diaghilev Ballet 1909-1929. Translated by Vera Bowen. London: Constable, 1953.

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__________________________________________________________________ Hammer, Martin. Constructing Modernity: The Art and Career of Naum Gabo. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Haskell, Arnold. Balletomania: The Story of an Obsession. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1934. Jordan, Stephanie. Stravinsky Dances: Re-Visions Across a Century. Alton: Dance Books, 2007. Kirke, Betty. Madeleine Vionnet. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998. Kracauer, Siegfied. ‘Travel and Dance’. The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Translated by Thomas Y. Levin. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. L’Officiel de la Couture et la Mode de Paris, May 1928. ‘Lingerie of Cobweb Texture’. Harper’s Bazaar, March 1929. ‘Lucien Lelong. ‘La Mode Kinoptique’. L-Officiel de la Couture et la Mode de Paris, March 1927. Newman, Barbara. Striking a Balance: Dancers Talk about Dancing. London: Elm Tree Books, 1982. Nikitina, Alice. Nikitina: By Herself. London: Wingate, 1959. Schilder, Paul. The Image and Appearance of the Human Body: Studies in Constructive Energies of the Psyche. New York: International Universities Press Inc., 1950. Serres, Michel. The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies. Translated by Margaret Sankey. London and New York: Continuum, 2009. Slonimsky, Yuri. ‘Balanchine: The Early Years’. Translated by John Andrews. Ballet Review 3 (New York: Dance Research Foundation, 1975): 29. Stravinsky, Igor. An Autobiography. London: Boyars, 1990.

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Filmography Czinner, Paul, dir. The Woman He Scorned. Charles Whittaker Productions, 1929. Katerina Pantelides is a PhD student at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, supervised by Dr. Rebecca Arnold. Her thesis ‘Russian Emigre Ballet and the Body: Paris and New York c. 1920-50’ considers how Russian emigre ballet practitioners shaped attitudes to dance and body culture in their host countries. Katerina is also a co-founder of Fashion Research Network, a cross-institutional, interdisciplinary venture that promotes the work of early career dress researchers and practitioners http://fashionresearchnetwork.co.uk/.

Bring Me My Bow(s) of Burning White: Re-Reading the Literary Wedding Dress as Narrative of Refuge, Resistance and Revenge Sarah Heaton Abstract The wedding dress, the finale of the catwalk, the apotheosis of the designer’s skill, rarely appears in its full splendour at the cathartic narrative closure of the novel. Even if a couple disappears into the distance the dress is conspicuously absent. Occasionally the dress appears happily in a vague mist of tulle and orange blossom but usually for a secondary character and within the discourse of wrapping and confinement of the female character for the male. The dress in detail only really appears at moments of crisis; literature is full of dresses of despair. But more recently, particularly in the young adult literature of The Hunger Games and the Twilight series, dresses arguably meant to confine are re-figured by the female characters as weapon just as the designer ending their show with a wedding dress is throwing down the final gauntlet to others. With this contemporary sense of the wedding dress as a tool of agency this chapter will re-read previously dominant readings of the dress of despair and confinement starting with Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations, who is usually read as trapped in the cobwebs of her dress. I will argue that the dress itself provides not only a defensive barrier but becomes part of her weaponry of revenge. In Edith Wharton’s The Mother’s Recompense it is the wedding dress that finally cows the mother into retreat. Similarly the twin sisters in Dorothy Baker’s Cassandra at the Wedding use the dress to exert and empower identity choices. The chapter will argue that the meanings written into the conferment of wedding dresses and jewellery on daughters by ‘mothers,’ ‘fathers’ and ‘lovers’ are inverted when the daughters take the symbol of subjugation and use it as a weapon variously to take refuge, to resist and to take revenge. Key Words: Wedding dress, shoes, literature, Dickens, Wharton, The Hunger Games, Twilight, Mothers and Daughters, patriarchy, revenge. ***** Despite all the wedding dresses which happily conclude everything from fashion shows, to fairy tales, and adaptations of Jane Austen to Sex in the City time and again even if a novel does have a happy wedding the dress is absent or a blur of Orange Blossom and veil. 1 When the wedding dress does hang around in the text it is invariably a moment of crisis. The most famous literary wedding dress has to be Miss Havisham’s which she has been wearing since she put in on the morning of her wedding 25 years earlier:

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__________________________________________________________________ She was dressed in rich materials – satins, and lace, and silks – all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white […] She had not quite finished, for she had but one shoe on – the other was on a table near her hand – her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay within those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a Prayer-Book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-glass. 2 Even this most famous of dresses is not described in any detail, an impression is given which includes all the culturally expected symbols of the Victorian wedding ritual and it is usually read as the apotheosis of the Victorian cultural significations of tying and binding a woman as a gift for her husband, which is now trapping her in the past, the stasis in Satis house. During the Victorian period: ‘Debuts and weddings were female-centered rituals […] weddings denoted a time of crisis in the life of the individual […] going from girlhood to womanhood.’ 3 Miss Havisham, bound by her dress and her absent man, is stuck in the liminal space prior to marriage neither a daughter or a wife, her purity stale and yellowing at the edges. everything within my view which ought to be white […] had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. 4 That the dress no longer fits underscores the importance of the close relationship between the dress and the body, and how the two should work together. Here the dress is at odds not only with cultural expectations of the dress’s performance, but the body. The dress has been stored in the Victorian dressing room, which would have been its ultimate destination after it had been taken off until it was perhaps passed on. The storing of Miss Havisham inside the dress merely underscores how, even if she had married she would have similarly been stored in domesticity. Pip’s disorientation when faced with Miss Havisham can certainly be derived from this exposure of the vacuity of the ritual, and women’s role in society, as well as the anxiety over the ownership of women’s property. Miss Havisham exerts a real level of power that goes beyond her economic leverage in a period when women could not own their own property until 1882. She does, after all, own her own wedding dress. She bought it, she put it on and she is not taking it off. Further I would argue that she exerts a power through the dress itself. That her continued wearing of it is her choice, that she has not taken it off means that she owns it in

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__________________________________________________________________ other ways. Further everyone who sees her in it becomes disorientated: ‘so new to him […] so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us!’ 5 Yet Pip is less melancholic at the sight of the dress than fearful. Miss Havisham is aware of the effect her dress has on others and holds pleasure in it, pointing to her sense of agency and power which she exerts through the wedding dress. This is further emphasised by her powerful wielding of clothing in her dressing of Estella and that, as her surrogate mother, Miss Havisham never dresses Estella in her wedding dress, merely allows her to stitch and mend it. Even when the dress goes up in flames killing her and is swapped for a white sheet shroud as she is laid out on her wedding breakfast table there is still at the heart of this dress a sense of power and wielding of power in the moment of ultimate control over the wedding dress in that she remains in it and the image of it remains with us. In Edith Wharton’s The Mother’s Recompense the daughter does get to wear the dress. The climax of the novel focuses on the dress itself, but, rather than at the resplendent wedding it is lying on the bed dazzling Kate, the mother, into submission – this is the one dress she is barred from owning however much she desires it. In the novel Kate is the disgraced mother who has left her Old New York husband for a man on a Riviera yacht but returns home on her now adult daughter’s behest years later once her husband and finally his mother, old Mrs Clephane, has died. The sartorially elegant mother is challenged by the conservative daughter Anne in more than just clothes when she discovers she is about to marry Captain Fenno with whom Kate, the mother had fallen in love and had a sensuous affair with after the yachtsman had sailed. That Fenno is viewing the wedding dress with Anne suggests that the consummation has already taken place: 6 ‘They were looking at the dress; but the curves of their lips, hardly detached, were like those of a fruit that has burst apart of its own ripeness.’ 7 Kate watching ‘felt the same embrace, felt the very texture of her lover’s cheek against her own, burned with the heat of his palm as it clasped Anne’s chin to press her closer.’ 8 Kate has desired her daughter’s youth wearing the youthful dresses in the Riviera where she did not have the responsibility of old New York dress codes. Kate, the mother, has kept her figure, ‘supple and free,’ that she dresses well: ‘And what a beautiful mother you are! […] And nobody wears their clothes as you do,’ 9 and ‘it gives one more hold over one’s girls to have kept one’s figure. One can at least go on wearing the clothes they like.’ 10 But clearly not the wedding dress. Already Kate has given up youthful fashion to take on the role of the mother for Anne and now she has to give up the one dress she could never own. Its presence haunts and oppresses her because she has also carried on desiring Fenno, who rather than choosing the woman with the socially constructed accessories of youth, the abundant flowing hair, the young dresses and the inhabiting sensuality displayed by Kate, has ironically married Anne who dresses and braids her hair in a ‘memorial manner’ 11 with stifling Old New York

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__________________________________________________________________ middle aged etiquette. Anne gives Fenno the conservative social security he desires rather than the youthful freedom of Kate. Wharton despite being such an astute describer of fashion also rarely gives details when it comes to wedding dresses and this dress is no exception; it is a dazzle of whiteness and here certainly the dress is one which rather than being a symbol of innocence and hope is one of accusation and blindness. Anne has control over her mother and therefore does not need bridesmaids to display her power over other women when in a ‘mist of white tulle’ with the ‘folds of Anne’s train […] already slipping through her mother’s fingers.’ 12 But rather than the ‘sterile pain,’ 13 which the rector predicts will be Kate’s if she remains in the old Clephane house in the shadow of her daughter and Captain Fenno, Kate chooses the ‘slant of the Riviera sun’ desolatory perhaps but then we leave her with Lord Charles to fill a few hours: she came back handsomer, better dressed – yes my dear, actually sables! – and she offered them cocktails … (with a view of the sea thrown in). 14 She may have conceded the wedding dress to her daughter but she still wields her power through her sense of style. And what sense we do have of the dress is that its mist of white tulle aligns it to tradition. In Cassandra at the Wedding the mother is absent and it is the relationship between the twin sisters which comes under scrutiny via the dress. Cassandra’s witty ironic take on wedding ceremonies more generally, transfigures slowly into her not being able to cope with the idea that the sister is to ‘marry’ anyone other than her. Having chosen her dress carefully so that it is elegant enough to wear to any occasion she avoids revealing it for as long as possible until she has to show her grandmother and sister: Then I broke a seal and unfolded the paper. The dress lay there quietly and unobtrusively white against the white paper, but with extreme elegance and style […] Pure silk feel the weight of it. It crunches. 15 The simple elegance is the point. She wants to wear white to link her to, but also to stand in contrast to Judith’s dress to show that they are the same but have made different choices, Judith has chosen tradition and domesticity, and, she has chosen intellectual independence. The problem is they have bought the same dress. Identical signature. Size ten. White silk. Feel the weight of it, the intolerable crushing weight. I looked away from it and what did I see? The other one, fallen across the box on my bed. The one I’d been thinking of as mine – the one that was going to contrast so signally in its elegant simplicity with the kind of thing a bride is stuck to wear, including I hoped, the fluty corsage, the white prayer book and fingertip veil. 16

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__________________________________________________________________ Granny, who has always wanted them to dress identically, is delighted: ‘the very same wedding dresses. And there she went too far. Mine was not a wedding dress. It was only a dress I’d bought to wear to somebody’s wedding.’ 17 That is the whole point this simple dress was meant to symbolically suggest to the audience precisely that it is not a wedding dress and also that it was the better choice. There is a claustrophobia as ‘the room began to feel too small and full of tissue paper,’ suggesting the claustrophobia of traditional rituals and the expectations for women still prevalent in the 1960s. When Cassandra claims: ‘That’s no dress for a bride, don’t you know that? […] It’s too goddamned simple […] Don’t you know that the bride is supposed to be all gussied up?’ 18 Judith replies: ‘Jane (their mother) would undoubtedly have picked the same dress. So would the Bouvier sisters and Althea Gibson and the Duchess of Windsor.’ 19 So in fact the mother, at the head of this list of independent and elegant women, has passed on the dress to both of them to take on the same and different meanings for each simultaneously. Cassandra may not get married, despite wearing the dress, but after the ‘frilling wedding’ 20 does take the dress off, she does not commit suicide, does not go mad and does get a ‘feeling for Berkeley again – all the fancy groceries and noon concerts and recorder groups and student demonstrations – all that progressive jazz.’ 21 Cassandra had intended the dress as a liberatory dress of agency marking out difference and wielding power over her sister, despite wearing the same dress, the dress does in fact do exactly that. It is all in the wearing. One of the most powerful recent renditions of a character using a wedding dress to demonstrate agency is Rosalie in the Twilight series. She wears a wedding dress to exact her revenge over her fiancé: ‘I was overly theatrical. It was kind of childish, really. I wore a wedding dress I’d stolen for the occasion.’ 22 As a human both her father and fiancé buy her ‘pretty dresses’ 23 and her mother is complicit instructing her to wear her white dress to attract Royce King when she visits the bank. 24 Perhaps because she dresses so well her fiancé’s attack begins with his attack on the clothes he has bought her: ‘Royce ripped my jacket from my shoulders – it was a gift from him – popping the brass buttons off. They scattered all over the street.’ 25 That she does not own the clothes means she has no control over them. For Rosalie who is very conscious of her own relationship to her beauty and clothing in terms of identity the borrowed wedding dress is an easily wielded weapon. But for Bella the wedding dress initially suggests the anxiety of negotiating complex often conflicting desires in the performance of gender and the self. This is particularly underscored not only in her dream but that when Alice dresses her she is unable to look at the dress at first and when she does, disassociates herself from the image she sees, aligning herself more firmly to the reader’s perspective: Her skin was cream and roses, her eyes were huge with excitement and framed with thick lashes. The narrow sheath of

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__________________________________________________________________ the shimmering white dress flared out subtly at the train almost like an inverted calla lily, cut so skilfully that her body looked elegant and graceful. 26 The multiple symbolic meanings of the calla lily are inverted but only Bella can ‘see’ all of that and only once she has looked at herself in the dress. In The Hunger Games the wedding dress is initially a tool of President Snow’s control and his attempt to fix Katniss into what he needs her to be: there are six gowns and each one requires its own headpiece, shoes, jewellery, hair, make-up, setting and lighting. Creamy lace and pink roses and ringlets. Ivory satin and gold tattoos and greenery. A sheath of diamonds and jewelled veil and moonlight. Heavy white silk and sleeves that fall from my wrist to the floor, and pearls. The moment one shot has been approved, we move right into preparing for the next. I feel like dough, being kneaded and reshaped again and again. 27 It is no different to the tracker-jackers or the mutts. It is also exactly what wedding dresses in patriarchal men’s hands have always been, moulding and trapping women. When Katniss is to be displayed for the Capitol’s audience Cinna: unzips the bag, revealing one of the wedding dresses I wore for the photo shoot. Heavy white silk with a low neckline and tight waist and sleeves that fall from my wrists to the floor. And pearls. Everywhere pearls. Stitched into the dress and in ropes at my throat and forming the crown for the veil […] I rub a bit of the silk between my fingers, trying to figure out President Snow’s reasoning. The President turning my wedding gown into my shroud. 28 But it is not her wedding dress, nor is it her wedding, nor is it her shroud. Certainly she does not have any agency or control over it. President Snow has ordered her to wear it and Cinna dresses her in it and it is Cinna who adapts it. But he can only do so because of the symbol that Katniss has become. It is not just about who owns, who gives and who dresses whom but how the dress is worn. The dress becomes a weapon when the cultural semantics are taken on, inverted and speaks back recalling the words of Caliban: ‘You taught me language; and my profit on’t / Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you / For learning me your language!’ 29

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__________________________________________________________________ I’m in a dress of the exact same design of my wedding dress, only it is the colour of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that’s when I see myself on the television screen. Clothed in black except for the white patches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings. Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay. 30 The explicit use of the wedding dress as a weapon in these two young adult texts is a forceful expression which allows us to look back in more detail to how women have, although perhaps more subtly, been subverting the embedded cultural meanings to powerfully wield their wedding dresses for the last century.

Notes 1

See Clair Hughes, Dressed in Fiction (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 175; Katherine Joslin, Edith Wharton and the Making of Fashion (Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009), 158; Madeleine Ginsburg, Wedding Dress: 1740-1970 (London: HMSO, 1981), 2; and Anne Monsarratt, And the Bride Wore ... (London: Gentry Books, 1973), 108. 2 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1996), 46-47. 3 Maureen E. Montgomery, Displaying Women: Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton’s New York (London: Routledge, 1998), 41-42. 4 Dickens, Great Expectations, 47. 5 Ibid., 48. 6 Joslin, Edith Wharton and the Making of Fashion, 159. 7 Edith Wharton, The Mother’s Recompense (New York: Dodo Press), 191. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 103 and 104. 10 Ibid., 64. 11 Ibid., 49. 12 Ibid., 214. 13 Ibid., 183 and 236. 14 Ibid., 230. 15 Baker, Cassandra at the Wedding (London: Virago, 2005), 63-64. 16 Ibid., 66. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 67. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 204. 21 Ibid., 221.

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Stephanie Meyer, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (London: Atom, 2010), 146. Ibid., 138 and 141. 24 Ibid., 140. 25 Ibid., 142-143. 26 Stephanie Meyer, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (London: Atom, 2010), 52. 27 Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (London: Scholastic, 2009), 201. 28 Ibid., 298. 29 William Shakespeare, ‘The Tempest’, I, ii, 365-7. 30 Collins, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 303-304. 23

Bibliography Baker, Dorothy. Cassandra at the Wedding. London: Virago, 2005. Calder, Jenni. Women and Marriage in Victorian Fiction. London: Thames & Hudson, 1976. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. London: Scholastic, 2009. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1996. Friese, Susanne. ‘The Wedding Dress’. In Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationships with Their Clothes, edited by Ali Guy, Eileen Green, and Maura Banim, 53–69. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Ginsburg, Madeleine. Wedding Dress: 1740-1970. London: HMSO, 1981. Hughes, Clair. Dressed in Fiction. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Joslin, Katherine. Edith Wharton and the Making of Fashion. New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2009. Meyer, Stephanie. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. London: Atom, 2010. —––. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. London: Atom, 2010. Monsarrat, Anne. And the Bride Wore . . .. London: Gentry Books, 1973.

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__________________________________________________________________ Montgomery, Maureen E. Displaying Women: Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton’s New York. London: Routledge, 1998. Shakespeare, William. ‘The Tempest’. In The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974. Wharton, Edith. The Mother’s Recompense. New York: Dodo Press. Sarah Heaton, PhD, is Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of English at the University of Chester, Chester, UK. Her research and publications are in fashion in literature.

Part 2

Society, Culture and Communication

Fashioning Age: Dress, Identity and the Changing Body Linda Shearer Abstract This chapter examines the ageing female body and the transformative functions of dress during the renegotiation of identity at various life stages. Biological changes (such as weight gain, hair loss/gain, physical movement, skin texture, altered posture) can impact upon self-esteem and demand a reconsideration of dress in accordance with fluctuating body image, self and social perceptions. Strategies of concealment, adjustment and camouflage help to ‘manage’ the ageing body and, in so doing, can re-negotiate identity and determine place and status in social relations and interdependencies. While ageing can be reflected or resisted, it can also liberate from socially constructed expectations of fashion and dress and provide scope for transgression. Considering dress as a situated bodily practice, the chapter explores the social, psychological, gendered and stigmatised associations of the ‘disrupted’ ageing body. Key Words: Identity, body, women, age, dress, fashion, change. ***** 1. Introduction Age has been somewhat neglected in fashion studies, being viewed as something to overcome and disguise rather than to accept and embrace. The fashion industry in particular is predicated on the aesthetics of youth: flawless smooth skin; slim, lithe bodies and full bodied, glossy hair. A plethora of television programmes now exist, aimed at making individuals appear less than their chronological age and urging them to transform their image into something more ‘acceptable’ and, in so doing, to boost their self-confidence and esteem. Yet ageing is a natural process and part of what it means to be alive and human. Age per se is not the issue; it is our social and cultural structures which define age as a problem to be resolved. Age is a social construct, argued by Featherstone and Hepworth 1 to be stigmatised symbolically in Western culture, resulting in a segregation of life stages. As self-concept is influenced by social environment, it has been argued that (older) people inadvertently take on negative attributes and associations ascribed by the prevailing social discourse. 2 Conversely in post modernity, it can be posited that age identity is less socially defined and can be countervailed through consumer choice and agency. 3 Regardless, the tendency of current social discourse continues to be negative towards age; an attitude especially prevalent in the fashion media. Twigg 4 identifies ‘age slippage’ as a common occurrence; a term she defines as a ‘systematic process whereby features of a culture are labelled as younger than the

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__________________________________________________________________ actual audience for them’. Based on a study of the magazines SAGA, Yours and Women and Home, (which all target ‘older’ women) she cites age slippage as a common approach for the magazines to take when defining their target market; for example using terminology such as age ‘thirty five upwards’ rather than ‘fifty.’ Notable here is not only the reluctance to have the brand identified with an ageing consumer, but also the potentially negative impact of this on the consumer who desires the fantasy of being younger than her chronological age (an idealised version of herself), through association with the fashion magazine or fashion brand. The magazines posit that their role is to guide and support older women through the challenges of dressing appropriately (for their age) and therefore manage the anxieties they have in knowing what to wear. 2. The Stigmatisation of Age Ageism seems to pervade fashion discourse creating unrealistic ‘normative’ values of acceptable appearance that in turn undermine confidence and self-esteem. Visible signs of ageing made manifest by the changing body are used to identify age, in response to which, opportunities and resources can be allocated based on perceived social worth. 5 As with age slippage, this has its roots in ageism ‘an insidious societal obsession with youthfulness’ 6 which discriminates against age in favour of youth. The stigmatisation of age renders any visible signs of ageing as a symbolic indicator of increased dependency and therefore of a decrease in social capital. 7 Consequently there is a pressure to counteract this by concealing the physical manifestations of age so that bodily capital can be maintained. Women undergo more marked physiological changes throughout life stages than men who experience change more at a social and cultural level, therefore women are arguably under more pressure to retain a youthful appearance. 8 Additionally women are faced with both aged and feminine aged bodily concerns. Research by Clarke et al. considered the dress strategies employed by older women to negotiate the physical appearance of ageing, to obfuscate their chronological age and in so doing, to ‘manage the stigma of having an ageing and aged body.’ 9 Arms and hands were the most visible signs of age according to one of their correspondents (aged 73) and a third of their interviewees identified the need to cover upper arms as a priority, as they tended to be flabby, wrinkled, or had brown spots. Also identified as problematic signs of age were wrinkled chests and necks, legs affected by varicose veins and a change in posture resulting from a curved spine (dowagers hump). High heels were impossible for most of the women to wear, which many of them regretted. The impact of reduced mobility and dexterity on the function of dressing was also a factor in choosing type and style of dress. There were mixed views on the general contemporary move into more casual dress in contrast to the formality that most of the women experienced in their youth; some of the women found casual dress quite liberating but others thought it inelegant. But for many of the participants it was not their age but their

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__________________________________________________________________ changed individual circumstances and lifestyles, along with reduced income, that were the significant influencers on dress consumption and choice. A further issue was a lack of availability of stylish clothes at an affordable price that were suitable for the older body. Fit is a key factor in clothing choice and age related weight gain is a common issue in suitably fitting clothes. Many fashionable items target a young consumer and are designed for a tight fit; for example the cut of trouser waistlines and slimmer fitting tops. The fit of trousers in particular are identified as a challenge to fit well, with thighs cut too tight or baggy and waistlines too low and tight. 10 While fashion-related emphasis on different aspects of the body shifts through time, common features of dress style for ‘older’ women remain focussed on long, loose shapes, muted colours and the avoidance of anything too suggestive of the body beneath the clothes. A failure to adhere to these socially ascribed modes of dress, deemed appropriate for an older age group, suggests disputable moral values and a lack of self-policing. There is a dichotomy present here with a lack of appropriate choice of clothing and the encouragement to dress ‘younger.’ Perhaps older women want their own distinctive style that is not dictated by social discourse and hegemonic fashion ‘norms.’ Older women are no different from younger in that each woman has a distinctive lived experience and an individual identity. Just as a range of consumer behaviours and personality types exist at the younger end of the age spectrum, so too do older women vary and cannot effectively be generalised or segmented as a market based solely on age (or indeed lifestyle). Not just the prerogative of youth, fashion can continue to be of interest to mature women, as identified by the following quote from an elderly respondent: ‘following fashion keeps me alert and makes me a modern representative of a mature group – it gives me a sense of individuality.’ 11 Women are not so much moving younger in their selection of styles, but rather, fashions are moving older. Mainstream styles, central to youthful consumers are becoming acceptable at the periphery for older consumers. However there is a risk in wearing something too directional or predominantly young in style which would highlight the ‘anomaly’ between the young style and the old body, thus risking ridicule. A caveat may be that the older consumer should not be an ‘early adopter,’ at least not in relation to the younger group, but she could perceivably be an ‘early adopter’ in relation to her peer group, when the style is no longer so fashionable for the younger group. As such, she can maintain her forward fashion status. 3. Age Ordering Emerging from the meta-narratives of older women is the increasing invisibility that ensues from looking older. Ward and Holland 12 identify grey hair in particular is an important factor of this ‘invisibility’ and a key marker of the move into old age and of belonging to an aged group. While the stigmatisation of grey hair can be

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__________________________________________________________________ resisted through alteration of natural colour, efforts to resist age-defined normative dress can draw negative attention, risking ridicule or rejection. Dissident ageing identifies the individual as a ‘freak’ outside the norm, and as such is identified by Ward and Holland 13 as an indicator of society’s unacceptability of older people who use appearance as a means of distinction from others. It would seem that with increased age comes the need to be more conformist. Many of the women in Ward and Holland’s study felt unable to break out of the enforced hair style deemed suitable for their age by their hairdressers; the arbiters of age appropriateness. All of the women were styled in a similar way, and it was not just the grey colour but also the style that identified them as belonging to the aged group, further enforcing their invisibility. Ward and Holland concluded: Quite simply, to look “old” means being treated in ways that are unwelcome and unwanted and neither by conforming to or resisting a normative image can this treatment be escaped. 14 4. Living Age Identity may be theorised as a personal narrative that connects the past, present and future and as an everyday practice, embodiment can be considered as ‘the interweaving of personal life and social structure.’ 15 Life stage potentially influences levels of self-esteem and social worth and can create a conflict of self and social identity. Within the ever changing contexts of life stages, it is the coherence of the ‘personal story’ that provides continuity and enables adaption to change. 16 To understand body image through the ageing process it is therefore necessary to frame the life-course perspective in which this identity was formed as well as the present situated contexts. ‘Old’ age is being experienced later with middle age also moving backward into the fifties. Health, gender, economic and social structural factors have a strong bearing on the agency of older people and affects their potential to engage with fashion, should they wish to do so. It appears that woman’s ideals about what is beautiful change as they get older. In a study of sixty to seventy year old women, Liechty and Yarnal 17 found that as women aged they improved their body image, not through a concern with body size and appearance, but instead gained selfacceptance by changing their attitude through experiences of body image in everyday life and by placing more value on internal characteristics and health. By displacing the importance of appearance, they mitigated the potential negativity of poor self-esteem and body perception. In bringing together life-course perspective, body image, agency, health and consumption choice, the following vignette presents an account of ‘Janet’ and her lived experience of dress. Janet is a seventy five year old ex-secretary and model who has retained her sense of style and interest in her appearance. Although now living in a small country village, she attributes her interest in dress to her working years that began

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__________________________________________________________________ in the nineteen-fifties. Since age seventeen when working as a secretary in the city, she was expected to wear a dress with high heels and gloves. Having worn high heels throughout her working life she has continued to do so beyond her early retirement at the age of fifty-five, until the present time. Her only concession to age-related dress choice is to avoid sleeveless tops that reveal her upper arms. A hairdresser visits her at home once a week to style her hair and otherwise she does this herself. Her hair changed colour from very dark brown to light grey during the menopause but she has never been tempted to tint the colour to be darker; on the contrary, when it was dark she regularly had a white streak put through the front. Janet has a larger than average bust size and had to be specially fitted by a corsetiere in her younger days. She has never had any cosmetic surgery and is quite against the idea of it, having witnessed close family members having to endure illness-related mastectomies. Janet continues to dress in a ‘young’ style and suspects that people are disparaging about her choice of dress but she considers this to be their issue rather than hers and insists that she is ‘just me.’ She does not consider age to be an influencing factor on her sense of identity and insists she has always had a positive attitude and the self-assurance to ‘be herself.’ The secret, she says, is to ‘think young.’ Despite claiming not to care what others think she nevertheless will only venture out of the house when wearing makeup and after ‘doing’ her hair; although she considers this simply to be a routine rather than any concern about the views of others. Janet’s style is young and based around what she likes and can afford, rather than a desire to keep up with fashion trends. Tending to purchase from high street stores, mail order catalogues and supermarket brands, she is also petite enough to wear items intended for teenagers. She eschews body modification, choosing instead to focus on the positive aspects of enjoying good health and the ability to dress as she pleases, especially the high heels that many older women are unable to wear. Not only does she wear heels but her gait is sprightly and the antithesis of an ageing body with reduced mobility. In having the courage to ‘be herself’ and dress as she chooses, out-with the dictates of fashion, Janet epitomises what might be termed a ‘dissident’ older woman. She does not feel the need to adhere to a commercialised ideal of maintaining a youthful appearance, nor is she an ‘invisible old lady.’ On the contrary she is notable for her individuality and self-acceptance, and her grey hair is styled to appear full and luxurious rather than being in a style associated with age and invisibility. Kozar and Damhorst 18 identify older women as less likely to be influenced by societal standards of beauty, gaining a greater sense of individuation of the self as they progress in years. This is evident in Janet’s account but there is also a concern with presenting herself to others 19 as indicated by her reluctance to venture outside her home without wearing makeup. The framing of Janet’s life-course perspective includes her experience of being a model

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__________________________________________________________________ and the attendant focus on appearance. As such, the liberation that ensues with age is perhaps tempered by her image-related career and focus on self-presentation. 5. Fashioning Age From an industry perspective the potential of this growing, lucrative market sector is prompting more attention to, and consideration of, consumer needs. However there continues to be a lack of desirable clothing for the older consumer with companies such as Marks and Spencer apparently failing to offer a suitable product proposition. 20 Twigg 21 identifies an age-related ‘institutional bias’ across various sectors and functions of the fashion industry due to its predominantly youthful personnel, reluctant to associate with, nor to fully consider and engage with, the needs of this older consumer. Why is it that older women are not being catered for? Perhaps it is because women police themselves against age inappropriateness through internal dialogue and consultation with others. Or because magazine editors endorse the view that certain styles are inappropriate for older women and thus perpetuate the belief of this image. Or because, according to Twigg, ‘dress is located in systematic cultural assumptions about age, and they (clothing manufacturers and retailers) construct their images accordingly.’ 22 Despite social and cultural shifts around gender, embodiment and employment, entrenched historical assumptions about age appropriateness continue to prevail. There does however appear to be a shift in attitudes and signs of change as older women seek to wear more contemporary mainstream styles. There is now a generation of middle aged, professional women determined to shake off the ‘old lady’ identity of their mothers and grandmothers. Whether or not they engage with the commercialised fashion system, choose to rebel against the expected norms or continue to age as they see fit, they are perhaps more likely than before to remain true to their own sense of identity. Or perhaps they will embrace ‘older’ age as a chance to reinvent themselves.

Notes 1

Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth, ‘Images in Ageing’, in Ageing in Society, eds. John Bond, Peter Coleman and Sheila Peace (London: Sage, 1993), 144-167. 2 Charles D. Schew and Anne L. Balazs Schewe, ‘Role Transitions in Older Adults: A Marketing Opportunity’, Psychology and Marketing 9 (1992): 85-99. 3 Julia Twigg, ‘Fashion and Age: The Role of Women’s Magazines in the Constitution of Aged Identities’, in Representing Ageing: Images and Identities, ed. Virpi Ylanne (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 132-136. 4 Twigg, Fashion and Age: The Role of Women’s Magazines, 137.

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Laura H. Clarke, Meridith Griffin and Katherine Maliha, ‘Bat Wings, Bunions, and Turkey Wattles: Body Transgressions and Older Women’s Strategic Clothing Choices’, Ageing and Society 29 (2009): 710. 6 Ibid. 7 See Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Penguin Books, 1990). 8 Julia Twigg, Fashion and Age: Dress, the Body and Later Life (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 5. 9 Clarke, Griffin and Maliha, Bat Wings, Bunions, and Turkey Wattles, 712. 10 Maria Holmund, Anne Hagman and Pia Polsa, ‘An Exploration of How Mature Women Buy Clothing: Empirical Insights and a Model’, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management 15, No. 1 (2011): 112. 11 Quote from a respondent in a study by Holmund, Hagman and Polsa, ‘An Exploration of How Mature Women Buy Clothing’, 112. 12 Richard Ward and Caroline Holland, ‘“If I Look Old I Will Be Treated Old”: Hair and Later Life Image Dilemmas’, Ageing and Society 31 (2011): 299. 13 Ibid., 300. 14 Ibid., 304. 15 Raewyn W. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Oxford: Polity Press, 1987), 61. 16 Margaret R. Somers, ‘The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach’, Theory and Society 23 (1994): 605-649. 17 Toni Liechty and Careen M. Yarnal, ‘Older Women’s Body Image: A Lifecourse Perspective’, Ageing and Society 30 (2010): 1197-1218. 18 Joy M. Kozar and Mary L. Damhorst, ‘Comparison of the Ideal and Real Body as Women Age: Relationships to Age Identity, Body Satisfaction and Importance, and Attention to Models in Advertising’, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 27 (2009): 208. 19 See Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London: Penguin Books, 1990). 20 Twigg, Fashion and Age: Dress, the Body and Later Life, 145. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 147.

Bibliography Clarke, Laura H., Meridith Griffin, and Katherine Maliha. ‘Bat Wings, Bunions, and Turkey Wattles: Body Transgressions and Older Women’s Strategic Clothing Choices’. Ageing and Society 29 (2009): 709–726.

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__________________________________________________________________ Connell, Raewyn W. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Oxford: Polity Press, 1987. Featherstone, Mike and Mike Hepworth, ‘Images in Ageing’. In Ageing in Society: An Introduction to Social Gerontology, edited by John Bond, Peter Coleman, and Sheila Peace, 144–167. London: Sage, 1993. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books, 1990. Holmund, Maria, Anne Hagman, and Pia Polsa. ‘An Exploration of How Mature Women Buy Clothing: Empirical Insights and a Model’. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management 15, No. 1 (2011): 108–122. Kozar, Joy M., and Mary L. Damhorst. ‘Comparison of the Ideal and Real Body as Women Age: Relationships to Age Identity, Body Satisfaction and Importance, and Attention to Models in Advertising’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 27 (2009): 197–210. Liechty, Toni, and Careen M. Yarnal. ‘Older Women’s Body Image: A Lifecourse Perspective’. Ageing and Society 30 (2010): 1197–1218. Schewe, Charles D., and Anne L. Balazs. ‘Role Transitions in Older Adults: A Marketing Opportunity’. Psychology and Marketing 9 (1992): 85–99. Somers, Margaret R. ‘The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach’. Theory and Society 23 (1994): 605–649. Stets, Jan E., and Peter J. Burke. ‘Identity Theory and Social Identity Theory’. Social Psychology Quarterly 63, No. 3 (2000): 224–237. Twigg, Julia. ‘Fashion and Age: The Role of Women’s Magazines in the Constitution of Aged Identities’. In Representing Ageing: Images and Identities, edited by Virpi Ylanne, 132–136. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. —––. Fashion and Age: Dress, the Body and Later Life. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Ward, Richard, and Caroline Holland. ‘“If I Look Old I Will Be Treated Old”: Hair and Later Life Image Dilemmas’. Ageing and Society 31 (2011): 288–307.

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__________________________________________________________________ Linda Shearer is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland and Postgraduate Programme Suite Leader in the Department of Business Management. Her research interests lie in the areas of dress and identity within various situational contexts and in the day to day experiences of dressing.

Clothing, Fashion and Control Anne Boultwood Abstract This chapter will focus on women’s self-understanding and its relation to the body. While for both men and women self-awareness includes body-awareness, for women, the relationship is more fundamental and the body is a significant aspect of the self. This is well exemplified by the way in which self-control, or more accurately control of the self, is routinely applied to the body. Bodies are perceived as being subject to control through diet and exercise, and obese women are described as being out of control or lacking in self-control. Clothes clearly have an influence on body image, but the relationship is more intimate than this would suggest. Because they sit next to the body, clothes have an inward aspect that is closely related to body awareness, especially when there is a discrepancy between the two, as happens when clothes do not fit, thus highlighting the body’s shortcomings. In terms of awareness, the two become intertwined, and attitudes and beliefs associated with the body/self extend to feelings about the clothes. This is apparent in attitudes to various aspects of control. Clothes are often discussed in terms of what cannot be worn because of age, size, acceptance and fashion. This attitude to control includes the perceived controlling attitudes of others, for example, what a husband might not like, or what friends or colleagues might not approve. Clothing then has an important role to play in self-awareness, and fashion assumes a significance belied by its apparent superficiality. This chapter will explore these issues, making reference to my own research with women, exploring their relationship with their bodies and their attitude to clothing. Key Words: Clothing, fashion, control, self-control, body, body image. ***** Clothing has often been the subject of control, both socially and politically, and there are many examples throughout history and across cultures: the various sumptuary laws that have characterised our own history, for example, and more draconian measures, such as the Mao Suit of mid twentieth century China. The reason these are so successful, I believe, is because of clothing’s relation to our sense of self, specifically as it relates to body awareness; and its significance to us is borne out by the efforts people make to circumvent clothing restrictions, as when women embellished the Mao Suit with coloured linings in order to personalise them, even though they knew this was a dangerous thing to do. 1 It is clothing’s relation to, even integration with, the body that is significant in terms of control, and it is this aspect that will form the focus of this chapter. Throughout the discussion I will make reference to my own research with women, exploring their

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__________________________________________________________________ relationship with their bodies and their attitude to clothing. This has involved indepth, semi-structured interviews with women with an age range of eighteen to sixty, as well as diaries kept by women aged forty to fifty nine. While the body is a facet of self understanding for all individuals, this seems to be more the case for women than for men. Women are not only more likely to be perceived in terms of the body, but their self awareness is more rooted in the body. 2 Thus, when we consider women’s self-concept, we should include the body-concept. Put simply, the self is understood in comparison with the ideal that we strive to attain and the ‘ought’ that we think we should be; both are unrealistic and therefore unattainable, but the extent to which we believe we approximate to them is the measure of our self-esteem. The ‘ought’ is a negative concept that drives the notion of control, in particular control of the self, as a means of achievement. The body, as an aspect of the self, is similarly compared with an ‘ought’ and an ideal body and is also subject to control. 3 For women then, control of the body equates to self determination and thus contributes to self esteem. Female self-esteem has been associated with body dissatisfaction in a way that is not true for males, 4 and this is true of all ages, from adolescent to older women. 5 While the strength of this apparently diminishes with age, it is not the dissatisfaction itself that is addressed; rather, it is the fact that women develop strategies for dealing with it, and the perception of cognitive control protects them from the negative influence of body dissatisfaction. 6 This relationship between control and self-esteem was apparent in my own research, and invariably was applied to aspects of participants’ bodies, so that, for example, ‘the person I could be’ 7 would be achieved through diet and exercise, or having ‘good arms’ 8 (that is, thin, firm arms) would mean being happy with oneself. Central to these concerns was the notion of control. ... you have to take control, you have to get a grip on yourself, and change habits. 9 By extension, failure to maintain a perfect body results in the self being blamed for lack of control. I have always been very conscious of body image. Not that I’ve ever worked as hard as I possibly could on it. Umm, there’s always been the little voice inside saying “you could do better than this.” 10 These comments were not just critical, but implied a sense of shame for failing to reach the standard they should. The concept of shame is commonly associated with body dissatisfaction and links negatively with self-esteem. 11

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__________________________________________________________________ There are two ways in which our bodies fail: weight and aging. We berate ourselves for being weak and women are frequently criticised for, as we might say, letting themselves go. Issues of control as they relate to weight are particularly noteworthy, since this is a significant aspect of eating disorders. It seems that those with eating disorders are at the extreme end of a spectrum in which many women, to a greater or lesser extent, share the same concerns. 12 For my participants, control was not only necessary but was celebrated. ... you know, I never have anything with fat. No fat at all. 13 I... go to exercise classes practically every day ... 14 By the same token, the overweight are perceived as being out of control and there was intolerance towards those who deviated from the norm. I don’t believe in all this “oh, I’m fat and I’m happy” and all that. I don’t think it’s right. ... you shouldn’t be like that. 15 As we might expect, this attitude has an impact on the self-esteem of the overweight, 16 who feel targeted. ... I feel people are judging me ... and it’s a judgemental thing ... the do, they do make you feel that you should lose weight … some [friends] won’t accept me as I am. 17 Surprisingly, however, the overweight are similarly critical of themselves. For example, the same woman also said, I’ll start with great intentions, umm, and then not keep it going until ... I think you know I could control my own weight better ... I’m overweight, I need to lose weight. 18 The criticism seems to be more related to control than the weight itself. Another participant said, ... you know like these people say “if I’m in control of my weight, I’m in control of my life” ... I never thought I could go along with [it] and yet I did in the end. 19 It seems that failing on a diet or exercise regime not only impacts negatively on self-esteem but is also, particularly in the overweight, associated with issues of

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__________________________________________________________________ control in a way that is apparent in those with eating disorders, which in turn correlate positively with body dissatisfaction. 20 As previously stated, while women apparently deal better with body dissatisfaction as they get older, this appears to be a superficial attitude mediated by cognitive strategies of control. 21 In the case of my own participants, there was an apparent acceptance of the aging body, characterised by statements such as ‘I’m beyond that’ 22 and ‘there are other things more important,’ 23 that was belied by their continued, unprompted reiteration of their bodies’ shortcomings, particularly when discussing clothing choices. ... fine for a teenager, because their skin’s so taught, but when you’re older you skin gets a bit crinkly and a bit loose. You wouldn’t want that. 24 This criticism was frequently coined in harsh terms. Words such as flabby, scraggy, saggy, were commonly used by older women to describe themselves, and equally harsh descriptions were directed towards them by younger women, ... you know, as my husband says, those turkey necks, you don’t want to get like that. 25 There seemed to be little awareness in the younger women I spoke to, while they criticised older women’s bodies that these same changes would eventually occur to them. Their criticism was similar to that directed towards overweight women, implying blame. Similarly, in criticising their own bodies, older women’s discourse had an undercurrent of self-blame. This kind of control is also invested in others, so that they have the power to dictate what is appropriate. This is particularly apparent with husbands, but also with friends and colleagues. Some participants’ perception of their bodies had been instigated by mothers, and persisted in the face of contrary evidence. ... a little comment ... by my mother years ago that I had fat arms, or my arms were fatter than hers. Well that stuck. 26 Others were influenced by the wishes and beliefs of their husbands. ... like my husband pointed out to me at the time, like I’d had fish and chips ... and then I had a big ice cream ... as he said, “you weren’t really that hungry” ... he was right really ... I’m not really in control, you know. 27

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__________________________________________________________________ In my research, criticism of the body often tended to emerge out of discussion of fashion and clothing. Clothing’s intimate relationship to the body means that the two become intertwined in our self perception. This becomes most apparent when clothes do not fit. Typically, however, in these circumstances, women blame their bodies rather than the clothes. 28 A garment that is too long or too short in the waist will make the wearer uncomfortably aware of her own waist, which will be perceived as wrong in comparison with the garment. In this situation, it is not the clothing that is blamed, but the body, I’ve got a long body and short legs, and sometimes, although things look nice on the peg, they’re just the wrong fit, you know, my waist’s in the wrong place. 29 By extension, the self is also blamed for failing. I have always been very conscious of body image. Not that I’ve ever worked as hard as I possibly could on it. Umm, there’s always been the little voice inside saying “you could do better than this.” 30 Clothing makes us more aware of salient aspects of the body. We might therefore expect the clothed body, by emphasising the positive attributes of the body, to increase body satisfaction, and in fact this seems to be the case. LaBat, DeLong and Markee, Carey and Pedersen found that clothed body cathexis was higher than unclothed, and LaBat and DeLong found a correlation between the fit of clothes and positive feelings towards the body. 31 This seemed to be the case with many of the women I have interviewed. Clothes … make me feel better. 32 In both studies, it is posited that wearing clothes may create a better perception of the body, and other studies have suggested that clothing can be used to present a more acceptable image. 33 When describing clothes they like or are happy to wear, women often use the term comfort, and the way they use the word suggests that they are referring to the way in which the clothes fit or correspond to the body. It felt really comfortable and I did feel fashionable 34 … fit, and I was comfortable in it. 35 In this way, clothing plays a powerful role in reducing the disparity between body image and the ‘ought’ body, and in doing so, it raises self esteem. Clothing

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__________________________________________________________________ then could be said to have an inner aspect – its interaction with the body – and an outer – the image of the self presented to the world. In this way the two become intertwined, and attitudes and beliefs associated with the body/self extend to feelings about clothes. In clothing, control is manifested through what is appropriate: to the body, to the self and to the situation. I am conscious of wanting to dress appropriately, for my age and my shape and the life that I want to live. 36 Much of this control lies in what cannot be worn, either because of body shape or age. Chanel is reputed to have said ‘elegance is refusal’ and certainly for my participants, decisions were determined by elimination, particularly in terms of the body. I avoid those little cap sleeves that squash the tops of your arms. 37 ... crop tops and hipster jeans. I would never dream of wearing [clothes] that expose the middle. 38 The central tenet of this approach seemed to be that clothes should be used to hide unacceptable aspects of the body. Clothes would be selected for their ability to hide what were viewed as specific defects, for example, the stomach. The tunic top hides my plump tummy. 39 The dominant criterion here is apparently one of clothing by correction. Clothes are used strategically to disguise the body’s perceived flaws, in other words to compensate for the body’s shortcomings. 40 For older women, the main concern was that clothing should be seen to be age appropriate. This generally meant avoiding clothes that expressed their sexuality. I think you do look like you’re trying too hard if you wear very short skirts after a certain age. It looks like you’re in denial of how old you are. 41 For women it seems there is an ‘ought’ and age-appropriate self that they perceive as being imposed by society. Thus, one of my participants in her forties felt pressure to abandon styles that she believed suited her, because of perceived criticism.

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__________________________________________________________________ I quite like cropped tops, you know, because if you’ve got a flat stomach you can get away with wearing them ... though I think that maybe I should start putting those away now that I’m forty. 42 This perceived pressure to conform to the social norms of appropriate dressing, relates to Goffman’s concept of ‘stigma.’ 43 We live in an ageist society, in which aging is perceived almost as morally reprehensible and visible signs of aging result in stigmatisation. One of the ways of coping with stigmatisation, Goffman suggests, is by what he calls paying blackmail, that is, to placate the stigmatiser by conforming to their demands. By choosing clothes that conceal their sexuality, older women demonstrate that they are not challenging society’s stigmatisation. Clarke et al, working with women older than my participants (71 to 93), 44 nevertheless found similar attitudes, with women feeling constrained to reject overly suggestive styles. For my older participants, the greatest fear was to be perceived as ‘mutton dressed as lamb:’ a phrase that was used repeatedly. This would result in ridicule and avoidance required strict wardrobe editing. Fairhurst found a similar response from women in their fifties and sixties. 45 They also frequently used the term mutton dressed as lamb, and disapproved of those who dressed too young and appeared to be trying too hard. Of course, this says much about society’s prevailing attitudes to women, but in the present context, it highlights the way in which women respond to potential criticism by adopting a strategy of control. Clothing decisions are also dependent on the situation and there is a fear of being inappropriately dressed. ... when I buy clothes I always think what I’m going to use them for ... It’s important that I have the right clothes for the right event. 46 This comment exemplifies the prevailing attitude of the majority of my participants. Clothing choice was made in the context of group and situation, and lack of information resulted in stress. Very difficult to know what to wear, as I didn’t know the place we were going and any of the people. 47 A large part of this pressure relates to theories of conformity and peer group acceptance. 48

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__________________________________________________________________ You’d also want the right – I’d want to fit into where I’m going to be as well, and who I’m going to be with, which I suppose is a bit naff, isn’t it? 49 ... being a student, fitting in ... so I’ve made a conscious effort not to be more formally dressed than the others on the course. 50 This accords with Goffman’s view that we feel constrained to present an image of a self delineated within the confines of socially approved attributes which change according to the specific context. 51 Clothing then, is not selected through free choice; it is driven by the need to present an acceptable self to the world, and is bound by rules that, while unspoken, are both powerful and stringent. Women particularly are subject to these rules because of the intimate relationship they have with their clothes. For women, the need to exert control over their clothing choices is determined by the need to present a self that is appropriate in all its aspects. This sense of appropriateness is what gives fashion its power. While engaging with fashion is pleasurable, there is also a sense of being policed by it. Perhaps because of the focus of the study, this attitude seemed to dominate my participants’ discourse. While they were concerned to be fashionable, this seemed to be related more to the need for acceptance than any desire to play with fashion. Yes, definitely, yes. I want my skirt to be the right length, and my trousers to be the right width ... 52 Many seemed to see fashion as a chore and spoke of it as something they had no choice in. They believed they had to follow fashion because only those styles are available in the shops. I think we’re led down a track.... 53 For older women, engagement with fashion was also fraught with issues of age. It was not considered appropriate to wear clothes that were too trendy, because these would be seen as too young. On the other hand, to wear clothes that were unfashionable would make them appear old. Appropriateness involved steering a fine course between these two extremes. I don’t want to look frumpy. I would like to feel that, without using clichés, I don’t want to be mutton dressed as lamb – I don’t want to be frumpy and fifty.... 54 Concerns around weight for all ages led to similar decisions. The overweight edit their clothing choices according to what is or is not appropriate to their body

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__________________________________________________________________ shape, that is, what society is willing to accept. Almond has suggested that prejudice against the overweight could be ameliorated by presenting them as voluptuous, 55 thus providing a much more positive image. However, he goes on to say that clothing plays a role in this modifying the appearance of the body, essentially ‘repackaging’ the body: a tactic often applied in magazines and television makeovers. Such repackaging of the body is a key aspect of self esteem, and indeed of self concept, for women of all ages, mediating the ‘ought’ and the ideal. Women cannot interact freely with fashion, since they are subject to both external and internal pressure. At one and the same time, fashion rules have to be strictly followed and the body, as the outward manifestation of the self, must be kept in check. Clothing therefore may be seen as both an aspect of the self, and an instrument of control.

Notes 1

Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London: Simon and Schuster, 1991). 2 Betty M. Bayer and Kareen R. Malone, ‘Feminism, Psychology and Matters of the Body’, in The Body and Psychology, ed. Henderikus J. Stam (London: Sage, 1998). 3 E. Tory Higgins, ‘Self-Discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self and Affect’, Psychological Review 94 (1987): 319-340. 4 Adrian Furnham, Nicola Badmin and Ian Sneade, ‘Body Image Dissatisfaction: Gender Differences in Eating Attitudes, Self-Esteem, and Reasons for Exercise’, The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied 136, No. 6 (2002). 5 Jung-Hwan Kim and Sharron J. Lennon, ‘Mass Media and Self-Esteem, Body Image, and Eating Disorder Tendencies’, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 25, No. 1 (2007): 3-23; Jessica Webster and Marika Tiggemann, ‘The Relationship between Women’s Body Satisfaction and Self-Image Across the Life Span: The Role of Cognitive Control’, Genetic Psychology 164, No. 2 (2003): 241-252. 6 Webster and Tiggemann, ‘The Relationship between Women’s Body Satisfaction and Self-Image Across the Life Span: The Role of Cognitive Control.’ 7 Susan. Interview 16 May 2003. In order to protect the confidentiality of the participants, all names are pseudonyms. 8 Louise. Interview 30 May 2003. 9 Helen. Interview 8 July 2003. 10 Caroline. Interview 30 April 2003. 11 Andrea E. Mercurio and Laura J. Landry, ‘Self-Objectification and Well-Being: The Impact of Self-Objectification on Women’s Overall Sense of Self-Worth and Life Satisfaction’, Sex Roles 58, Nos. 7-8 (2008): 458-466.

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__________________________________________________________________ 12

Juliana G. Breines, Jennifer Crocker and Julie A. Garcia, ‘Self-Objectification and Well-Being in Women’s Daily Lives’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34, No. 5 (2008): 583-598. 13 Caroline. Interview 30 April 2003. 14 Olive. Interview 11 July 2003. 15 Helen. Interview 8 July 2003. 16 John Ogden and Charles Evans, ‘The Problem with Weighing: Effects on Mood, Self-Esteem and Body Image’, International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders 20, No. 3 (1996): 272-277. 17 Fiona. Interview 3 May 2003. 18 Ibid. 19 Barbara. Interview 19 April 2003. 20 Thomas F. Cash and Robin E. Roy, ‘Pounds of Flesh: Weight, Gender, and Body Images’, in Interpreting Weight: The Social Management of Fatness and Thinness, eds. Jeffrey Sobal and Donna Maurer (New York: Transaction Publishers, 1999). 21 Webster and Tiggemann, ‘The Relationship between Women’s Body Satisfaction’. 22 Gillian. Interview 8 May 2003. 23 Susan. Interview 16 May 2003. 24 Angela. Interview 11 April 2003. 25 Helen. Interview 8 July 2003. 26 Susan. Interview 16 May 2003. 27 Vera. Interview 5 July 2003. 28 Hyejeong Kim and Mary Lynn Damhorst, ‘The Relationship of Body-Related Self-Discrepancy to Body Dissatisfaction, Apparel Involvement, Concerns with Fit and Size of Garments, and Purchase Intentions in Online Apparel Shopping’, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 28, No. 4 (2010): 239-254. 29 Eileen. Interview 1 May 2003. 30 Caroline. Interview 30 April 2003. 31 Karen L. LaBat and Marilyn R. DeLong, ‘Body Cathexis and Satisfaction with Fit of Apparel’, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 8, No. 2 (1990): 43-48; Nancy L. Markee, Inez L. Carey and Elaine L. Pedersen, ‘Body Cathexis and Clothed Body Cathexis: Is There a Difference?’ Perceptual and Motor Skills 70, No. 3 (1990): 1239-1244. 32 Angela. Interview 11 April 2003. 33 Kevin Almond, ‘Fashionably Voluptuous: Repackaging the Fuller-Sized Figure’, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 17, No. 2 (2013): 197-222. 34 Helen. Diary 15 September 2003. 35 Pauline. Interview 18 May 2003. 36 Wendy. Interview 9 July 2003.

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Barbara. Interview 19 April 2003. Angela. Interview 11 April 2003. 39 Fiona. Diary 20 July 2003. 40 Laura Hurd Clarke, Meredith Griffin and Katherine Maliha, ‘Bat Wings, Bunions, and Turkey Wattles: Body Transgressions and Older Women’s Strategic Clothing Choices’, Ageing & Society 29, No. 5 (2009). 41 Olive. Interview 11 July 2003. 42 Nicola. Interview 16 May 2003. 43 Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990). 44 Clarke, Griffin and Maliha, ‘Bat Wings, Bunions, and Turkey Wattles’. 45 Eileen Fairhurst, ‘The Social Construction of Recognising Older Women’, in The Body in Everyday Life, eds. Sarah Nettleton and Jonathan Watson (London: Routledge, 1998). 46 Wendy. Interview 9 July 2003. 47 Gillian. Diary 10 September 2003. 48 Anna M. Creekmore, ‘Clothing and Personal Attractiveness of Adolescents Related to Conformity to Clothing Mode, Peer Acceptance and Leadership Potential’, Home Economics Research Journal 8, No. 3 (1980): 203-215. 49 Barbara. Interview 19 April 2003. 50 Pauline. Interview 18 May 2003. 51 Erving Goffman, Interaction Rituals (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972). 52 Barbara. Interview 19 April 2003. 53 Angela. Interview 11 April 2003. 54 Caroline. Interview 30 April 2003. 55 Almond, ‘Fashionably Voluptuous’. 38

Bibliography Almond, Kevin. ‘Fashionably Voluptuous: Repackaging the Fuller-Sized Figure’. Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 17, No. 2 (2013): 197– 222. Bayer, Betty M., and Kareen Ror Malone. ‘Feminism, Psychology and Matters of the Body’. In The Body and Psychology, edited by Henderikus J. Stam. London: Sage, 1998. Breines, Juliana G., Jennifer Crocker, and Julie A. Garcia. ‘Self-Objectification and Well-Being in Women’s Daily Lives’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34, No. 5 (2008): 583–598.

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__________________________________________________________________ Cash, Thomas F., and Robin E. Roy. ‘Pounds of Flesh: Weight, Gender, and Body Images’. In Interpreting Weight: The Social Management of Fatness and Thinness, edited by Jeffrey Sobal, and Donna Maurer. New York: Transaction Publishers, 1999. Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. London: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Clarke, Laura Hurd, Meredith Griffin, and Katherine Maliha. ‘Bat Wings, Bunions, and Turkey Wattles: Body Transgressions and Older Women’s Strategic Clothing Choices’. Ageing & Society 29, No. 5 (2009). Creekmore, Anna M. ‘Clothing and Personal Attractiveness of Adolescents Related to Conformity to Clothing Mode, Peer Acceptance and Leadership Potential’. Home Economics Research Journal 8 No. 3 (1980): 203–215. Fairhurst, Eileen. ‘The Social Construction of Recognising Older Women’. In The Body in Everyday Life, edited by Sarah Nettleton, and Jonathan Watson. London: Routledge, 1998. Furnham, Adrian, Nicola Badmin, and Ian Sneade. ‘Body Image Dissatisfaction: Gender Differences in Eating Attitudes, Self-Esteem, and Reasons for Exercise’. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied 136, No. 6 (2002). Goffman, Erving. Interaction Rituals. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990. Higgins, E. Tory. ‘Self-Discrepancy: A Theory Relating Welf and Affect’. Psychological Review 94 (1987): 319–340. Kim, Hyejeong, and Mary Lynn Damhorst. ‘The Relationship of Body-Related Self-Discrepancy to Body Dissatisfaction, Apparel Involvement, Concerns with Fit and Size of Garments, and Purchase Intentions in Online Apparel Shopping’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 28, No. 4 (2010): 239–254. Kim, Jung-Hwan, and Sharron J. Lennon. ‘Mass Media and Self-Esteem, Body Image, and Eating Disorder Tendencies’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 25, No. 1 (2007): 3–23.

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__________________________________________________________________ LaBat, Kasren, and Marilyn R. DeLong, ‘Body Cathexis and Satisfaction with Fit of Apparel’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 8, No. 2 (1990): 43–48. Markee, Nancy L., Inez L. Carey, and Elaine L. Pedersen. ‘Body Cathexis and Clothed Body Cathexis: Is There a Difference?’ Perceptual and Motor Skills 70, No. 3 (1990): 1239–1244. Mercurio, Andrea E., and Laura J. Landry. ‘Self-Objectification and Well-Being: The Impact of Self-Objectification on Women’s Overall Sense of Self-Worth and Life Satisfaction’. Sex Roles 58, Nos. 7-8 (2008): 458–466. Ogden, John, and Charles Evans. ‘The Problem with Weighing: Effects on Mood, Self-esteem and Body Image’. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders 20, No. 3 (1996): 272–277. Webster, Jessica, and Marika Tiggemann. ‘The Relationship between Women’s Body Satisfaction and Self-Image Across the Life Span: The Role of Cognitive Control’. Genetic Psychology 164, No. 2 (2003): 241–252. Anne Boultwood is Reader in the Psychology of Fashion at Birmingham City University. Her research interests are in the role of fashion and clothing in the construction and maintenance of the self, and its social psychological impact. She leads the BIAD Fashion and Textiles Research Group.

Nameless Chic and National Identity Lioba Foit Abstract Can a nation be hip? This chapter shows that the logic of ‘hipness’ in contemporary discourses on ‘hipster fashion’ is in many ways analogous with the fashionable logic of identity constitution in some modern states, taking Canada as an example. It is not possible to positively define the features of hipsterdom or ‘the Canadians.’ Yet, both terms exist and somehow work as operable categories. Paradoxically, they even seem the more powerful the more they negate identity, indicating that they are more heterogeneous, complex and universal than anything with a ‘nameable’ set of characteristics. The chapter analyses how this logic develops, fuelled by both efforts in branding (or nation-branding respectively) and automatic processes beyond conscious planning and design. Rejecting names has the potential to challenge long defunct categories. It may allow for new, dynamic identity constructions. The text explores both possibilities and aspects that repel this openness, creating a new exclusivity by engrossing and exploiting notions of being ‘Other’ or ‘alternative.’ Key Words: Hipness, hipster, Canada, identity, authenticity, irony, the Other, main/sub, postmodernism. ***** 1. Introduction This chapter aims to address the question: ‘Can a nation be hip?’ It will argue that the logic of ‘hipness’ in the contemporary discourse on the figure of ‘the hipster’ is structurally analogous with the logic of identity constitution in some states that perceive themselves as modern and progressive, focussing on Canada in particular. It is not possible to positively define the features of hipsterdom or ‘the Canadians.’ Yet, both terms exist and somehow work as operable categories. Paradoxically, they even seem the more powerful the more they negate identity, indicating that they are more heterogeneous, complex and universal than anything with a ‘nameable’ set of characteristics. In the following I will analyse how this logic develops, fuelled by both efforts in branding (or nation-branding respectively) and automatic processes beyond conscious planning and design. In the first part of this chapter, I will examine these processes with regard to hipsterdom and then compare them to processes involved in the construction of Canadian identity.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Hipsters: What’s in a Name? I will approach ‘the hipster’ as a spurned and not unanimously defined category that nonetheless has established itself in the discourse of social- and public media. The examination will draw on particularly viral blog entries and forum discussions, on magazine articles and studies on the topic. Curiously, it is not always possible to differentiate clearly between an inner and an outer perspective, because in a paradoxical self-reference, those who stereotype ‘the hipster’ in one text are often cited as archetypical examples for hipsters in other commentary. In contrast to other subcultural groups like punk, emo, hip hop, goth, rave etc., for over a decade there was no self-proclaimed ‘hipster-scene.’ Such is just developing, but I will come to that later. Images of people labelled ‘hipsters’ shape the media’s representation of modern (if not to say ‘cool’) youth- and young adult culture. This is certainly due to the influence of the commercial industry. Yet, this seems at odds with the fact that the key feature ascribed to hipsters is a rejection of any mainstream sensibility. Whereas the concept of ‘hipness’ never lost its desirability being named ‘a hipster’ had become an insult. The hipster-label stands for a concept that is recognizable and therefore necessarily limiting and uniforming, chasing to fulfil third party standards, especially those of the fashion industry. In the following I will show how the image of the hipster had acquired negative connotations due to the simplifying and deprecating effects the label transported. In the Urban Dictionary, the entry ‘Hipster’s can’t be defined because then they’d fit in a category, and thus be too mainstream,’ 1 is ranked second highest for ‘Hipster,’ with about 15,000 positive votes as of 5 September 2013. Accordingly, the meanwhile seminal book What Was the Hipster. A Sociological Investigation, starts with the words: ‘All descriptions of hipsters are doomed to disappoint, because they will not be the hipsters you know.’ 2 Depending on the commentator, hipsters today are seen as nerds, activists, intellectuals, spoiled rich-kids or easily influenced fashion victims – just to name but a few examples. But regardless of attitudes, all critics observe ways of style without which no ‘nerd,’ no activist, no intellectual and no rich-kid would be called a ‘hipster.’ I quote Dayna Tortorici: ‘hipsterism is mostly a play of surfaces, a game of outward signification [...,] a hipster is someone who looks like a hipster.’ 3 Yet, Tortorici is unable to define the phenomenon and continues: “‘I know it when I see it,’” 4 because a set of clear-cut features is not at hand. Countless portrayals of ‘the hipster’ are available. The smorgasbord of descriptions points out how contested the term is, but also that, up to a certain degree, recognition of the ‘hipster’ works. Youtube displays almost a million clips on upon searching for ‘hipster;’ Google comes up with more than 72,300,000 results for texts and 241,000,000 images. 5 Analysing so-called hipster-fashion, one finds elements from different origins, including style components from different historical episodes, elements associated with different societal strata (white trash trucker caps and shirts that are as

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__________________________________________________________________ common as aristocratic accessories and top-end electronic devices), styles related to various minorities such as Amish-people or laughing stocks like the figure of the geek, and ethnic elements like African patterns or ponchos known from Latin America. A previous episode of public deprecation appears to be the only must. ‘Hipsterism’ borrows from subcultures and styles such as punk, grunge, camp etc. It is associated with major fashion labels such as Prada and Chanel just as well as with the Salvation Army and thrift stores. In an Adbusters article, which became viral like few others, Douglas Haddow even asserts that ‘all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behaviour has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.’” 6 Album covers, magazines and music video clips are further sources that may be examined in order to investigate the aesthetics of hipsterism. Here, people with animal masks are a common motif. 7 The panda has become popular in this context as a symbol for difference and resistance 8 and for being black, white and Asian alike. 9 Other popular designs refer to the unicorn 10 or other made-up creatures, playing with notions of reality and deferral. All these appearances show one common goal: an expression of voluntary Otherness, that is, an expression of difference and uniqueness and a rejection of any established identity and categorisation. According to a recent study by Arsel and Thompson, hipster culture basically leans on ‘indie’-culture, whereas ‘indie’ refers ‘to artistic creations produced outside the auspices of media conglomerates and distributed through small-scale and often localized channels.’ 11 The two researchers find that the hipster label carries ‘stigmatizing connotations’ 12 that threaten consumers’ identity projects, because the hipster-label, as a ‘trivializing stereotype,’ 13 destroys the efforts put in being different. The hipster has become a category employed in marketing. As such being a part of the commercial mainstream, being a hipster can no longer be avant-garde. Calling somebody a hipster paradoxically seems to rob him or her of their hipness. It threatens the myth of their originality and superiority through Otherness. Yet, the single items that are connoted just as well with indie as with hipsterdom are mostly bought from big chain shops and thus belong to the realm of mainstream fashion. People wearing – i.e. combining – these parts, although frequently adorning themselves with postmodern refusals of the idea of authenticity (or popular vulgarizations thereof), ironically most often perceive themselves as especially authentic, creative and original, in other words: ‘hipper’ than others. Thus, there is an obvious interest for companies to be associated with hipness and an ‘indie’-lifestyle and in creating ‘hipsterism’ as a recognisable style. Brands that are very much associated with hipsterdom because they offer complete styles consisting of a blend of nostalgic references, like the fashion chains American Apparel and Urban Outfitters, have therefore established exclusive

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__________________________________________________________________ contracts with indie-music labels in order to valorise the status of their clothes for their target group. Robert Lanham points to ‘the indie-rock drenched’ advertisements applied by Apple. 14 3. PoMo and a New Kind of Irony Lanham, who also wrote The Hipster Handbook, 15 explicitly identifies irony as a key element of hipsterdom. He is in good company with this observation: Looking at discourses ascribed to so-called hipster-culture, one notices an allembracing tongue-in-cheek attitude. Postmodernism and its inscriptions in everyday-life have debunked concepts of ‘originality’ and ‘authenticity.’ Accordingly, the blended style that outlines hipster-culture deflates previous connotations of the individual items as symbols of certain societal status and attitudes. However, sporting moustaches, hunter-wear, plaid- or Ralph-Lauren shirts and mullets with equal, faked indifference does not simply call on the distancing functions of irony. What we observe here is a new kind of irony with unlimited and undetermined possibilities of twists. Lanham states: ‘[I]n regard to the hipster’s “ironic” appreciation of things that are not traditionally considered cool – shirts with Pegasus decals, Gossip Girl, PBR – I’d argue that many hipsters do sincerely appreciate all of the aforementioned, either as a form of nostalgia or as a celebration of low culture they’ve been instructed to avoid.’ 16 Not sticking to sumptuary laws, however, does not mean that the connotations are completely gone. Indeed, playing with them and including the possibility to discard or adopt them for convenience assumes what Pierre Bourdieu called ‘cultural capital,’ denoting resources that encompass soft skills and qualities achieved through education, such as rhetorical and networking competences, knowledge of etiquette, cultural literacy etc. 17 In 1995, sociologist and art-historian Sarah Thornton applied ‘cultural capital’ to corresponding knowledge in the subcultural sphere. 18 Accordingly, Mark Greif argues with respect to the description of hipsters, that you may be tending bar, but if you are tending bar in hip clothes and you are still in a band at night, you’ll always possess higher status in culture (if not in income) than the bond-trader losers ordering vodka tonics in button-downs. 19 In this way valuing the ‘underdog’-status as being ‘in the know,’ ‘hipsterism’ today reveals similarities to the hipster-logic in the 1940s. Yet, the early hipsters avowedly established a new, marked-off ‘scene,’ whereas I view the appearance of new hipsterism in the reverberation of postmodern ideas, in line with other phenomena, like, for example, forms of queerism, that aim to differ from the existing and deficient categories of identity without setting up new ones. 20 In this way, throughout and with the help of commercial propaganda, the notion of hipsterism is currently undergoing a shift from a derogatory to an inclusive term: a

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__________________________________________________________________ name for the avowedly nameless and a style which includes the excluded. Places like bars, clubs etc. now begin to advertise themselves as ‘hipster-places’ in cityguides and forums, in order to appear as different/unique ‘in’-places. 21 This development only seems consistent with the logic which we have observed above: If hipness thrives on an appreciation of what is publicly deprecated, being called a hipster sooner or later has to become hip (again). Beyond concepts and ideals however, the frequency of top end electronic devices and expensive clothing also reveals the success of the branding industry. 4. Canada: Diversity and Hipness In 2003, the British magazine The Economist declared Canada ‘the epitome of cool’ 22 due to their vanguard politics e.g. in legalizing same-sex marriage and liberalising their drug policy. Yet, in the same year and with respect to the same country, Adam Carter states that ‘[t]he Zeitgeist, it would seem, has moved beyond national character.’ 23 How do these apparently contradictory statements go together? In the following I will analyse a) in what ways Canada has indeed established ‘hipness’ as a key feature of national identity and b) how the constitution of Canadian identity as such functions via the very same logic as the construction of hipsterdom. Carter extensively shows how critics in the past decades emphasized that Canadians have no single, definable national identity, except, perhaps, insofar as Canadians’ peculiar awareness of multiplicity and difference might itself be said to constitute an identity in contrast to the more statically and totalizingly conceived identities of other nations. 24 Carter’s observations are congruent with my own field research. His description of Canadian identity reveals the same paradoxical effect that is in place with hipsterdom, one that produces a collective identity while the individual agents are eager to express their difference. 25 Canadian identity, as it is stated on the government’s website, ‘is a highly ritualized debate whose basic terms have barely changed in over 35 years.’ 26 Looking at the composition of the country, it is indeed difficult to define Canadian identity by any shared experiences and values: Canada is the world’s second largest country with a proportionally small population which assembles people with a variety of ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Being a showcase immigration country, every fifth citizen is foreign born. Since 1971, multiculturalism is laid out as the official policy. I quote from the government’s website: Multiculturalism ensures that all citizens can keep their identities, can take pride in their ancestry and have a sense of

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__________________________________________________________________ belonging. […] Our diversity is a national ‘asset [my emphasis]. 27 Taking up, including and benefiting from qualities of all different nations and cultures, the rationality of this image resembles the logic of a ‘hip’ identity. Going even further, Marshall McLuhan remarked that ‘Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.’ 28 Just as the described figure of the hipster who draws on different styles in order to supersede the status of (mere) fashion and moreover, any clear-cut identity, Canada presents itself as open and heterogeneous and impossible to describe. Both the figure of the hipster and Canada rely on the defining principle of Otherness and a shared appreciation of diversity. However, in order to distinguish oneself from something else there needs to be a relatively clear and common point of reference. While the constitution of hipsterculture works qua differentiation from the ‘mainstream,’ Canadian selfdescriptions reveal an abundance of comparisons to the US, that do not only provide the only border but are also superior to Canada in terms of world power, influence and financial means. And whereas so-called hipsters feel appending to subculture, Canada pulls valorisation out of a perception as the less commercial underdog. 29 Will Straw, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, diagnoses a ‘wilfully marginalized’ 30 position. He writes: We have convinced ourselves that the support of more marginal cultural phenomena is, in fact, a realistic way to succeed in internationally (sic!) markets, catering to specialized tastes which are often underserved by the products of Hollywood or multinational publishing conglomerates. […] The culture we deem distinctly Canadian, then, is a culture which has filled in those gaps which American culture has left behind. 31 What Straw describes here does not only parallel the constitution of hipness but also explains why Canadian culture is rather associated with arty and vanguard products than with blockbusters. 5. Myths and Fetishes All positive descriptions of Canadian openness and the Canadian ‘mosaic’ are, of course, not uncontested. Eva Mackey, for example, in her book The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada exposes limits of Canadian multiculturalism and tolerance, calling pluralism a new myth: ‘In the Canadian context, the state did not seek to erase difference but rather attempted to institutionalize, constitute, shape, manage and control difference,’ 32 defining

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘acceptable forms of difference […] limited to that which will help cultural groups to participate in and contribute to Canadian society and Canadian unity.’ 33 Many people feel that it is somewhat perverse to call Canada one’s own nation against the background of colonial history and First Nation’s rights. Linda Hutcheon therefore, in her seminal work on Canadian identity, famously stated that ‘the key to Canadian identity is irony,’ 34 so as to reflect an awareness of the plural, differential, and discursive nature of the nation. Putting emphasis on the subversive potential of irony, Hutcheon’s approach has, expectedly, stirred debates, especially amongst conservatives, on whether irony is an appropriate means to meet such a serious matter. Yet, she has been equally criticised for neglecting irony’s affirmative potential in the sense that it reproduces the very things it mocks. A study by Sunnie Rothenburger illustrates this very well. Rothenburger examines the public reception of a collection of toy-figurines based on Canadian historical characters, the ‘Canadian Legends.’ 35 She depicts that, while the ‘toys demonstrate a strong strain of nationalism in the country […] [and,] in fact, might act as fetishes for some buyers and commentators,’ 36 the overall appropriation of the figurines, especially in the news media, was riddled with irony. Yet, Rothenburger convincingly exposes that ‘rather than being overt and direct […] such nationalism is often more subtle, employing irony to great effect. In fact, some Canadians are most nationalistic when they appear to be most critical of such sentiment.’ 37 This statement is certainly true for Robert Kroetsch who had been known as an author and critic long before the ‘Canadian Legends’ existed. He reads Canada as a ‘postmodern country,’ 38 as ‘beyond nationalism’ 39 in the sense that it has suspended all possible unifying metanarratives and sets diversity and disunity in their place. Kroetsch embraces ‘namelessness’ and positively classifies it as a key element of Canadian identity: It may be the villain (namelessness) turns out to be the hero in the story of the Canadian story. […] To avoid a name does not […] deprive one of an identity; indeed, it may offer a plurality of identities. 40 Carter, whom I quoted in the beginning of the passage on Canada, draws on Kroetsch and other writers and depicts how they – despite celebrating the plurality of irony and rebutting names – help to foster national identification rather than actually going ‘beyond nationalism.’ Seeing this, it is interesting to view the idea of namelessness and ironic identity not only with respect to individuals or single countries, but also regarding the current developments and challenges of globalisation and a global society. May Canada be seen as model for diversity management on a global scale? And may hipsterdom, as other phenomena of popular culture, be regarded as a seismograph for developments on a societal

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__________________________________________________________________ level? The cyclical development of trends is an old hat. But is it also valid – and inevitable – for identities, fashionable or political ones? We have seen that rejecting names has the potential to challenge long defunct categories. It may allow for new, dynamic identity constructions. Yet, we have identified two aspects that repel this openness. One top down, e.g. the marketing industry that is eager to make out target groups or national lobbyists that strive to strengthen a certain image of their country. The other works bottom up, or we could also say from inside: The very same agents who thrive on a refusal of such ideas as ‘essence’ and authenticity, often paradoxically develop a sense of superiority through feeling ‘different’ or ‘other’ or ‘alternative,’ that results in a weird kind of new exclusiveness. Thus, it is yet to decide, not only theoretically but also for individuals and nation states, whether to walk into this trap or whether to see ‘namelessness’ as a truly valuable and useful approach and perspective.

Notes 1

‘2. Hipster’, Urban Dictionary, last modified 1 October 2013, accessed 28 October 2013, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster. The first definition includes similar ideas in a full-length article. 2 Mark Greif, Preface to What Was The Hipster? A Sociological Investigation, eds. Mark Greif, Kathleen Ross and Dayna Tortorici (New York: n+1 Foundation, 2010), vii. 3 Dayna Tortorici, ‘You Know It When You See It’, in What Was The Hipster?, What Was The Hipster? A Sociological Investigation, eds. Mark Greif, Kathleen Ross and Dayna Tortorici (New York: n+1 Foundation, 2010), 124. 4 Ibid., quoting the United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. Tortorici notes that Stewart’s famous remark from 1964, which by now has become a colloquial expression, was, of course, not a reference to hipsters but a description of his threshold test for obscenity. 5 Search date: 7 September 2013. 6 The article has received 8,334 comments on the website. Douglas Haddow, ‘Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization’, Adbusters, last modified 29 August 2008, accessed 28 October 2013, https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html. 7 See MGMT’s single cover ‘Time to Pretend’, Fever Ray’s videos and many more. The so-called ‘hipster bible’ VICE features animal masks in Holly Lucas’ ‘Photographic Moratorium: Animal Masks’, last modified 2012, accessed 28 October 2013, http://www.vice.com/read/photographic-moratorium-animal-masks. The comment with the most ‘likes’ reads: ‘The awkward moment when your

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__________________________________________________________________ persuit [sic!] of originality makes you look like everyone else’ (by Jessica Burgos Rosa). 8 The website Pandamonium reads: ‘We pandas refuse to settle for the prepackaged lifestyles they wish to sell us.’ ‘A Night of Pure Pandamonium!’, last modified 19 August 2008, accessed 28 October 2013, http://pandamoniumnyc.wordpress.com/. 9 However, this also (justifiably) has been critiqued as ‘performance art masquerading as activism.’ See Robert Lanham, ‘Look at This Fucking Hipster Basher’, The Morning News, last modified 29 June 2009, accessed 28 October 2013, http://www.themorningnews.org/article/look-at-this-fucking-hsipster-basher\. 10 1,800,000 Google references for ‘hipster+unicorn’, accessed 28 October 2013. 11 Zeynep Arsel and Craig J. Thompson, ‘Demythologizing Consumption Practices: How Consumers Protect Their Field-Dependent Identity Investments from Devaluing Marketplace Myths’, Journal of Consumer Research 37, No. 5 (2011): 792. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., 798. 14 Lanham, ‘Look at This Fucking Hipster Basher’. 15 Robert Lanham, The Hipster Handbook (New York: Anchor Books/Random House, 2003). 16 Lanham, ‘Look at This Fucking Hipster Basher’. 17 Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. John G. Richardson (New York: Greenwood, 1986). 18 Sarah Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). For further relations between ‘hipness’ and ‘cultural capital’ also see Arsel and Thompson, ‘Demythologizing Consumption Practices’, 793-794. 19 Mark Greif, ‘Epitaph for the White Hipster’, in What Was the Hipster, A Sociological Investigation, eds. Mark Greif, Kathleen Ross and Dayna Tortorici (New York: n+1 Foundation, 2010), 162. 20 However, explicitly sporting one’s knowledge of corresponding philosophical ideas of construction and deferral may also create a new (paradoxical) form of distinction. This is frequently ascribed to the figure of the hipster, i.e. as an aspiration to display ‘sophistication,’ e.g. by ostensibly placing a book by authors such as Žižek, Derrida, Sontag etc. on their table. ‘PoMo’ has become a buzz-word in this context. See Lanham, The Hipster Handbook, 2: ‘11 Clues You Are A Hipster: […] 2. You frequently use the term “postmodern” (or its commonly used variation PoMo) as an adjective, noun, and verb.’ For the term ‘sophistication’ see:

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__________________________________________________________________ Nadja Geer, Sophistication: Zwischen Denkstil und Pose (Göttingen: V & R Unipress, 2012). 21 Especially younger people would identify themselves as hipsters. According to a poll from May 2013 (USA only), voters age 18-29 have the most favourable opinion of hipsters (43% favourable/29% unfavourable), whereas only 16% of all Americans have. See Tom Jensen, ‘Americans So Over Hipsters’, last modified 13 May 2013, accessed 28 October 2013, http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/PPP_Release_Hipsters_051313.pdf. 22 Evan H. Potter, Branding Canada. Projecting Canada’s Soft Power through Public Diplomacy (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 11. See: ‘Canada’s New Spirit’, The Economist (September 2003), accessed 28 October 2013, http://www.economist.com/node/2085200. 23 Adam Carter, ‘Namelessness, Irony, and National Character in Contemporary Canadian Criticism and the Critical Tradition’, Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne 28, No. 1 (2003), 6. 24 Ibid. 25 This regards ‘inner differentiation,’ i.e. a differentiation from other ‘hipsters’/fellow Canadians and ‘outer differentiation,’ i.e. from ‘the mainstream’/ other countries (esp. the US). 26 Will Kymlicka, The Current State of Multiculturalism in Canada and Research Themes on Canadian Multiculturalism 2008-2010 (Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2010), 7, accessed 28 October 2013, http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/multi-state/section1.asp. 27 ‘Canadian Multiculturalism: An Inclusive Citizenship’, Official Website: Government of Canada, last modified 19 October 2012, accessed 28 October 2013, http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/citizenship.asp. 28 Marshall McLuhan, quoted in: Anthony Wilson-Smith: ‘A Quiet Passion’, Maclean’s (July 1995), 23. 29 The ‘underdog hero’ has been identified as one of the common motifs in Canadian literature. See: K. V. Dominic, Preface to Studies in Contemporary Canadian Literature, ed. K. V. Dominic (New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers, 2010), Kindle edition. 30 Will Straw, ‘Dilemmas of Definition’, in Slippery Pastimes: Reading the Popular in Canadian Culture, eds. Joan Nix and Jeannette Sloniowski (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University, 2002), 14, accessed 28 October 2013, http://strawresearch.mcgill.ca/straw/dilemmas.pdf. 31 Ibid. 32 Eva Mackey, The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 70. 33 Ibid., 66.

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__________________________________________________________________ 34

Linda Hutcheon, Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 7. 35 Sunnie Rothenburger, ‘The Prime Minister as Fetish? Ironic Nationalism, the News Media, and the Canadian Legends Figurines’, International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue Internationale d’Études Canadiennes 42 (2010). The series started in 2003 and attracted a great deal of media attention. 36 Ibid., 209. 37 Ibid. 38 Robert Kroetsch, The Lovely Treachery of Words: Essays Selected and New (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989), 22. 39 Ibid., 64. 40 Ibid., 52.

Bibliography Arsel, Zeynep, and Craig J. Thompson. ‘Demythologizing Consumption Practices: How Consumers Protect Their Field-Dependent Identity Investments from Devaluing Marketplace Myths’. Journal of Consumer Research 37, No. 5 (2011): 791–806. Bourdieu, Pierre. ‘The Forms of Capital’. In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood, 1986. ‘Canada’s New Spirit’. The Economist. 25 September 2003. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://www.economist.com/node/2085200. Carter, Adam. ‘Namelessness, Irony, and National Character in Contemporary Canadian Criticism and the Critical Tradition’. Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en Littérature Canadienne 28, No. 1 (2003): 5–25. Dominic, K.V. Preface to Studies in Contemporary Canadian Literature, edited by K. V. Dominic. New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers, 2010. Kindle edition. Geer, Nadja. Sophistication: Zwischen Denkstil und Pose. Göttingen: V & R Unipress, 2012. Google. ‘Google Analytics: Hipster’. Accessed 7 September 2013. http://www.google.com/analytics/.

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__________________________________________________________________ Government of Canada. ‘Canadian Multiculturalism: An Inclusive Citizenship’. Last modified 19 October 2012. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/citizenship.asp. Greif, Mark. ‘Epitaph for the White Hipster. In What Was The Hipster? A Sociological Investigation, edited by Mark Greif, Kathleen Ross, and Dayna Tortorici, 136–167. New York: n+1 Foundation, 2010. —––. Preface to What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation, edited by Mark Greif, Kathleen Ross, and Dayna Tortorici, vii–xvii. New York: n+1 Foundation, 2010. Haddow, Douglas. ‘Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization’. Adbusters, 29 August 2008. Accessed 28 October 2013. https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html. Holly, Lucas. ‘Photographic Moratorium: Animal Masks’. VICE, 2012. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://www.vice.com/read/photographic-moratorium-animal-masks. Hutcheon, Linda. Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London: Routledge, 1994. Jensen, Tom. ‘Americans So Over Hipsters’. 13 May 2013. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/PPP_Release_Hipsters_051313.pdf. Kroetsch, Robert. The Lovely Treachery of Words: Essays Selected and New. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989. Kymlicka, Will. The Current State of Multiculturalism in Canada and Research Themes on Canadian Multiculturalism 2008-2010. Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2010. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/multi-state/section1.asp. Lanham, Robert. The Hipster Handbook. New York: Anchor Books/Random House, 2003. —––. ‘Look at This Fucking Hipster Basher’. The Morning News, 29 June 2009. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://www.themorningnews.org/article/look-at-this-fucking-hipster-basher.

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__________________________________________________________________ Mackey, Eva. The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Pandamonium. ‘A Night of Pure Pandamonium!’ 19 August 2008. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://pandamoniumnyc.wordpress.com/. Potter, Evan H. Branding Canada. Projecting Canada’s Soft Power through Public Diplomacy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009. Rothenburger, Sunnie. ‘The Prime Minister as Fetish? Ironic Nationalism, the News Media, and the Canadian Legends Figurines’. International Journal of Canadian Studies / Revue Internationale d’Études Canadiennes 42 (2010): 207– 224. Straw, Will. ‘Dilemmas of Definition’. In Slippery Pastimes: Reading the Popular in Canadian Culture, edited by Joan Nix, and Jeannette Sloniowski. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University, 2002. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://strawresearch.mcgill.ca/straw/dilemmas.pdf. Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Tortorici, Dayna. ‘You Know It When You See It’. In What Was The Hipster? A Sociological Investigation, edited by Mark Greif, Kathleen Ross, and Dayna Tortorici, 122–135. New York: n+1 Foundation, 2010. Urban Dictionary. ‘2. Hipster’. Last modified 1 October 2013. Accessed 28 October 2013. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster. Wilson-Smith, Anthony. ‘A Quiet Passion’. Maclean’s (July 1995): 8–28. Lioba Foit is employed with the German Research Foundation (DFG) and works within the research group ‘Automatismen’ (‘automatisms’) at the University of Paderborn (Germany). She teaches cultural studies and is currently completing her PhD project on the logic of hipness. Her research focuses on the development of popularity in politics, culture and aesthetics.

Fashion as Identity in Steampunk Communities Jeanette Atkinson Abstract The craving for individuality and the search for identity in Steampunk communities focuses on history, fashion and heritage. Identity and a construction of self are linked to a preoccupation with creating the past and the desire to escape to another time, another world, a form of utopia. McVeigh describes how people interested in a specific consumer product see themselves within a particular, positive framework. 1 He identifies this as ‘consumutopia.’ 2 Taking this notion, and applying it to fashion and the adaptation of Victorian and Edwardian clothing, suggests a ‘costumutopia;’ a framework within which Steampunks can create an alternate or counterfactual history, a pleasurable paradise. Through fashion and clothing, Steampunks can project their wishes and fantasies onto their chosen character, making it part of their identity. Addressing the conference’s themes of ‘fashion and identity’ and ‘fashion (sub)cultures,’ this chapter examines the dynamics of created identities in historical realities and the impact of, and on, fashion in those constructed realities. Steampunks represent a community who have created, appropriated, manipulated and re-written history, both past and future, to create ‘moments of negotiated authenticity and shared meaning.’ Of significance is the degree to which these are engaged in exclusive or inclusive networks, the extent to which they can be understood as ‘communities of interest’ or ‘communities of practice.’ 3 This research brings together two strands of ethnographic research; interviews with Steampunks and museum professionals who have engaged with Steampunk communities; and cyber-ethnography, which examines the rich creative testimonies that offer an effective means to compare and contrast, model and describe, emerging authenticities. This ethnographic and cyber-ethnographic research explores different social groupings and their selfrepresentations, to determine on what grounds Steampunks negotiate the authenticity of their shared experience, their fashion-derived identity, their ‘costumutopia.’ Key Words: Costumutopia, Steampunk, fashion, identity, authenticity, history. ***** 1. Introduction The craving for individuality and the search for identity in Steampunk communities focus on history, fashion and the creation of material culture. Identity and a construction of self are linked to a preoccupation with reimagining the past and revisualising the present, a desire to escape to another time, another world, which could, potentially, be described as a form of utopia. McVeigh explains how

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__________________________________________________________________ people interested in a specific consumer product see themselves within a particular, positive framework. He identifies this as ‘consumutopia.’ 4 Taking this notion, and applying it to fashion and the adaptation of Victorian and Edwardian clothing, suggests a ‘costumutopia,’ a framework within which Steampunks can create an alternate or counterfactual history, a pleasurable paradise. Through fashion and clothing, Steampunks can project their wishes and fantasies onto their chosen persona, making it part of their identity. In examining Steampunk fashion and accessories, within a UK context, I aim to explore notions of identity within a burgeoning subculture, which has influenced mainstream films and couture fashion. This chapter examines the dynamics of created identities in constructed historical realities and the impact of, and on, fashion. This research brings together two strands of ethnographic research; interviews with Steampunks and museum professionals who have engaged with the Steampunk community; and cyber-ethnography, which examines social media forums, blogs and photo sharing sites, which offer an effective means to compare and contrast emerging authenticities and identities. This ethnographic and cyberethnographic research explores different social groupings and their selfrepresentations, to determine on what grounds Steampunks negotiate their fashionderived identity. After a brief examination of Steampunk culture and development, this chapter explores the influences on the production of clothing, the fashioning of an identity and notions of utopianism. Can Steampunk be described as utopian and how does clothed identity impact on this? Could Steampunk be a ‘costumutopia’? 2. Steampunk: An Alternative Past and Future Although initially originating in science fiction literature, ‘Steampunk’ with its Victorian and Edwardian influences, interest in steam (and modern) technology, a strong do-it-yourself and recycling ethos, is now a vibrant socially directed community. Steampunks create, appropriate, manipulate and re-write history, both past and future, to create ‘moments of negotiated authenticity and shared meaning.’ 5 In doing so, they are engaged in socially inclusive networks, which are both ‘communities of interest’ and ‘communities of practice.’ 6 Steampunk communities celebrate all things steam and the clothing of that technological era, the science fiction possibilities of combining steam with modern technology or future technology, and the creation, both of fashion and material culture, of the world they wish to inhabit. The desire to be someone else, to inhabit another world, another persona is tempting, as is the opportunity to show off the clothes that externalise that character. ‘What Steampunk people love to do is walk around being admired and posing, you know, dressing up, why would they not want to do that?’ 7 The culture of Steampunk enables that opportunity, but potentially in a safer more acceptable,

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__________________________________________________________________ accessible and perhaps accepting environment than some other communities offer. Within the British Steampunk community, the focus of this chapter, events, meetings and the opportunities to swap clothes and accessories form an essential part of the culture. These facilitate the means to teach newer members about the community and for them to learn new skills in creating Steampunk clothing and material culture. From a literary genre that developed out of cyberpunk science fiction (including films like The Matrix 8 ) in the early 1980s (although this date is contested and may be as early as the 1960s or even the proto-Steampunk of the Victorian age), and with a name coined in jest by the author K. W. Jeter in 1987, 9 Steampunk culture now influences film aesthetic and high fashion couture. Their style can be seen in the Sherlock Holmes films of Guy Ritchie, 10 and in the couture of Galliano, Dior, McQueen and Prada. 11 In the UK context, Steampunk is represented by various groups around the country, but one of the most active communities is the Victorian Steampunk Society (VSS), which is chaired by Major Tinker and was established in 2009. 12 In addition to social events, meetings to swap clothes, flash mobs and markets, the VSS have been involved in a number of UK museum exhibitions. These have included the first Steampunk art exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, entitled Steampunk, 13 the Greatest Steampunk Exhibition at Kew Bridge Steam Museum, London, 14 and exhibitions at Lincoln Castle. This latter involvement has been part of the Asylum at Lincoln, a three-day event organised by the VSS in September each year, which sees gatherings of approximately 1500 Steampunks. 3. Influences on Steampunk Production of Clothing The desire for individuality and the search for identity in a subcultural community such as Steampunk are focused on history, heritage and fashion. They express their identities and construct a sense of self through a ‘cultural biography,’ 15 taking on alter-egos, which are both recognisable and yet define the individual as part of a particular social community. With Steampunk, Victorian and Edwardian clothing are key influences on the development of personas, or ‘steamsonas.’ 16 The degree to which those influences are adapted and customised, though, depends not only on the individual, but also the country. An examination of books on Steampunk, such as those by Major Tinker and Jeff VanderMeer, 17 and social media sites, including blogs, forums, Flickr and Pinterest, demonstrate that slight differences can be discerned between countries and across countries in terms of how much Victorian and Edwardian historical clothes form the basis of Steampunk outfits. For some, the more Victorian the better; others prefer a more futuristic, ‘punked’ appearance, while still retaining more than a passing nod to the original setting for Steampunk literature. Colour is also a factor. While some Steampunks prefer the sepia look of an old photograph,

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__________________________________________________________________ using predominantly browns and earth colours is not essential and indeed many Steampunks opt for much brighter colours, being influenced by the technical advances in the production of synthetic dyes during the nineteenth century. 18 The mode of production of clothing can also vary, but often the inspiration is the original Victorian technique. Examining corset construction and nineteenth century sewing machines provides an entrée into clothing construction, but there are many similarities with today’s machines: By the time you’re looking at the original period that they’re drawing their inspiration from, most processes are mechanised to a point that actually isn’t really different; a standard mid nineteenth century sewing machine works on exactly the same principles as a contemporary sewing machine […] a machine sewing a nineteenth century corset would be to all intents and purposes be the same as a machine sewing a Steampunk corset. 19 Steampunks, then, are able to combine both Victorian and contemporary technology and techniques in the production of their clothing. Closely combined with history is heritage held in museum collections. This is an important influence and, in addition to science and industrial museums, Steampunks have taken the opportunity to visit nineteenth century clothing collections. Members of various groups and communities, including the VSS, paid a study visit to the Symington Corset collection, which is housed in Leicestershire. A large number of Victorian and Edwardian corsets are on display in the Fashion Gallery at Snibston Discovery Museum in Coalville, Leicestershire, 20 with the rest of the collection at Leicestershire County Council’s Collections Resource Centre at Barrow-upon-Soar, forming an important resource for researchers. 21 During the study visit, it was established that, while the Steampunks there had been using Victorian and Edwardian corsets as inspiration, they were changing and customising them to fit their Steampunk personas. This included changing what was traditionally an undergarment into something that was worn on top of a blouse, something that was meant to be seen: They didn’t want an authentic re-enactment corset, they wanted a Steampunk version of a corset, which did seem to me to be quite uniform, everyone was in a bit of an under the bust, shoulder, wasp waisted corset, there weren’t that many variations on that style. 22 As highlighted here, many of the Steampunk corsets also had shoulder straps, again an adaptation of original corsets, which were strapless.

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__________________________________________________________________ Customisation is a key element of Steampunk, even when the original influences are in evidence. As a consequence, it is very rare, at least in the British context, for Steampunks to buy a complete ‘costume;’ they prefer to design, make and modify existing clothes to produce a personalised look that fits their character: The whole idea of a complete costume just doesn’t work. There are people over time who’ve tried to sell complete Steampunk outfits on eBay, they don’t go. If you sell parts, like if you sell a bodice or a skirt, or accessories, they sell, when you do it as an ensemble, they don’t work. They aren’t interested, because they want to add their own creativity, they might not be able to make, but they can influence how they look by the selections they make. So they’re still being a designer, aren’t they? They’re designing the whole look. 23 4. Fashioning Steampunk Identity Clothing and fashion provide the ‘link between Steampunk literature and the rise of the subculture.’ 24 By adopting and adapting current street styles and combining them with couture fashion and Victorian inspired garments, Steampunks are portraying their individuality. ‘Clothes display, express and shape identity, imbuing it with a directly material reality.’ 25 It is important to note here that British Steampunks wear ‘clothes;’ they do not embrace the notion of ‘costume.’ When I went over to America to be a guest at the first Steampunk World’s Fair, I was constantly getting “you guys don’t wear costumes, you wear clothes.” UK Steampunks tend to wear clothes and then shuss [urban slang for “show us”] them up for big gatherings, rather than costumes, so it’s as much a fashion statement as a costume statement. 26 So, while Steampunks in other countries and on commercial websites offering Steampunk apparel may use ‘costume,’ 27 British Steampunks wear clothes that display, to some degree or other, the fact that they are Steampunks. This may be in the fabric or the cut when worn during a working week, or may simply be confined to a piece of jewellery or a pocket watch, rather than the full outfit worn to an event. ‘There are lots of things that creep into your three-piece suit. You might find that people are wearing tweeds instead of modern fabrics, or pocket watches.’ 28 Nevertheless the person is a Steampunk fulltime rather than becoming one on their day off and so, in this sense, they are, at no time, wearing a ‘costume.’ Whether clothes, or costume, however, it is through the way that someone dresses that demonstrates their choice of identity. This is a multi-layered and

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__________________________________________________________________ complex denomination that can involve inhabiting a character and even portraying another gender. In the context of Steampunk, this latter may include a man choosing to dress as a woman, but shaking hands in the style of a Victorian man. Identity, then, is a fluid notion; it is not just about how one chooses to be seen, but the group that one associates with. Subcultures can facilitate the freedom to express this more readily than everyday life. Although Steampunk is a subculture, an alternative culture, it is accessible and this may be one of the reasons for its current popularity. Another reason is that, in some ways, the aesthetic of Steampunk – the Victorian clothes, the brass of steam components – combined with the do-it-yourself ethos is familiar to British culture through films and television programmes such as 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and The Time Machine. 29 Consequently, it has become part of the Western psyche. 30 It also fits with our current moves towards recycling and reuse, and reacquaintance with traditional crafts. These are emphasised because of the current economic recession, 31 but they are one of the key elements of Steampunk culture. Nothing is thrown away; if something no longer works, an object or piece of clothing is taken apart and used to make something else. 5. Utopia Notions of Steampunk Steampunk may be part of the Western psyche through its clothes, aesthetic and adoption of steam technology, which is combined with adaptation of contemporary technology, a desire to recycle, and a rejection of the negative aspects of Victorian culture such as racism and sexism, but can Steampunk culture be described as a ‘utopia’? Named by Thomas More in 1516, the concept of ‘“utopia,” which simply means no place or nowhere, has come to refer to a non-existent good place.’ 32 One of the key aspects of utopianism is dissatisfaction with one’s current life and situation and a yearning for improvement, something that, potentially, can be found in a utopian alternative. These alternatives were often sought through the establishment of a community, often termed ‘intentional communities,’ with ‘shared values or for some other mutually agreed upon purpose.’ 33 Over time, the idea of utopianism has developed and is now less defined than it was originally. Instead, ‘it is now used as a label for many types of social and political activity intended to bring about a better society and, in some cases, personal transformation.’ 34 On the basis of this definition, is Steampunk, then, utopian, or perhaps dystopian? Inevitably, this is a difficult question to answer. In a recent debate on the forum Steampunk Empire, opinions were divided. In some ways, a more idealised world is being created, perhaps in part because the ‘ordinary,’ ‘everyday’ world is not satisfactory, but can be improved by a re-imagination of what might have been. However, there is also the view that with Steampunk ‘the setting cannot

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__________________________________________________________________ be utopian by virtue of the “punk,”’ 35 which rebels against such restrictive definitions. The literature certainly has elements of utopianism and dystopianism: I think it has to be just a bit dystopian in order to be interesting at all. I mean to say I don’t think it has to be any worse than the world we live in now, but a steampunk utopia could be rather dull. With no one to fight there would be no need to create new and better gadgets. 36 So, the desire appears to be for a Victorian world with some of its imperfections and vices, but without the aspects that we now find unacceptable, for example, racism and sexism. One thing that comes across clearly is an embracing of manners, etiquette and general civility, combined with a desire for adventure. What they also want to avoid is the oppression of others. This is where the debate on utopia versus dystopia really comes to life and is central to any discussions on the subject. What is utopian to one person is dystopian to another. To make Steampunk utopian will not only ensure that it has a short life – utopian societies are invariably short-lived – but it will also alienate large swathes of the community. Steampunk culture is continually evolving through gatherings and social media. They are not trying to change mainstream society, but in addition to influencing couture fashion and film aesthetics, something else is happening: If Steampunk were to influence society towards a utopian end … the VSS runs … this global campaign now to “Be Splendid,” Be Splendid in how you present yourself to other people, Be Splendid in how you interact with other people. 37 Good manners can lead to an improved society, which itself is a utopian hope. ‘Hope is essential to any attempt to change society for the better.’ 38 When Steampunks gather in Lincoln for the Asylum, the crime rate in the city drops by 11 per cent. 39 Steampunks may not be aiming for a utopia, but politeness goes some way to achieving it. 6. Steampunk: A Costumutopia? What of ‘dressing up,’ creating personas through clothing, could this also be utopian – a costumutopia? As discussed previously, one way in which identity is formed and demonstrated is through clothes. In addition to portraying a character, Steampunks seek a return to quality in their fabrics and the cut and style of their clothing. There is a desire for authenticity, but one that is modified rather than fetishized. 40 In some ways, the Steampunk ethos of do-it-yourself, customisation of clothing and material culture fits well with ideal notions of craft and working

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__________________________________________________________________ collectively as espoused by proponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement who ‘elevated craftsmanship to the level of a reified principle.’ 41 The, seemingly, utopian principles on which such movements were founded could, potentially, be applied equally to Steampunk philosophy. As with William Morris, for whom ‘craft [was] a shared practice,’ so Steampunks thrive on community interaction and the exchange of skills and knowledge with ‘like-minded practitioners and users.’ 42 For many Steampunks, similarly to Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, their philosophy towards materials and modes of working – their ‘craft’ – is As a practice shared by a network of makers, freely exchanging their wares with the elevated degree of technical appreciation that comes from a personal investment in doing it yourself, rather than merely consuming in a passive manner that which has been manufactured by others. 43 In this sense, ‘being a Steampunk is much more than just clothing.’ 44 It is the whole ethos that accompanies the culture, which fits with society’s current preoccupation with (re)creating (or reimagining) the past, with ‘identity-focused heritage.’ 45 Steampunks do appear to want to ‘escape to the exotic, to a “foreign country,”’ 46 to step outside the everyday, the conventional, to be alternative. But then, so do many elements of society. Therefore, it can be suggested that, although we do not and cannot have a utopia, we can all have, and in some ways desire, a ‘costumutopia.’

Notes 1

Brian J. McVeigh, ‘How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool and Camp’, in Museums in the Material World, ed. S. J. Knell (London: Routledge, 2007), 230245. 2 McVeigh’s research into perceptions of Hello Kitty in Japan led him to coin the term ‘consumutopia.’ He explains that ‘respondents [to his research] frequently judged those interested in Hello Kitty within a framework of unhindered/freedom/self-autonomy,’ hence the linking of consumerism and utopia. He also explores ‘a less positive, more critical view of social relations’ relating to ‘coercion/control/compulsion,’ which suggests that consumerism has a darker, more dystopian side. McVeigh ‘How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool and Camp’, 230-231. 3 Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 4 McVeigh, ‘How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool and Camp’.

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Jeanette C. Atkinson, ‘Engagement and Performance: Created Identities in Steampunk, Cosplay and Re-Enactment’, in The Cultural Moment in Heritage Tourism: New Perspectives on Performance and Engagement, eds. Laurajane Smith, Emma Waterton and Steve Watson (London: Routledge, 2012), 113-130; see also Jeanette Atkinson, ‘Steampunk’s Legacy: Collecting and Exhibiting the Future of Yesterday’, in Steaming into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthology, eds. Julie Anne Taddeo and Cynthia J. Miller (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012), 273-297. 6 Wenger, Communities of Practice; Etienne Wenger, ‘Communities of Practice: a Brief Introduction’, Communities of Practice, 2006, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm. 7 Jim Bennett, Interview between Jim Bennett and Jeanette Atkinson at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 3 January 2012. 8 Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, dirs., The Matrix (Los Angeles, CA: Warner Bros., 1999). 9 Keith Wayne Jeter, Introduction to ‘On Steampunk and ‘Steampunk’, in Infernal Devices, Kindle (Nottingham: Angry Robot, 2011), location 36-48. 10 Guy Ritchie, dir., Sherlock Holmes (Los Angeles, CA: Warner Bros., 2009); Guy Ritchie, dir., Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Los Angeles, CA: Warner Bros., 2011). 11 Sarah Mower, ‘Christian Dior Spring 2010 Couture Collection on Style.com: Runway Review’, Style.com, 2010, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/S2010CTR-CDIOR; Prada, ‘Prada Menswear Fall / Winter 2012 Campaign’, Prada.com, 2012, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.prada.com/en/advertising-campaign-fw12/man-info; W Magazine, ‘Runway Photos: Alexander McQueen Spring 2013: Fashion: Wmagazine.com’, WMagazine.com, 2012, accessed 29 May 2013; http://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/2012/10/alexander-mcqueen-spring-2013-run way-ss#slide=1; Elly Rowe, ‘Steampunk Fashion Brings a Blast from the Past Back to Light | The Florence Newspaper’, The Florence Newspaper.com, 2013, accessed 29 May 2013, http://theflorencenewspaper.com/new/steampunk-fashion2013/; Erin Skarda, ‘Will Steampunk Really Be the Next Big Fashion Trend?’, Time Style, 2013, accessed 29 May 2013, http://style.time.com/2013/01/17/willsteampunk-really-be-the-next-big-fashion-trend/. 12 VSS, ‘The Victorian Steampunk Society’, 3 March 2012, accessed 29 May 2013, http://thevss.yolasite.com/. 13 MHS, ‘MHS: Museum of the History of Science, Oxford: Steampunk’, Museum of the History of Science, 2011, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/steampunk/. .

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KBSM, ‘The Greatest Steampunk Exhibition June 4 - August 29 - Kew Bridge Steam Museum, London’, Kew Bridge Steam Museum, last modified 26 May 2011, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.kbsm.org/news/2011-archive/224-thegreatest-steampunk-exhibition-june-4th-august-29th. 15 Bella Dicks, Culture on Display. The Production of Contemporary Visitability (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003), 126. 16 Jeff VanderMeer and S. J Chambers, The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature (New York: Abrams Image, 2011), 132. 17 Major Tinker, The Steampunk Gazette (London: Fil Rouge Press, 2012); VanderMeer and Chambers, The Steampunk Bible. 18 G. D. Falksen, ‘A Sense of Structure’, Steampunk Fashion, last modified 15 August 2008, accessed 29 May 2013, http://steamfashion.livejournal.com/929255.html. 19 Philip Warren, Interview between Philip Warren and Jeanette Atkinson at Collections Resources Centre, Leicestershire County Council Heritage and Art Service, 14 December 2011. 20 LCC, ‘Snibston – Fashion Gallery – Leicestershire County Council’, 2012, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/museums/snibston/snibston_explor e/snibston_explore_galleries/fashiongallery.htm. 21 LCC, ‘Collections Resources Centre: Leicestershire County Council’, 2013, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/museums/museumcollections/muse umcollections_facilities/collectionsresourcecentre.htm. 22 Warren, Interview between Philip Warren and Jeanette Atkinson at Collections Resources Centre, Leicestershire County Council Heritage and Art Service. 23 John Naylor, Interview between John Naylor and Jeanette Atkinson, Nottingham Contemporary, 6 December 2011. 24 VanderMeer and Chambers, The Steampunk Bible, 132. 25 Julia Twigg, ‘Clothing, Identity and the Embodiment of Age’, in Aging and Identity: A Postmodern Dialogue, eds. Jason Powell and Tony Gilbert, online, pages 1-19 (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009), 93-104, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.ihs.manchester.ac.uk/events/futureworkshops/MICRA_Hair_and_Care _Project/Clothing_And_Age_Identities.pdf. 26 Naylor, Interview between John Naylor and Jeanette Atkinson, Nottingham Contemporary. 27 Dark Knight Armoury, ‘Steampunk General Costume: FM-66151 from Dark Knight Armoury’, 2012, accessed 29 May 2013,

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__________________________________________________________________ http://www.darkknightarmoury.com/p-13723-steampunk-general-costume.aspx. 28 Naylor, Interview between John Naylor and Jeanette Atkinson, Nottingham Contemporary. 29 Richard Fleischer, dir., 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (Burbank, CA: The Walt Disney Company, 1954); George Pal, dir., The Time Machine (Los Angeles, CA: George Pal Productions, 1960). 30 Naylor, Interview between John Naylor and Jeanette Atkinson, Nottingham Contemporary. 31 Christopher Frayling, On Craftsmanship: Towards a New Bauhaus (London: Oberon Masters, 2011), 7. 32 Lyman Tower Sargent, Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions 246 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 2. 33 Ibid., 6. 34 Ibid., 7. 35 Post by Whitecastle in Atem Si Alset, ‘Steampunk: Utopian or Dystopian? The Steampunk Empire’, Discussion, Steampunk Empire: The Crossroads of the Aether, last modified 22 January 2011, accessed 29 May 2013, http://www.thesteampunkempire.com/forum/topics/steampunk-utopian-or-dystopi an?id=2442691%3ATopic%3A406370&page=1#comments. 36 Post by Alchemy in Ibid. 37 Naylor, Interview between John Naylor and Jeanette Atkinson, Nottingham Contemporary. 38 Sargent, Utopianism, 8. 39 Naylor, Interview between John Naylor and Jeanette Atkinson, Nottingham Contemporary. 40 Mike Crang, ‘Magic Kingdom or a Quixotic Quest for Authenticity?’, Annals of Tourism Research 23, No. 2 (1996): 415-431. 41 Rafael Cardoso, ‘Craft versus Design: Moving beyond a Tired Dichotomy’, in The Craft Reader, ed. Glenn Adamson, English Edition (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2010), 330. 42 Ibid., 329. 43 Ibid. 44 Warren, Interview between Philip Warren and Jeanette Atkinson at Collections Resources Centre, Leicestershire County Council Heritage and Art Service. 45 Dicks, Culture on Display, 125. 46 Wienberg 1999: 197 in Cornelius Holtorf, ‘Heritage Values in Contemporary Popular Culture’, in Heritage Values in Contemporary Society, eds. George S. Smith, Phyllis Mauch Messenger and Hilary A. Soderland (Walnut Creek, Ca: Left Coast Press, 2010), 46.

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Bibliography Alset, Atem Si. ‘Steampunk: Utopian or Dystopian? The Steampunk Empire’. Discussion. Steampunk Empire: The Crossroads of the Aether. Last modified 22 January 2011. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.thesteampunkempire.com/forum/topics/steampunk-utopian-or-dystopi an?id=2442691%3ATopic%3A406370&page=1#comments. Atkinson, Jeanette. ‘Steampunk’s Legacy: Collecting and Exhibiting the Future of Yesterday’. In Steaming into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthology, edited by Julie Anne Taddeo, and Cynthia J. Miller, 273–297. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012. Atkinson, Jeanette C. ‘Engagement and Performance: Created Identities in Steampunk, Cosplay and Re-Enactment’. In The Cultural Moment in Heritage Tourism: New Perspectives on Performance and Engagement, edited by Laurajane Smith, Emma Waterton, and Steve Watson, 113–130. London: Routledge, 2012. Bennett, Jim. Interview between Jim Bennett and Jeanette Atkinson at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 3 January 2012. Cardoso, Rafael. ‘Craft Versus Design: Moving beyond a Tired Dichotomy’. In The Craft Reader, edited by Glenn Adamson, 321–332. English Edition. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2010. Crang, Mike ‘Magic Kingdom or a Quixotic Quest for Authenticity?’ Annals of Tourism Research 23, No. 2 (1996): 415–431. Dark Knight Armoury. ‘Steampunk General Costume: FM-66151 from Dark Knight Armoury’. 2012. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.darkknightarmoury.com/p-13723-steampunk-general-costume.aspx. Dicks, Bella. Culture on Display. The Production of Contemporary Visitability. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003. Falksen, G. D. ‘A Sense of Structure’. Steampunk Fashion. Last modified August 15, 2008. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://steamfashion.livejournal.com/929255.html.

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__________________________________________________________________ Frayling, Christopher. On Craftsmanship: Towards a New Bauhaus. London: Oberon Masters, 2011. Holtorf, Cornelius. ‘Heritage Values in Contemporary Popular Culture’. In Heritage Values in Contemporary Society, edited by George S. Smith, Phyllis Mauch Messenger, and Hilary A. Soderland, 43–54. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2010. Jeter, K. W. ‘Introduction: On Steampunk and “Steampunk”’. Infernal Devices, location 36–48. Kindle. Nottingham: Angry Robot, 2011. KBSM. ‘The Greatest Steampunk Exhibition June 4 – August 29 – Kew Bridge Steam Museum, London’. Kew Bridge Steam Museum. Last modified 26 May 2011. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.kbsm.org/news/2011-archive/224-thegreatest-steampunk-exhibition-june-4th-august-29th. LCC. ‘Snibston: Fashion Gallery: Leicestershire County Council’. 2012. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/museums/snibston/snibston_explor e/snibston_explore_galleries/fashiongallery.htm. —––. ‘Collections Resources Centre: Leicestershire County Council’. 2013. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/leisure_tourism/museums/museumcollections/muse umcollections_facilities/collectionsresourcecentre.htm. McVeigh, Brian J. ‘How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool and Camp’. In Museums in the Material World, edited by Simon J. Knell, 230–245. London: Routledge, 2007. MHS. ‘MHS: Museum of the History of Science, Oxford: Steampunk’. Museum of the History of Science, 2011. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/steampunk/. Mower, Sarah. ‘Christian Dior Spring 2010 Couture Collection on Style.com: Runway Review’. Style.com, 2010. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/S2010CTR-CDIOR. Naylor, John. Interview between John Naylor and Jeanette Atkinson, Nottingham Contemporary, December 6, 2011.

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__________________________________________________________________ Prada. ‘Prada Menswear Fall / Winter 2012 Campaign’. Prada.com. 2012. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.prada.com/en/advertising-campaign-fw12/man-info. Rowe, Elly. ‘Steampunk Fashion Brings a Blast From the Past Back to Light | The Florence Newspaper’. The Florence Newspaper.com, 2013. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://theflorencenewspaper.com/new/steampunk-fashion-2013/. Sargent, Lyman Tower. Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions 246. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Skarda, Erin. ‘Will Steampunk Really Be the Next Big Fashion Trend?’ Time Style, 2013. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://style.time.com/2013/01/17/willsteampunk-really-be-the-next-big-fashion-trend/. Tinker, Major. The Steampunk Gazette. London: Fil Rouge Press, 2012. Twigg, Julia. ‘Clothing, Identity and the Embodiment of Age’. In Aging and Identity: A Postmodern Dialogue, edited by Jason Powell, and Tony Gilbert, 93– 104. Online, pages 1–19. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.ihs.manchester.ac.uk/events/futureworkshops/MICRA_Hair_and_Care _Project/Clothing_And_Age_Identities.pdf. VanderMeer, Jeff, and S. J Chambers. The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature. New York: Abrams Image, 2011. VSS. ‘The Victorian Steampunk Society’. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://thevss.yolasite.com/. Warren, Philip. Interview between Philip Warren and Jeanette Atkinson at Collections Resources Centre, Leicestershire County Council Heritage and Art Service, 14 December 2011. Wenger, Etienne. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

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__________________________________________________________________ —––. ‘Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction’. Communities of Practice, 2006. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm. W Magazine. ‘Runway Photos: Alexander McQueen Spring 2013: Fashion: Wmagazine.com’. WMagazine.com, 2012. Accessed 29 May 2013. http://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/2012/10/alexander-mcqueen-spring-2013-run way-ss#slide=1.

Filmography Fleischer, Richard, dir. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Burbank, CA: The Walt Disney Company, 1954. Pal, George, dir. The Time Machine. Los Angeles, CA: George Pal Productions, 1960. Ritchie, Guy, dir. Sherlock Holmes. Los Angeles, CA: Warner Bros., 2009. —––. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Los Angeles, CA: Warner Bros., 2011. Wachowski, Andy, and Lana Wachowski, dirs.. The Matrix. Los Angeles, CA: Warner Bros., 1999. Jeanette Atkinson is Associate Tutor in the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, and is copyeditor and member of the editorial board of Museum & Society. She holds a PhD in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester (AHRC funded) and has worked in regional and national museums in the UK and New Zealand. Her research interests include values, ethics, identity, authenticity and museums and communities, particularly indigenous and subcultural communities.

When Ethical Fashion Is a Challenge: Polish Case Alicja Raciniewska Abstract Even though the issue of ethical and environmental awareness has recently gained certain popularity in Poland, ethical fashion is still a niche on the Polish market. Thus, any discussion on ethical fashion is a challenge here. The chapter introduces the most important Polish organisations, fashion designers, producers and media that promote ethical fashion and sustainable development. It is a part of a broader fashion study conducted on the subject of Polish fashion. The chapter discusses findings from analysis of: 1. the ways of presenting the issue in the Polish fashion discourse; 2. the ways of educating both producers and consumers (actions, programmes, ways of engaging the public, corporate social responsibility policies etc.); 3. the level of knowledge, public awareness and attitudes of Polish consumers. The purpose of this presentation is a critical analysis of the Polish ethical fashion and its development in the recent years. Key Words: Sustainability, ethical fashion, fashion discourse. ***** 1. First Signs of an Ethical Trend Ethical and environmental awareness has been slowly gaining popularity in Poland. First symptoms of an ethical trend begin to appear also in fashion. There are brands and fashion designers inspired by the ideas of ecology, sustainability, recycling and up-cycling, for example Joanna Paradecka, Sylwia Rochala, Maldoror, Aga Prus, Olga Szynkarczuk, Dualia, Slogan, Gili-Gili, Van Markowiec, HO:LO and Maruna, to name only the most popular. Some examples of social economy companies can also be found, like Szwalnia Komoda Prababuni and ilovekanga, which, in addition to creating and selling clothes, try to support local communities as well. In Poland there are also several non-governmental organisations and activist groups, which are ‘trying to teach’ Poles what ethical fashion is, and how to become a conscious consumer involved in promoting fair trade and building civil support for sustainable development. Worth mentioning here are: Związek Stowarzyszeń Polska Zielona Sieć (Alliance of Associations Polish Green Network), Polska Akcja Humanitarna (Polish Humanitarian Organization), Grupa eFTe, Koalicja KARAT (KARAT Coalition). Since 2009 all these organisations have been cooperating as Clean Clothes Poland (a member of the Clean Clothes Campaign) on issues related to working conditions, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and consumers’ awareness. Their activities include in particular the

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__________________________________________________________________ organization of professional trainings, lectures, conferences, meetings and campaigns, publishing, maintaining a website and social media profiles. Ethical issues in fashion are also raised in courses and lectures in Polish fashion schools. Magdalena Płonka, a lecturer in one of them, wrote a book on ethics and CSR in the garment industry, which has been widely promoted and commented in the Polish media and blogs as one of the first publication on this subject in Polish language. 1 Following the examples from other countries, the interest in ethical fashion has increased in the mainstream Polish fashion events. For example, RE-ACT Fashion Show (held at the Fashion Philosophy Fashion Week Poland in Łódź) and Junk Fashion Show (organised periodically by the Krakow School of Art and Fashion Design) are the events that promote the art of recycling and the ecological and ethical fashion. RE-ACT Fashion Show also provides an opportunity for young designers from Poland and Central Europe to be recognised, because it attracts the attention of people associated with fashion – opinion leaders, celebrities, and the media. The subject of ethical fashion will also be present at this year’s Art & Fashion Festival, the annual festival organised in Poznan by Grażyna Kulczyk – collector and patron of the arts, entrepreneur and developer; several years regarded as the richest Pole. During this event fashion film shows, lectures by fashion experts, and workshops on design, photography, and fashion journalism are held. There are some other events related to ethical fashion as well. Every year, since 2006, artistic recycling festival PrzeTwory is held in Warsaw. The organisers and participants reject ‘buy-use-throw away culture’ and promote a different attitude toward product – the ideas of ecology, sustainability and DIY. They support unique, creative solutions in recycling. Shwaping currently popular in the West, is also known in Poland. Nowadays, the most important annual events associated with the exchange of clothes are Uwolnij Łacha, Szaffing and Ciuchowisko. Ethical and environmental issues have been slowly gaining interest in popular Polish fashion magazines (for example the May issue of the monthly Your Style Magazine in 2012 was fully dedicated to the subject of responsible consumption) and popular television programmes (for example ethical fashion has been discussed in the popular every day show Good Morning TVN). There are also several magazines, internet websites and blogs involved in promoting ethical and environmental trends in fashion, for example: e!stilo, Organic, Slow, Dilemmas, Etyczna moda, Zielona Nitka, Moda jest dla ludzi. 2. Big Picture However, these first appearances do not constitute systematic, consistent ethical practices. Because when looking at ‘the bigger picture,’ one may notice that the Polish market of ethical fashion is still microscopic. In 2012 there were 20 retailers and a few certified clothing manufacturers in line with the ethical standards on it. 2 Still, the leading Polish clothing companies, which – just like other world clothing

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__________________________________________________________________ chains – produce in Asia, do not communicate about their CSR practices as compared to the western brands. They also, unlike global fashion giants, do not present many ethical offers to Polish consumers. The most prominent example in this regard is the LPP Group from Gdańsk, currently celebrating the success on the Polish stock market, the owner of many popular brands (Reserved, Mohito, CroppTown, House, Reserved Kids, PromoStars, Sinsay), owning over seven hundred shops in shopping centres in Poland and stores in ten other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. For several years Clean Clothes Polska has been campaigning against LPP and trying to admonish this biggest Polish clothing company to act more transparent and socially responsible, with little success so far. Opinions and attitudes of Poles about ethical fashion are not regularly surveyed by leading research institutes, and there are not many analyses on this subject. Interaktywny Instytut Badań Rynkowych (Interactive Institute of Market Research) examined for the Polska Zieona Sieć (Polish Green Network) the attitudes of Polish Internet users towards responsible consumption with the particular emphasis on the clothing market in the context of other sectors. 3 This poll shows that, generally speaking, the issue of ethical and responsible fashion is not entirely unknown to the Poles, but they do not show much interest and involvement in it. 4 Most Poles buy clothes from mass retailers, at the bazaars, at the supermarkets and second-hand shops. They make their shopping decisions based on price, quality and design, rather than the information about the origin of the product. Most consumers are aware that the clothing is produced mainly in Asian countries, but seeking information about the country of production only out of their curiosity. They do not participate in protests against poor working conditions in the garment industry. Although they believe that such actions are right. 5 There are few reasons for this ‘unpopularity’ of ethical and responsible fashion in Poland. First is rooted in the lack of proper education due to the specific economic system in the period of socialism. The Western societies have been taught about ethical consumption successively, for many decades. Whereas, Poles only since the nineties have had the opportunity first to learn how to be consumers on a free market, and then how to be responsible customers who think about their shopping in the context of working conditions in the global economy, about animal rights, resources, and the environment. Before 1989, there were no conditions in favour of the development of ethical attitude, as there was really no opportunity to make a choice (the economy was centrally managed and there was a state’s monopoly on the market, there was no free market, there was no free trade). During the People’s Republic of Poland (up until 1989) consumption in general, and the clothes in particular, were associated with a permanent lack of appropriate goods, with standing in long queues to shops and buying only what exactly had been delivered to shops. In general, there was a need for repairing clothes rather than utilising. People used to sew their clothes from low-quality linens, or curtains and fabrics that they could only obtain from abroad, for example from packages

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__________________________________________________________________ sent by relatives and friends from other countries. Political transformation introduced competition into the Polish market, filled the empty shelves in mushrooming shops with new brands and products, and opened the ability to make individual choices as consumers. Numerous studies show that Poles’ perceive this as one of the most important achievements of the transformation. The second type of explanation refers to the present economic aspects. In general Polish society is not wealthy, and is still in the phase of materialistic values prevailing over the ethical when it comes to shopping. Therefore, the ‘alchemy’ of low prices seems to have a stronger argument in decision making than any remorse or sense of responsibility for the conditions of production in the clothing industry. Other factors have socio-cultural background and relate to the way ethical fashion is presented in the Polish public discourse. For a few years the interest of national media in ethical fashion has increased, but is mainly focused on the occasional publications connected mostly with more popular issues or extraordinary events. One of these events, which was widely discussed in the world media, was the collapse of the garment factory in Bangladesh in April this year. In the last section of the article a part of a wider research project on fashion in public discourse in Poland will be presented. 3. The Issue of Ethical Fashion in Polish Public Discourse: Case Study This paragraph depicts the key findings from the author’s research on the way of presenting the tragedy in Bangladesh in the most popular Polish national daily, Gazeta Wyborcza. This newspaper was chosen not only due to the extent of readings and the important position on the Polish press market, but also because Gazeta Wyborcza had also published the largest number of articles on the subject and had the largest number of comments posted by readers on its website. Twentythree press releases and 782 comments that had appeared two months after the collapse of Bangladeshi factory were examined. The author’s main interest was focused on how this event was framed in Gazeta Wyborcza and are ethics in fashion and responsibility of the fashion industry seen as a social problem in Poland? To answer these questions, a research approach was developed combining three different research perspectives. The first perspective is the constructivist approach to the study of social problems created by Spector and Kitsuse, 6 and then developed by Kitsuse and Ibarra 7 with the concepts of claim and claim-making process. The second is the social movements orientation with the concepts of frame, framing process and frame analysis, terms introduced by Erving Goffman 8 and then developed by researchers such as Entman, 9 Benford and Snow. 10 Thirdly, the perspective of research and analytical categories proposed by Polish scholars of public discourse, especially concept of ‘sepisation’ was used. 11 The analytical perspective involved a focus on the following categories: key roles played by

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__________________________________________________________________ actors, key words and images, rhetorical figures and schemata, narrative structures, ‘we’ and ‘they’ relations. Here are the most important findings from content analysis of publications and comments posted on the website of Gazeta Wyborcza two months after the collapse of the Rana Plaza. On the foreground a frame of tragedy, of social drama and victims is delivered. Press releases are illustrated with the pictures of bloodied bodies, faces in pain or anger, debris etc. The role of the victims are played here mainly by Bangladeshi garment industry workers (comments also suggest all workers and consumers of fashion chain retailers). They are described according to the stereotypical figure of victims – people are counted each day in press titles and leads, but they stay anonymous (descriptions like: ‘woman,’ ‘people,’ ‘onlookers’), without their own ‘voice’/narration. They are here more passive than active, dependent, exploited and hopeless. The material covering these stories in the newspaper is developed as a search for those who are responsible for the situation. First of all, the Bangladeshi clothes producers and big fashion chain retailers are found in a role of guilty of the catastrophe. They are also portrayed collectively and presented in a negative light – as exploiters, greedy, shameless liars and manipulators, interested only in their own profits. Comments are even more expressive and emotional, using categories like ‘hyenas,’ ‘bandits,’ ‘capitalistic pigs,’ ‘sociopaths,’ ‘bloodsuckers,’ ‘murderers form corporations.’ Stereotypical figure of evil rich men is used here and they are always described as ‘they.’ Materials investigated in this analysis form a ‘diagnostic frame’ 12 that included problem identification and attributions. The problematic issue here is the relationship between two categories discussed earlier: the victims and the persecutors. This relation is described in a language of classical sociological theories of conflict, dependency, and world system theory, based on the concept of injustice and binary model of power relations in which one side is clearly privileged and profiting at the expense of the other. In this case, the factory in Bangladesh functions as a metonymy of unresolved problems in the global apparel industry – abuses, poor wages, exploitation, lack of responsibility etc. Reducing the complexity of the issue to the simple dichotomy of ‘black and white’ world, and ‘simplification of the distribution of values’ 13 are basic mechanisms of framing in persuasive communication. Activities of Gazeta Wyborcza are not unusual in this regard. Similarly, the ‘injustice frames’ are fairly ubiquitous across social movements advocating some economic or political changes. 14 But what needs to be stressed here is that in collected materials there is a broad consensus that the situation of workers in fashion industry is problematic. It is an essential agreement that the problem is real and important. Controversial issues, however, are circled around two questions: who is responsible for that crisis, and how it should be resolved.

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__________________________________________________________________ In the analysed discourse, mainly in comments, a ‘strategy of sepisation’ 15 is often used, and a dominant message is that ‘the whole ethical fashion is not my problem actually’ (first of all it is a problem of fashion business, big fashion retailers and their workers in Asia and Africa; secondly – it is a problem of Bangladesh). However, some comments indicate all consumers of fast fashion as guilty of the tragedy, and put them in the category of persecutors. What is interesting here, is the style of discussing this topic. It is more name-calling than an actual discussion. It is based on ‘pointing a finger’ on the others – on ‘you’ (‘leftists consumers,’ ‘greedy people,’ ‘consumers from the rich west’), on ‘they,’ but very rare on ‘me’ or ‘we.’ This debate has become even more emotional when Polish media reported that the largest Polish clothing retailer LPP had commissioned sewing their clothes in the collapsed factories. There are also controversies when it comes to discussing solutions. Proposals to solve the problem are defined mainly by journalist, activists and responsible consumers, who speak out on the newspaper, and who see themselves as ‘rescuers’ and ‘helpers.’ Any solution proposed by them was criticised by a group of commentators that I called ‘the sceptics.’ Public condemnations, angry comments form shoppers, boycotts and ‘I’m going to shop elsewhere now’ declarations are perceived in comments as hypocrisy, naivety or dilemmas of the more wealthy, who want to separate themselves from the ‘common people’ and thus show their superiority. The most common counterarguments for more ethical action is that it would cause additional costs and increase prices of products. This line of reasoning is sometimes strengthened by ‘counter-rhetoric of impotence’ in the form of the argument that many consumers, including Poles, cannot afford buying clothes produced at higher prices. Some comments suggest that ethical fashion is for the more affluent people who have no other concerns, or for snobs who want to be separated from the rest of society to boost their social status. Another controversy concerns the sources of information. The first issue raised in this case is the lack of information, the second, more frequently discussed, is the existence of misleading information. Some narratives state that the ethical fashion and CSR are nothing but marketing strategies used to justify the higher prices of pseudo-ethical products, and a way to improve a company’s image by making it more ecological to Poles, in general, are sceptical and wary of institutions, organisations, private companies and the publicity about producers. Therefore, they are more likely to build negative connotations associated with ethical fashion as a part of producers’ dishonest practices. At the end, a part of this criticism refers to what Sandy Black called ‘paradox of fashion.’ 16 Proponents of this approach suggest that the essence of fashion is that it constantly goes out of fashion replacing one product with another. Fashion is also a business that involves selling and buying. According to them, the speed of change in fashion is perhaps now too fast, causing many problems. Their

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__________________________________________________________________ considerations, however, lead to a conclusion that there is no way this process can ever be stopped. Given the above, it seems that the essence of the analysed discourse could be best described as the ‘dramatic triangle’ model developed by Stephen Karpman. 17 Based on the dramatic triangle model, three key roles can be identified here: ‘victims,’ ‘persecutors’ and ‘rescuers.’ And the role of the ‘rescuer’ is the least obvious role, since it is a position with many diverse motives. The surface motive is to help the victims and resolve the problem. Nevertheless the rescuers seem to take also selfish benefits from helping others such as feeling better or superior, enjoying having someone dependent on them etc. In the analysed discourse rescuers are often accused of having such hidden reasons. In addition, in the Karpman’s model actors rather play a social game (with the role switching) than seek a real solution to the given problem. The analysed debate remains a discursive ceremony in which social actors play their roles by declaring their willingness to reach an agreement, but their real actions do not lead to solving the problem, giving the impression that the issue of ethics in fashion is indeed a vicious circle. 4. Conclusion To conclude, the issue of ethics in fashion is understood differently when it is combined with the concept of nature and the environment, than when it is considered in relation to the frame of injustice and inequality. In the first case we are dealing with the creation of a positive image of the phenomenon, since the concept of nature is promoted as a positive force in life, evoking pleasant emotions and familiar feelings of recognition and trust. 18 In the second case, we observe rather a tendency to playing social games, scapegoating, buck passing and escaping from uncomfortable emotions which brings the knowledge of some of the mechanisms of the global fashion industry.

Notes 1

Magdalena Płonka, Etyka w Modzie, Czyli CRS w Przemyśle Odzieżowym (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo MSKPiU, 2013). 2 Maria Huma and Zuzanna Zajczenko, W Kierunku Odpowiedzialnej Mody. Podręcznik dla Projektantów i Marek Odzieżowych (Kraków: Polska Zielona Sieć, 2012), 10. 3 Study conducted on a representative sample of 1,000 Polish Internet users aged over 15 years, in July 2010, using CAWI Real Time Sampling method. 4 Forty percent of Internet users in Poland have heard about responsible consumption, 75% of respondents do not look for information about responsible consumption for themselves, 14% of respondents know clothing company which reported standards of labour rights and environmental protection throughout the

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__________________________________________________________________ production process, 60% of them don’t know such company, 20% of Polish internet users took part in an event promoting fair trade and the idea of conscious consumption. 5 Filipiak Agnieszka, ‘Nieczuły Polski Konsument. Akcja Przeciw H&M Zignorowana’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 27 December 2012, accessed 15 April 2013, http://goo.gl/cdfE3c. 6 Kitsuse John and Spector Malcolm, Constructing Social Problems (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1987). 7 Peter R. Ibarra and John I. Kitsuse, ‘Claims-Making Discourse and Vernacular Resources’, in Constructionist Challenges, eds. James A. Holstein and Gale Miller (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003), 17-50. 8 Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on Organization of Experience (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986). 9 Robert M. Entman, ‘Framing: Towards Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’, Journal of Communication 43 (1993): 51-58. 10 Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow, ‘Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment’, Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 611-639. 11 Marek Czyżewski, Kinga Dunin and Andrzej Piotrowski, Cudze Problemy. O Ważności Tego, Co Nie Ważne. Analiza Dyskursu Publicznego w Polsce (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Profesjonalne, 2010), 15-36. 12 Benford and Snow, ‘Framing Processes’, 615-616. 13 Stanisław Barańczak, ‘Słowo – Perswazja – Kultura Masowa’, Twórczość 7 (1975): 44-59. 14 Benford and Snow, ‘Framing Processes’, 615-616. 15 Sepisation is the practice of demarcation validity and invalidity of the issues in society. The term is derived from the English SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem) to describe the issue unsaid, the matter for which we do not have the language category, which we consider to be someone else’s problem. Czyżewski, Dunin and Piotrowski, Cudze Problemy, 15-36. 16 Sandy Black, Eco-Chic: The Fashion Paradox (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2008). 17 Stephen Karpman, ‘Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis’, Transactional Analysis Bulletin 7, No. 26 (1968): 39-43. 18 Koert van Mensvoort, ‘Five Strategies of Biomimicmarketing’, accessed 21 June 2013, http://goo.gl/xNQZa1.

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Bibliography Barańczak, Stanisław. ‘Słowo – Perswazja – Kultura Masowa’. Twórczość 7 (1975): 44–59. Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow, ‘Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment’. Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 611–639. Black, Sandy. Eco-Chic: The Fashion Paradox. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2008. Czyżewski, Marek, Kinga Dunin, and Andrzej Piotrowski, eds. Cudze Problemy. O Ważności Tego, Co Nie Ważne. Analiza Dyskursu Publicznego w Polsce. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Profesjonalne, 2010. Entman, Robert M. ‘Framing: Towards Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’. Journal of Communication 43(1993): 51–58. Filipiak, Agnieszka. ‘Nieczuły Polski Konsument. Akcja Przeciw H&M Zignorowana’. Gazeta Wyborcza, 27 December 2012. Accessed 15 April 2013. http://goo.gl/cdfE3c. Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis. An Essay on Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986. Huma, Maria, and Zuzanna Zajczenko. W Kierunku Odpowiedzialnej Mody. Podręcznik dla Projektantów i Marek Odzieżowych. Kraków: Polska Zielona Sieć, 2012. Ibarra Peter R., and John I. Kitsuse. ‘Claims-Making Discourse and Vernacular Resources’. In Constructionist Challenges, edited by James A. Holstein, and Gale Miller, 17–50. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003. Karpman, Stephen. ‘Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis’. Transactional Analysis Bulletin 7, No. 26 (1968): 39–43. Kitsuse, John I., and Malcolm Spector. Constructing Social Problems. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1987.

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__________________________________________________________________ Płonka, Magdalena. Etyka w Modzie, Czyli CRS w Przemyśle Odzieżowym. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo MSKPiU, 2013. Van Mensvoort, Koert. ‘Five Strategies of Biomimicmarketing’. Accessed 21 June 2013. http://goo.gl/xNQZa1. Alicja Raciniewska is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. She specialises in sociology of fashion, trend forecasting, and methods of social research. Her research interests include contemporary fashion investigated from material and visual culture perspective, fashion in Poland and social innovations.

Fashion System Shanghai: The Advent of a New Gatekeeper Tim Lindgren Abstract The term fashion system describes inter-relationships between production and consumption illustrating how the production of fashion is a collective activity. For instance, Yuniya Kawamura 1 notes that systems for the production of fashion differ around the globe and are subject to constant change, and Jennifer Craik 2 draws attention to the ‘array of competing and intermeshing systems cutting across western and non-western cultures.’ In China, Shanghai’s nascent fashion system seeks to emulate the Eurocentric system of Fashion Weeks and industry support groups. It promises emergent designers a platform for global competition, yet there are tensions from within. Interaction with a fashion system inevitably means becoming validated or legitimised. Legitimisation in turn depends upon gatekeepers who make aesthetic judgments about the status, quality and cultural value of a designer’s work. 3 Notwithstanding the proliferation of fashion media, in Shanghai a new gatekeeper has arrived, seeking to filter authenticity from artifice, offering truth in a fashion market saturated with fakery and the hollowness of foreign consumptive practice, and providing a place of sanctuary for Chinese fashion design. Thus this chapter discusses how new agencies are allowing designers in Shanghai greater control over their brand image while creating novel opportunities for promotion and sales. It explores why designers choose this new model and provides new knowledge of the curation of fashion by these gatekeepers. Key Words: Fashion system, legitimacy, gatekeeper, agency, China, Shanghai. ***** In 1978, When China opened for trade with the West, after then-president Deng Xiaoping granted Chinese entrepreneurs new permissions, foreign fashion companies were attracted to valuable economies of scale and competitive costs of garment production, resulting in China becoming the garment manufacturer to the world. 4 Since then, the Chinese government has become increasingly aware of the importance of moving beyond this role, particularly as it has re-focussed on its domestic economy. In this context, my chapter focuses upon how Shanghai’s nascent fashion system might be contextualised in a simple model that separates the clothing industry, Shanghai’s fashion system and the hegemonic Eurocentric fashion system in order to understand better the activities of fashion designers, and the gatekeepers of its system. In particular, this chapter discusses how new commercial agencies, operating as gatekeepers, have appeared to fill a gap in the volatile but vibrant marketplace.

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Image 1: Fashion System Model. © 2013. Image courtesy of Tim Lindgren. As Michael Keane 5 explains, made in China is to be supplemented with created in China, yet it is the manner in which this is to occur that is important. Typically this process has been constrained by two key forces that have shaped the perception of Chinese development. Chinese culture, and Chinese politics have long held an almost insurmountable presence over many aspects of daily life, including cultural expression, however this is changing, in part because of exchanges of aesthetic information due to globalisation, but also because of China’s global ascendency as an economically powerful nation. Chinese fashion designers are increasingly capable, confident of their skills, and comfortable with their nationality. Moreover, their global forays and their domestic successes, while relatively unappreciated by a global fashion culture concerned with the consumption of Western products, and the subordination of the Chinese consumer, have been translated into examples of international success by the Chinese domestic media. In this chapter I speculate that the momentum of Chinese fashion is now at a tipping point. I note that at a policy level, the Chinese government’s most recent, 12th Five Year Plan, implemented in 2011, clearly articulates a renewed focus on the domestic economy, moving China’s economic momentum from an export-led income to domestic-led consumption. Furthermore, the plan stresses less reliance on foreign technology, and the greater importance of domestic innovation. Point eight, of the ten-point plan, specifically encourages cultural production in order to increase China’s ‘soft power.’ 6 Importantly, in March 2013, China’s First Lady, Peng Liyuan, accompanied her husband Xi Jinping, China’s newly elected President, on their first state excursion when they visited Russia. Instead of wearing a luxury European fashion brand traditionally favoured by heads of state, Peng Liyuan specifically wore clothing attributed to the mid-priced Chinese fashion label called Exception. Her deliberate choice of a non-luxury Chinese

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__________________________________________________________________ fashion brand caused immediate and rampant speculation in the Chinese and international press about her reasons for doing so. 7 For many in the Chinese cultural sector, Peng Liyuan’s choice was seen as politically driven, in a new governmental era, where corruption among officials, most evident in the conspicuous consumption of foreign luxury fashion brands, has been reframed as a noxious practice in the new president’s term of office. In fact, President Xi Jinping has made fighting corruption a top priority, urging the ruling Communist Party to ‘oppose hedonism and flamboyant lifestyles.’ 8 Peng Liyuan’s message is also powerful, and alludes to an increasing acceptance by elite officials of Chinese consumer brands, yet this action might also be interpreted as an oblique directive by the wife of China’s most powerful official, from deep within the political hierarchy. At the China Foreign Affairs University, Wang Fan, head of the Institute of International Relations held, ‘In her role as first lady on this visit abroad, Peng Liyuan is exhibiting China’s soft power.’ 9 Furthermore, Zhang Yu, the editor of Vogue China said, It’s the first time that China’s first lady appears [sic] like a modern woman…after so many years , we finally have a first lady who can represent us so appropriately. I think it is a landmark event. 10 Yet while such an incident is newsworthy, the attention given to Peng Liyuan serves best to illustrate the great expectations, and aspirations of the Chinese creative sector. It is from this creative setting in Shanghai that the agencies of the Hive, Dongliang, and the China Fashion Collective have appeared serving to support under-resourced fashion designers. These agencies also curate Chinese fashion design for an increasingly interested foreign media, and for a domestic consumer who, with gathering momentum, is turning away from foreign brands, for well-made designer fashion from emerging and established designers. In Beijing, the fashion critic, and prominent social commentator, Hung Huang has operated her retail store B.N.C (Brand New China) for several years alongside her fashion magazine iLook, and she provides a similar service, choosing from the collections of Chinese designers, and selling them to a carefully cultivated client base. Hung Huang’s curation is reliably informed because she was previously married to the famous Chinese film director, Chen Kaige, and was thus exposed to a cultural industry where political control, and the security of cultural form are paramount. Hung notes that China is an authoritarian state where ‘the power base does not support anyone and everyone supports the power base.’ 11 Furthermore, Hung Huang believes that if Peng Liyuan decides to support Chinese fashion, it is most likely she will create her own programme through an official Chinese agency, an entity such as the China National Garment Association.

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__________________________________________________________________ However I am mainly concerned with Shanghai, and independent designers. This chapter highlights the appearance of a new business model that represents these kinds of designers. The agency model facilitates the dialogue between the designer, the consumer and the media. Over the course of my field research in China, these kinds of entities have emerged as fresh participants in the middle ground where they attempt to bridge the gap between fashion designers, create opportunities for brand promotion and inform consumers about Chinese designers. In Shanghai, the model is particularly evident around the streets of Xinle Lu and Changle Lu in the French Concession in Puxi where these curated retail locations provide rack space for designers to display their clothing collections. A notable aspect of these new entities is that they represent only Chinese designers. In the Eurocentric fashion system, concept stores often hold a curated collection of global designer labels that represent a particular aesthetic, or other point of difference. In the following section, I will discuss three such entities beginning with an online model. The China Fashion Collective 12 is notable as an online operation centred mainly on the designers who show at Shanghai Fashion Week. Its owner, Timothy Parent claims to represent more than twenty percent of China’s top fashion designers, although some designers have cited a lack of other avenues as their reason for involvement. According to Parent, 13 the China Fashion Collective ‘represents a curated group of Chinese fashion designers who have a unique sense for aesthetics in fashion partially derived from a unique culture, history and philosophy.’ Parent asserts their work reinterprets and reflects upon this heritage in a ‘non-literal and non-superficial way,’ and that their products have been previously unavailable to a global audience. Parent views his agency as a middleman, sited between numerous other fashion gatekeepers, including stores, buyers, the media and cultural institutions that might wish to interact with Chinese fashion designers. In addition, Parent offers an associated and ongoing blog-like commentary of Chinese fashion based upon his personal views. However the China Fashion Collective only operates as an online agency, and is of more use as a source of industry information. In the French Concession in Fumin Road, a different kind of activity takes place. The Hive is a concept store operated by Gary Yip, its Singaporean owner, who explains his aim is to provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ for affordable local labels: ‘There are these great Shanghai-based designers, but they’re scattered across town or only sell stuff online. What I wanted to do was bring them under one roof.’ 14 At the Hive, an eclectic selection of clothing is on offer from five independent Chinese designer brands, including hipster menswear makers, ‘three Society,’ and rock chic brand, ‘What Where Who.’ The Hive also represents accessory designers including JL, who draw upon traditional Chinese elements, and the stylish leather bag brand D.D.O as well as Xiaozhi by George.

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__________________________________________________________________ Also in Fumin Road is Dong Liang Studio, which was founded by Wang Yaoyu and Nan Lang in 2009. With stores located in Beijing and Shanghai, their concept is to sell high quality, limited edition, exclusively Chinese fashion, whilst simultaneously promoting a small collective of handpicked local designers. According to Stacey Meng, 15 ‘the store’s simple, stylish white walls, hardwood furniture and quirky installation art resemble Dover Street Market, a well-known London boutique.’ The owners explain that most young designers in Shanghai find it difficult to promote themselves due to a lack of knowledge and resources. However as the market for fashion in Shanghai becomes more sophisticated, demand for high quality Chinese made fashion is increasing. Accordingly more designers are leaving their jobs in large companies to establish their own design studios and brands. Dong Liang Studio acts as a platform for Chinese designers to promote their brand and expose their work to a larger audience. The agency takes control of marketing and promoting new brands leaving designers to focus solely on design. Yet one of the most challenging and early aspects for Dong Liang was convincing designers to join the agency. The difference between these traditional stores and the China Fashion Collective is the immediate access they offer to designer clothing. For instance, at Dong Liang, trading hours commence at midday and continue until late, depending upon social events. During several conversations with the manager, it was explained that local celebrities sometimes arrive at the store on their way to an evening event to choose a garment to wear. Stock levels are limited and designers, if given enough notice, will make up special garments if the client is important. As well their products have drawn the attention of Chinese celebrities. For instance, Zhou Xun, a mainland actress and Valen Hsu, a pop singer from Taiwan, are among Dong Liang’s frequent customers. This kind of local engagement is not restricted to press opportunities. Dong Liang also manages other kinds of activities that focus on collaborative ventures with established retailers and brands. In this way, Dong Liang exposes the Chinese brands they represent to new groups of consumers. For instance, a recent function with Olive Shoppe, a retailer of international fashion brands allowed consumers to blend Chinese design with their purchases of global brands, providing a means to blend culture and lifestyle. A more commercial approach was demonstrated in an exhibition with the French brand Nina Ricci. In this manner, Dong Liang and the Hive attempt to solve the tensions inherent in the path of local to global by providing support for Chinese designers in an international city that is overwhelmed for choice, and where the focus for Chinese fashion consumers has mostly been directed toward foreign, or imported brands. Like many global cities, China’s fashion environment is comprised of mass-market brands inside numerous malls, fast fashion brands, and luxury fashion brands that reflect the power and influence of the hegemonic Eurocentric fashion system. Buying behaviours show consumers tend to purchase general fashion at retailers

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__________________________________________________________________ like H&M or Zara, and may occasionally buy a handbag or shoes from an imported luxury brand as a reward. However, the owners of Dong Liang believe that consumption preferences are slowly changing, and that Shanghai’s designer boutiques and multi-brand boutiques will fill this niche. Yet this is a challenging undertaking. Stores like the Hive and Dong Liang must tailor their offering to the demands of the public, which means clothing collections must turn over rapidly. Dong Liang’s Beijing and Shanghai stores represent approximately 20 designers, which is a viable number; however designers are assessed regularly in accordance with their consistency or design development. They are also always on the lookout for new designers, tending to decide which designers they are interested in about six months before they include the designer in the offering. The owners of Dong Liang also keep a close eye on Chinese designers who are graduating from international design schools. For instance, May Jiang, a Shanghainese fashion designer who recently graduated from Central St Martins in London, spoke of her desire for this kind of representation, I’ve seen them in Korea. Those agencies recommend fashion designers to top-notch international fashion weeks. All they charge is a cut on the profit the fashion week brings in to you. 16 Wang Yaoyu is also looking at the bigger picture. Dong Liang wants to collaborate with designer stores in Western countries to introduce Chinese brands to the world, and his aim is to provide a more complete Chinese representation on the global stage, and more influence over mainstream fashion trends. In conclusion, my chapter has shed some light on several new gatekeepers, who are navigating the margins of the clothing industry, and Shanghai’s fashion system with its focus on Shanghai Fashion Week, in order to challenge the hegemony of the Eurocentric fashion system. In their quest to shape the products of Chinese fashion designers, they support their clients by acting as mediators between diverse fashion systems, shaping the aesthetic of the designers and in turn legitimising them in ways that Shanghai’s fashion system may not be capable of. Some of these gatekeepers are powerful and respected, such as Hung Huang whose constructive criticism from Beijing reaches many ears, however the roles of the China Fashion Collective as a mediator between industry and media, and the representation of the Hive and Dong Liang are equally important for the development of Chinese fashion designers.

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Notes 1

Yuniya Kawamura, Doing Research in Fashion and Dress (New York: Berg, 2011). 2 Jennifer Craik, The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion (London: Routledge, 1994), 6. 3 Howard Becker, Art Worlds (London: University of California Press, 2008). 4 Kevin Zhang, ‘China as the World Factory’, in China as the World Factory (London: Routledge, 2006), 27-56. 5 Michael Keane, Created in China: The Great New Leap Forward: Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia (London: Routledge, 2007). 6 Dan Harris, ‘China’s 12th Five Year Plan: A Preliminary Look’, China Law Blog, 3 March 2013, accessed 7 March 2013, http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/03/chinas_12th_five_year_plan_a_preliminary _look.html. 7 Hung Huang, ‘ChinaFile: Everyone Wants China’s First Lady’, WWD, 13 April 2013, accessed 13 April 2013, http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/fashionfeatures/everyone-wants-chinas-first-lady-6879530?full=true. 8 Hong Li, ‘Luxury Car Drivers Banned from Using Military Plates’, Shanghai Daily, 30 April 2013, accessed 4 May 2013, http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/National/2013/04/30/Luxury%2Bcar%2Bdriver s%2Bbanned%2Bfrom%2Busing%2Bmilitary%2Bplates/. 9 Malcolm Moore, ‘Peng Liyuan: The “Kate Middleton” Effect of China’s New First Lady’, The Telegraph, 25 April 2013, accessed 25 April 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9951016/Peng-Liyuan-theKate-Middleton-effect-of-Chinas-new-first-lady.html. 10 Belinda White, ‘Peng Liyuan: The New First Lady of Fashion’, 20 April 2013, accessed 23 April 2013, http://www.fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG9952668/Peng-Liyuan-the-new-fir st-lady-of-fashion.html. 11 Huang, ‘ChinaFile: Everyone Wants China’s First Lady’. 12 Timothy Parent, ‘The China Fashion Collective’, China Fashion Collective, 8 August 2012, http://chinafashioncollective.com. 13 Timothy Parent, ‘Fashion Week Part II: Jenny Ji, Helen Lee, and Decoster Concept Rehearsal’, 26 October 2011, accessed 3 November 2011, http://www.chinesepeoplehavenostyle.com/2011/10/26/fashion-week-part-ii-jennyji-helen-lee-and-decoster-concept-rehearsal/. 14 Selena Schleh, ‘The Hive’, Time Out Magazine, 8 September 2012, accessed 20 October 2013, http://www.timeout.com/Shanghai/the hive. 15 Stacey Meng, ‘Local Fashion Done Right at Dong Liang’, City Weekend (blog), 4 August 2012, accessed 5 August 2012,

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__________________________________________________________________ http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/articles/blogs-shanghai/style/local-fashi on-done-right-at-dong-liang. 16 Tracy You, ‘Sketchy Future: “The Difficulties Faced by Young Shanghai Fashion Designers”’, CNNGO, 15 July 2011, accessed 10 August 2012, http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/shop/bumpy-road-ahead-shanghai-designers-3610 30.

Bibliography Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. Berkely: University of California Press, 2008. Craik, Jennifer. The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion. London: Routledge, 1994. Harris, Dan. ‘China’s 12th Five Year Plan: A Preliminary Look’. China Law Blog. 2011. Accessed 3 March 2013. http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/03/chinas_12th_five_year_plan_a_preliminary _look.html. Hung, Huang. ‘ChinaFile: Everyone Wants China’s First Lady’. WWD, 13 April 2013. Accessed 13 April 2013. http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/fashionfeatures/everyone-wants-chinas-first-lady-6879530?full=true. Li, Hong. ‘Luxury Car Drivers Banned from Using Military Plates’. Shanghai Daily. 30 April 2013. Accessed 4 May 2013. http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/National/2013/04/30/Luxury%2Bcar%2Bdriver s%2Bbanned%2Bfrom%2Busing%2Bmilitary%2Bplates/. Kawamura, Yuniya. Doing Research in Fashion and Dress. New York: Berg, 2011. Keane, Michael. Created in China: The Great New Leap Forward: Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia. London: Routledge, 2007. Meng, Stacey. ‘Local Fashion Done Right at Dong Liang’. CNNGO, 2012. Accessed 6 August 2012. http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/articles/blogsshanghai/style/local-fashion-done-right-at-dong-liang.

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__________________________________________________________________ Moore, Malcolm. ‘Peng Liyuan: The “Kate Middleton” Effect of China’s New First Lady’. The Telegraph. Accessed 25 April 2013. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9951016/Peng-Liyuan-theKate-Middleton-effect-of-Chinas-new-first-lady.html. Parent, Timothy. ‘The China Fashion Collective’. China Fashion Collective. Accessed 8 August 2012. http://chinafashioncollective.com. —––. ‘Chinese Fashion Designers’. Accessed 10 August 2012. http://chinesepeoplehavenostyle.com/news/chinese-fashion-designers/. Schleh, Selena. ‘The Hive’. Timeout Magazine, 10 September 2012. White, Belinda. ‘Peng Liyuan: The New First Lady of Fashion’. The Telegraph Accessed 21 April 2013. http://www.fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG9952668/Peng-Liyuan-the-new-fir st-lady-of-fashion.html. Zhang, Kevin H. ‘China as the World Factory’. In China as the World Factory, edited by K. H. Zhang. London: Routledge, 2006. Zoo, Stephanie. ‘To Go Global, Chinese Design Needs a “Revolution” at Home’. Jing Daily. 2013. Accessed 12 April 2013. http://www.jingdaily.com/chinese-fashion-leads-design-revolution/25265/. Tim Lindgren is a fashion designer, as well as lecturing in the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology. Tim’s research areas include following the economic flows of the global fashion industry, entrepreneurship in developing economies, and the aesthetics of creativity.

Dress, Comfort and Vulnerability: The Intimate Hijab and Religious Habitus Anna-Mari Almila Abstract Dress has often been called ‘second skin’ – but what does that mean? Certainly dress is intimate, but how does that physical and emotional intimacy actually develop? In this chapter, based on extensive fieldwork with hijab-wearing Muslim women in Finland, I explore the material-embodied, social and emotional processes related to dress and dressing. The interplay between dress and body works simultaneously in two directions: when body becomes dressed, dress becomes embodied. In this process, material comes to matter in three ways: first, how it touches the skin and provokes sensory comfort or discomfort. Second, materials underpin the shape and look of dress and so influence how the dressed body appears. Third, movement of material in relation to body either covers or exposes the body. These factors contribute to feelings of comfort/discomfort and protection/vulnerability experienced by the wearer of the clothes. By such means, dress becomes embodied, which contributes to the internalisation of religious habitus in the case of ‘Islamic’ veiling. Moreover, as hijab becomes embodied, Islam becomes represented. The hijab in ‘the West’ is a controversial dress, both defended and criticised passionately. The debates reflect back to the hijab-wearing Muslim women through the forms of harassment they face. In order to feel protected against such harassment the women develop dress strategies that aim to reduce their vulnerability. Thus the reactions to the hijab pose a threat against which hijab as dress can be used: ultimately this chapter argues that hijab is both exposing the women and protecting them. Key Words: Embodiment, material, habitus, Muslim women, Finland. ***** 1. Background When women of the early Muslim community were told to ‘draw their headcoverings over their bosoms,’ 1 the sentence meant certain things socio-culturally as well as materially. Dress in many pre-Islamic cultures was restricted according to social class, and female dress also often signified a woman’s sexual availability or unavailability. 2 The ‘Islamic revival’ since the 1970s has brought women and their dress in the centre of debates. 3 Interpretations of female dress are various and made both by Islamic scholars as well as practicing Muslims. The Qur’an has very little to say about women’s dress, and the same is true of hadiths – oral tradition of the Prophet – that have paid more attention to male than female dress. 4 According

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__________________________________________________________________ to Akou it is this lack of specific guidance that partly causes female dress to be debated so heatedly among Muslims themselves. 5 Not only have women and female dress become central for Islamic revival, but also ‘Islamic’ dress has become commercialised. 6 The hijab has become a fashion phenomenon, and is also produced in a different manner from ‘traditional’ female garments in many Muslim countries. An ever increasing variety of dress possibilities is available to Muslim women due to global commercial garment markets and transportations. The new interpretations of hijab are partly doctrinal, but they are also partly due to new textile materials that make new dress styles possible. Common textile fibres in the 7th century Arabian Peninsula were wool, camel- and goat-hair, silk and linen. 7 Some of the woven linens were extremely fine 8 and may even have been translucent, but they certainly were not very flexible. 9 Some of today’s hijab styles that have developed especially in Europe during the two recent decades are based on flexible machine-knitted textiles and fabrics woven of flexible fibres and would have been unimaginable in the times of Mohammed. To put it simply: today it is possible to cover one’s skin completely and yet fully reveal the shape of the body – and I have occasionally observed such hijab styles in Helsinki where the fieldwork for this chapter was located. This chapter is based on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Helsinki, Finland in 2011–2012. Twenty Finnish converts to Islam and sixteen Somali Muslim women were interviewed in semi-structured interviews about their dress strategies and practices. The women were 18–62 years old, and from a variety of educational backgrounds from primary education to higher university degrees. 10 They worked in a variety of positions from lower service sector, nursing and teaching to desk-jobs and managerial positions. Therefore, they were of lower and middle class backgrounds. I also conducted participant observation as part of my fieldwork. This chapter draws on both the interviews and the observation. 2. Comfort and Discomfort The fabric and cut of the garments worn are related to how the body is managed and what kinds of movements are possible and desirable. Typically, my respondents discussed dress and materials through ‘comfort,’ and how something ‘feels’ like. Both terms can equally well refer to physical, mental, and social experiences: sensory experiences, emotional experiences of security and vulnerability, and experiences of social security or vulnerability. A. Physical Comfort and Cultural History Physical comfort and discomfort with regard to dress can be related to climate that in Finland causes specific problems. The extreme temperature difference between summer and winter is solved primarily through choices of material and cut, as well as layer-dressing. There are further problems related to physical comfort: some women have problems with scarves pressing their ears

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__________________________________________________________________ uncomfortably or causing headache. As a form of solution one may choose to wear soft, seamless, flexible, tube-shaped jersey scarves, or alternatively bind the scarf above the ears rather than over the ears. Avoiding pins and using light fabrics help to prevent headaches, but pin-avoidance may also serve the purposes of protecting small children who may cling to the mother’s scarf, and protecting the fabric against ripping. The women viewed comfort of a fabric in different ways. A Somali woman in her twenties liked ‘light’ fabrics: [The material] should be comfortable. I don’t wear very thick [fabrics]. It must be light [and] of good quality, but it shouldn’t be so heavy that it presses [my] head, [or] that I don’t hear anything. 11 She prefers light but covering fabrics and thus chooses tightly woven, thin synthetic fibres. A thin material is more likely to be covering if it is of a dark colour and if the garment in question is very loose and thus the likelihood of it touching the body and revealing the shape of it is reduced. Hence, the liking for synthetic fabrics is partly explained by the cut of the garments, but there is also a material cultural history behind it. Since the 1950s it has been increasingly common that clothes in the Arabian Peninsula have been made of imported synthetic fibres. 12 Thereafter these garments arrived in Somalia with the Arabian settlers, and have become increasingly popular among the locals since the 1970s. 13 On the other hand, a Finnish woman in her late forties considered synthetic fibres intolerably hot: In the summer if it’s horribly hot, the material [should be] such that one doesn’t sweat. Cotton or linen would be nice to wear. But then again, [as] I’m horribly lazy with clothing care [and] I never iron unless I have to, they’re tricky materials. And yet, artificial fibre is not nice in the summer. 14 These two examples illustrate how comfort has subjective, culturally mediated meanings: while for the Somali woman synthetic fibres are light and comfortable, the Finnish woman finds them uncomfortable especially in the summer. The Finns were altogether more likely to praise cotton and linen than were the Somalis – perhaps reflecting national garment preferences, historically strongly built on cotton and other natural fibres. 15 B. Characteristics of Material Besides providing comfort or discomfort, material limits the potential cuts of the dress and either follows the body shapes or hides them. Character of the

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__________________________________________________________________ material defines how the dress appears on the body. A Finnish woman in her early twenties explained: I favour linen, it’s lovely. At least in the summer it’s lovely and cool. And in my opinion it looks really nice. And often linen clothes are, they aren’t tightly fitting, it’s easy to find good clothes [made of] linen. 16 For her, linen, besides being cool and comfortable, is also preferable because linen clothes are looser than clothes made of many other materials and thus hide the body’s shape. Linen clothes are often of relatively loose cut as the fibre is inflexible and the fabric wrinkles easily. Linen is also a relatively robust material that hides the body shapes well. Yet also the weaving or knitting technique defines some qualities of the fabric. When asked what kind of materials she prefers, a Finnish woman in her fifties answered: Breathable, Robust. I don’t like [materials] that wrinkle, I prefer buying less and better, and not [such that] when you wash it once it’s shabby. I don’t like tee-shirt fabrics, I like to wear this kind of [woven fabrics]. 17 Her choice of material was guided by thickness and structure of the fabric, as a woven, robust fabric hides the shapes of the body even if the figure remains relatively slim. Knits tend to be more fluid than woven materials and thus follow the body shapes rather than hide them. However, also the thickness of the material and the fit of the cut define how the dress and the dressed body appear. Light material of loose cut may cover the shapes of the body equally well as a slimmer cut of robust material. C. Movement of Material and the Body Movement of air may expose the body in ways the women find undesirable and uncomfortable. Also movement and position of the body – walking, bending and sitting – influence the perceived coverage of the dress. As comfortable as movement of air may be in the summer, it can also be treacherous: If [the skirt] rises, it feels – when one’s not used with walking with bare legs – it feels wild that the skirt might rise accidentally. … Abaya-style dressing is easy… though also with that there have been situations where the wind has made it stick to the skin. 18

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__________________________________________________________________ This Finnish woman in her forties describes two kinds of exposures wind may cause: lifting hems may reveal skin, and pressing the fabric against the body may reveal the shape of the body. She finds both undesirable. Also movement of the body when walking may cause undesired exposure of the body. A Somali woman in her mid-twenties who wears a full body veil is particularly mindful of the length of her hems: I wear long [dresses], preferably longer than I am so that when I walk or move, my socks don’t show. So that it doesn’t look too short. 19 Thus, though the dress may look long enough when one stands still, walking makes the hems move and may give the wearer the feeling that too much of the body is visible. For those who wear trousers, the length of the top or shirt often causes worry: [Too short is] one that’s down here [just below the buttocks]. When you bend over just a little your bum shows. Or, if one wears tighter trousers it shows… A [long] coat, I’d love it because it’s so easy, and there are very nice ones. One wouldn’t have to worry if one bends over here and there or if one lifts leg or arm that something would show. Sometimes when I wear a [too short] top, I have to pull it down all the time. 20 This Finnish woman in her late forties is concerned with how her dress appears when she moves. The reason she feels she cannot wear long coats or ‘robes’ that she personally would prefer is her work. She stated that given her customer contacts, she can ‘just’ wear the scarf but anything more would be considered ‘too much’ by her employer and the customers. She pays for the compromise through the discomfort she sometimes feels due to ‘shortness’ of her tops and jackets. As these examples demonstrate, physical comfort and discomfort are linked to social and mental comfort and discomfort. Comfort is influenced by appearance and the gaze of others in social situations. All these physical and social factors contribute to feelings of comfort, discomfort, security and vulnerability experienced by Muslim women engaged in covering practices. Given that such experiences are crucial for the internalisation of religious habitus, 21 material has direct consequences for the development of ‘Islamic’ habitus. The process of internalising structure of female Islamic dress requires the personal faith and spiritual motivation that makes the women engage in veiling practices, and the internalisation is embodied in the sense that the women come to connect comfort to a sufficient coverage of their body. Undesired or unexpected exposure of the body causes feelings of discomfort as it would to any individual.

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__________________________________________________________________ However, the Muslim women face also other kinds of vulnerability due to their dress, that is, due to visibility and recognisability of the hijab. 3. Visibility, Vulnerability and Protection The hijab makes the Muslim women visible as Muslims in the public sphere. 22 The visibility and recognisability of Muslim women often leads to increased consciousness of one’s representative role both within the community and in respect to non-Muslims. Tarlo has argued that dress in public spaces is visible in an unavoidable manner and thus the hijab makes difference visible in a manner that provokes reactions in the observers. 23 Göle claims the unease that ‘Islamic visibility’ provokes is due to it being at the same time corporeal, ocular, and spatial. 24 In practice, the headscarf debates reflect back to the hijab-wearing Muslim women through the forms of harassment they face. The women’s reactions to the harassment vary. A Finnish convert, who veiled at the age of 35, over ten years previously, framed the change as liberating: When I started to dress according to Islam by putting on the scarf, my self-esteem rose radically and I felt I’m really sure of myself. Because it meant to me that I’ll be stared at and I might be shouted at, and somehow I felt that it doesn’t matter what I do and who I am as I’ll anyway be a target. 25 This woman claimed that she does not pay much attention to the style of her clothes, since she considers clothes insignificant as anything else than a marker of her religion. Her consciousness of her minority position and the significance of making it visible made her presume that she would be a target of criticism no matter how she dresses. She also interpreted this as external to her personality and behaviour and therefore felt capable of ignoring it. She felt that the shield of her religious conviction was strong enough to protect her against hostility provoked by her visibility. Yet, her chosen dress style is what would contemporarily be considered ‘Western:’ trousers, tunics, long tops, shirts and jackets. Also her scarf is relatively small, and she prefers quiet colours. Since she also explained that she would prefer to wear abayas, 26 but considers them too provocative for many Finns, she in fact practices a strategy of reducing visibility in her dress choices. In order to feel protected against harassment, some women develop dress strategies that aim to reduce their vulnerability. In order to be less conspicuous, the women may choose colours and styles that fit the surrounding visual culture, like a Finnish woman in her twenties: It depends a lot on how you dress. If you’re wearing a black abaya in the summer and a black scarf too, people stare at you quite a lot. But if you dress in a more Western manner but wear a

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__________________________________________________________________ scarf ... there’s less negative feedback. Perhaps it’s because of that that I feel safer when I wear ordinary clothes than when I have the black abaya. 27 This woman was not the only one who felt potentially threatened because of her dress, and tried to control others’ reactions through less conspicuous dress styles. For her, inconspicuousness was framed in terms of colours (avoiding black), particular style (‘Western’) and the season (black is more visible in the summer when most Finns favour light colours). On the other hand, some choose extreme visibility, such as the full-body and face-veil. In Finland, the niqab 28 is viewed with extreme suspicion, and its wearers are regularly verbally harassed. Therefore wearing the face-veil becomes a source of extreme public discomfort and thus a sacrifice for one’s faith. Such discomfort may lead to the face-veiling women restricting their mobility, as explained by a niqab-wearing Somali woman in her mid-twenties: If someone berates, of course it’s difficult to be quiet. One day you’ll explode if you can’t retort, especially if you speak the language. But I’ve tried to avoid – for example if I go out in the morning, I prefer to take care of things during the day, preferably not in the afternoon. 29 While this woman has found some of the consequences of her face-veiling good for the purposes of her personal self-improvement, she nevertheless restricts her personal spatial mobility temporally in order to avoid confrontation. Since she is on maternity leave she is under conditions to do so, while those who participate in labour outside home cannot fully control when they must go out, and whom they are to meet. They are more likely to adapt their dress according to the surrounding society, in order to mingle more freely with the non-Muslim Finns. Aiming to reduce conspicuousness, or underlining it for religious reasons are both strategies of managing visibility in public places. They aim to increase security and reduce vulnerability in the women’s encounters with non-Muslim Finns. 4. Conclusion When internalising a religious practice, the hijab-wearing Muslim women also internalise ‘Islamic’ dress norms and religious motivations behind them. Thus, Islam becomes physically part of them through their everyday dress practice that is the most visible demonstration of their faith. Although such visibility exposes them to potential hostility from the part of the wider society, the hijab can also be used as a protective tool against such hostility. Thus, dress becomes a continuous negotiation of physical, mental, social and religious comfort and discomfort that

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__________________________________________________________________ for many Muslim women is a part of their religious struggle of filling the requirements of their faith.

Notes 1

Qur’an, 24:31. Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (London: Yale University Press, 1992). 3 Fatwa El Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance (Oxford: Berg, 1999), 129. 4 Ibid., 135. 5 Heather M. Akou, ‘Interpreting Islam through the Internet: Making Sense of Hijab’, Contemporary Islam 4 (2010): 332. 6 Banu Gökarıksel and Ellen McLarneym, ‘Introduction: Muslim Women, Consumer Capitalism, and Islamic Culture Industry’, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6 (2010). 7 Patricia L. Baker, Islamic Textiles (London: British Museum, 1995), 20. 8 Agnes Geijer, A History of Textile Art: A Selective Account (London: Philip Wilson, 1982), 13. 9 Flexibility of a textile fabric is defined by the fibre(s) used in the threads and the structure of the fabric. The structure of woven fabrics, unless cut diagonally, is inflexible because the threads are straight. A knitted fabric is formed of thread loops and thus the structure is flexible. 10 I am on purpose not explicit of each woman’s demographic details. This is in order to protect their privacy within their small and tightly-knit community. 11 Somali woman, 26-30 years, interviewed by author, 29th September 2011. 12 Christina Lindholm, ‘Snapshot: The Abayeh in Qatar’, in Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia, ed. Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood (Oxford: Berg, 2010). 13 Heather M. Akou, ‘Somalia’, in Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Volume 1: Africa, eds. Joanne B. Eicher and Doran H. Ross (Oxford: Berg. 2010). 14 Finnish woman, 46-50 years, interviewed by author, 15 November 2011. 15 Bo Lönnqvist, ‘Finland’, in Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Volume 8: West Europe, ed. Lise Skov (Oxford: Berg, 2010). 16 Finnish woman, 21-25 years, interviewed by author, 23 November 2011. 17 Finnish woman, 51-55 years, interviewed by author, 17 November 2011. 18 Finnsih woman, 46-50 years, interviewed by author, 24 January 2012. 19 Somali woman, 26-30 years, interviewed by author, 2 October 2011. 20 Finnish woman, 46-50 years, interviewed by author, 3 December 2011. 2

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I follow Bourdieu’s definition of habitus: personal history that becomes naturalised and forgotten as it is internalised. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 78. 22 Emma Tarlo, ‘Hijab in London: Metamorphosis, Resonance and Effects’, Journal of Material Culture 12 (2007): 132. 23 Tarlo, ‘Hijab in London’. 24 Nilufer Göle, ‘Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries’, Public Culture 14 (2002). 25 Finnish woman, 46-50 years, interviewed by author, 6 January 2012. 26 An abaya is an Arabic long, typically black, robe-like dress that covers the body from the neck down to the ankles and wrists. 27 Finnish woman, 26-30 years, interviewed by author, 26 January2012. 28 A niqab is an Arabic face-veil that usually leaves the eyes visible while covering the lower part of the face. 29 Somali woman, 26-30 years, interviewed by author, 3 November 2011.

Bibliography Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. London: Yale University Press, 1992. Akou, Heather M. ‘Interpreting Islam through the Internet: Making Sense of Hijab’. Contemporary Islam 4 (2010): 331–346. Akou, Heather M. ‘Somalia’. In Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Volume 1: Africa, edited by Joanne B. Eicher, and Doran H. Ross, 413–420. Oxford: Berg, 2010. Baker, Patricia L. Islamic Textiles. London: British Museum, 1995. Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. El Guindi Fatwa. Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Geijer, Agnes. A History of Textile Art: A Selective Account. London: Philip Wilson, 1982.

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__________________________________________________________________ Gökarıksel, Banu, and Ellen McLarneym. ‘Introduction: Muslim Women, Consumer Capitalism, and Islamic Culture Industry’. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6 (2010): 1–18. Göle, Nilufer. ‘Islam in Public: New Visibilities and New Imaginaries’. Public Culture 14 (2002): 173–190. Lindholm, Christina. ‘Snapshot: The Abayeh in Qatar’. In Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia, edited by Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, 252–254. Oxford: Berg, 2010. Lönnqvist, Bo. ’Finland’. In Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Volume 8: West Europe, edited by Lise Skov, 350–355. Oxford: Berg, 2010. Tarlo, Emma. ‘Hijab in London: Metamorphosis, Resonance and Effects’. Journal of Material Culture 12 (2007): 131–156. Anna-Mari Almila is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Sociology of Fashion in the London College of Fashion. Her research interests are materiality of dress and fashion, and dress, visibility and equality in public space.

Choreographing Fashion Manrutt Wongkaew Abstract In this chapter I illustrate the undeniable influence of modern dance on twentyfirst-century high fashion. This is most obvious when the fashion industry appropriates movements and corporeal compositions from modern dance choreographies. These practices work to display visual and kinetic properties within fashion commodities that also are geared to maximising potential exposure. I do this by examining choreographic exchange between high fashion and modern dance. I investigate how shapes, forms, gestures and motion in fashion performance reference modern dance choreographies. In doing so, I demonstrate how movement vocabularies in modern dance feed into the socio-political economy of luxury fashion. This is most evident in the inter-relationships between moving bodies and mobility that is manifested in the materials used in garment design and construction. Methodologically, I compose photographic essays demonstrating a visual history of fashion’s relationships to dance, specifically Martha Graham’s Lamentation (1930). The essays map a choreographic trajectory in two luxury fashion editorials: Strike A Pose (Grazia 2009) and Feel The Power (Harper’s Bazaar 2010). I employ interdisciplinary visual and detailed movement analyses that draw on: textile and costume construction; image composition; and the role of technology to further illustrate how dance choreography influences the performance of fashion trade. I argue that Graham was a trailblazer – influencing high fashion – in her experimentations with stretched fabrics. Her pioneering technique carries a concept of tensile elasticity which is extended onto clothing. Through pushes and pulls, contractions and releases, Graham’s choreography influences current fashion performances displaying a restrained tension between fabrics and the body. What I provide is a metalanguage of modern dance choreography that can be used to describe trends in fashion which can then be mobilised by the industry to transform the mode of display in high fashion performance. Key Words: Fashion choreography, modern dance, Martha Graham, tensile elasticity, visual history. ***** Twenty-first century Britain marks an ascent in the artistic relationship between modern dance and high fashion. London has become a popular site where designers and choreographers collaborate, not only in numerous productions but for a variety of platforms. Dance productions, fashion photography and fashion

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__________________________________________________________________ advertising events are the areas where the confluence between fashion and dance is predominantly evidenced. 1 Focusing on the performance exchange and genealogy between dance and fashion, this chapter examines how shapes, forms, gestures and motion in fashion performance reference modern dance choreographies. It also investigates the crossover between dance and fashion, as it has emerged since the development of modern dance, particularly prevalent in the work of Martha Graham, the seminal choreographer whose work defined twentieth century dance. I suggest that Graham was a trailblazer in her experimentations with fabrics and fashion garments, and her influence can be seen in current editorial pages. Methodologically, I compose a photographic essay demonstrating the trajectory of moving bodies and fabric. The group of photos illustrates the concept of tensile elasticity in Martha Graham’s performance Lamentations (1930) particularly her choreographic partnership between stretch fabrics and the restrained tension in her corporeal techniques. The photographic essay includes the fashion editorials Strike A Pose (2009) from Grazia magazine and Feel The Power (2010) in Harper’s Bazaar UK where I contend that the models’ poses coupled with the tensile fabrics cite Graham’s famous work. My analysis of these photos focuses on textile and garment construction; image composition; and role of technology and media within the work in relation to choreographic movements and moving bodies. 1. Martha Graham and Tensile Elasticity: Lamentation (1930) Fabric is alive! When I drape cloths over a dummy for apparel design, I discover that each material has unique bodily structure, characteristics and can perform series of movements. Whilst some fabrics smoothly glide across the body; others choose to crisply spring into voluminous shapes, firmly cling around the female contour, playfully swing along the hemline or hang over the shoulder in delicacy. Each textile signals their distinctive materiality as it responds differently to every pin I pierce and every pleat I fold. According to the studies of fabrics and textile construction, certain fashion materials such as knit and lycra have elasticity in their performance provided by its unique interlocking loops and special characters within the yarns. This is a tensile property within the fabric that can grow and expand as the wearers push and pull these garments beyond their corporeal shape. However, when releasing the external forces, the materials quickly shrink, deflate, and resume their original shapes yet retain their elasticated property. By looking at this character in fashion materials, the concept of stretch and tension has close proximity to Martha Graham’s dance technique. Susan Foster, in her 1997 article ‘Dancing Bodies’ describes Martha Graham’s choreographic vocabulary as one that focuses on ‘the tensile successions from central to peripheral body.’ 2 The principle metaphor of tensile elasticity in Graham’s movements can be labelled as ‘contract,’ a dynamic pull that is conducted by

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__________________________________________________________________ concavity of the torso, and ‘release,’ an eruption of energy that disperse the body in various pathways to the external space. Not only does Graham’s tensile elasticity occur in the dance body, but this concept is also translated into the way she manipulates the costumes reflecting the principle of contraction and release in her technique. Sitting on a bare wooden bench dimly lit by the front and ceiling lights in her short solo performance, Lamentation (1930), Graham’s body in purple jersey tube emerges from the dark backdrop of the room. Her legs are wide open stretching the fabric to its maximum expansion whilst her elbows, forearms, and the crown of her head contort the circular ring on the top of the jersey tube into a triangular pull. In her heavily hunched torso, she shakes her head vigorously. Soon, Graham begins to increase the tensile nature of the fabric by drawing her head to the furthest route against the direction of her hands which grab the excess of fabric between her groin and plunges them between her open thighs. On one occasion, Graham elevates her pelvis off the bench whilst fastening her arms across the body. The right hand pierces through the top circular ring of the tube and clasps onto her left thigh whilst the left hand forcefully pulls the stretched fabric from the inside to caress her pale face as she gently inclines her head towards her right shoulder. In this position, the tube jersey costume is stretched to its limits in all directions. The horizontal pull is evident as Graham distances her legs in a wide stance. The vertical tension can be drawn, from the ankles to the crown of her head, as she fully erects her spine. This also includes the way her left elbow vertically plunges towards her lower abdomen which is executed against the direction of her extruded neckline. Finally, the diagonal stretches in two opposite directions across her body emerge from the shapes and directions of her forearms. The constant tension between her stretched body and the knitted fabric continues throughout the performance of Lamentation. Particularly, one of the poses is a plea where both of her hands grasp the edge of the jersey tube and diagonally reach towards the ceiling as she elevates and extends her right foot towards the audience. This creates a maximum tension in all kinetic planes as her right knee strikes the garment forwards, whilst her arched spine and the tip of her head pulls the material in the opposite route in a sagittal direction. The pose also generates diagonal restrained tension between her skull and her wrists which are executed to the furthest distance from her left knee. This reach continues to circle in a coronal plane before she collapses her torso onto her right thigh which marks the ending of the choreographic phrase. According to Graham, the manipulation of the purple jersey tube in relation to tensile elasticity in her dance body indicates ‘the tragedy that obsesses the body, the ability to stretch inside your own skin.’ 3 This interrelationship between modern dance and fashion materials reflects Graham’s psychological grief and her physical self which communicates through the restrained tension between her dance body and the elasticated costume.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Strike a Pose (2009) Though choreographed and premiered in 1930, Lamentation and the concept of tensile nature in Martha Graham’s choreography has become a visual landmark for artists across the creative industries and continues to inspire and be referenced by many in the fashion trade particularly in fashion photography. Significantly, Strike a Pose was an eight-page fashion editorial published in the Grazia magazine, UK, in September 2009. The collection that was featured in the article was presented as fashion choreography which was borrowed and adapted from a series of iconic images from Graham’s performance. In the editorial, the selected garments were modelled by Michela Meazza, a principal dancer from New Adventures who has also carried extensive portfolios in fashion performance. One of the featured apparels was a draped jersey gown worth £2,140 designed by American fashion designer Donna Karan for her Autumn/Winter 2009-2010 Ready-to-wear collection (see Image 1).

Image 1: Michela Meazza in Strike a Pose. 4 © 2009. Image Courtesy of Gustavo Papaleo/aandrphotographic.com This garment is prescribed with tensile elasticity in both materiality and costume construction which can be performed in a manner similar to Graham’s purple jersey tube and her principle choreographic concept of contraction and release in Lamentation. To illuminate this argument, Donna Karan’s fine knitted fabric tightly embraces a bodily contour of the model Toni Garrn from the waistline down to her knees as it firmly grips her upper limbs from the elbows down to the wrists creating a restrained tension in each stride (see Image 2a). However, the bodice releases into a generous fit from the neckline to her naval. This area

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__________________________________________________________________ becomes a jersey tube in its pattern that can be draped as the wearer desires. On this occasion Karan chooses to gather the fabrics over Garrn’s shoulder creating a diagonal pull between the model’s left shoulder and her right forearm. The ease of the tensile elasticity continues in the lower part of the train as the garment flare out in a fishtailed silhouette. The pattern can be further explained by looking from the posterior view (see Image 2b) as all of the knitted fabrics are tightly drawn towards Garrn’s lumbar spine, fastened over her shoulders and clung onto her hip but cut in a deep slit exposing her back. These firmed gathers are then twisted before releasing into a full drape towards the hemline.

Image 2: (2a) Anterior and (2b) Posterior Views of Donna Karan’s Draped Jersey Gown. 5 © 2009. Image Courtesy of Marcio Madeira/firstview.com It is evident that Maezza appropriates Graham’s use of elasticated costume and applies the concept of contraction and release from modern dance onto Karan’s gown. In her pose against the white backdrop in a black box studio, a standard setting for many dance photographs, Maezza clasps her hands and firmly presses her wrists down towards the floor in a sagittal plane, whilst drawing her biceps together. In doing so, it tightens her pectoral muscle as she squeezes her triceps against the ribcage at the same time. In contrast to the upper body, Maezza releases her knee and strikes her left leg in attitude á la seconde (bent leg to the side). The distance between her battement (extended leg) and her standing leg is the furthest length that the fabric will allow and Maezza assures the effect by stepping onto the hem with her right foot for the maximum stretch. As a result, the restrained and released of tension occurs throughout the garment. A triangular pull at the train of the gown is prominent. This is formed by Maezza’s right foot, left knee and

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__________________________________________________________________ metatarsals as its corner. The battement also presses the gown firmly against the right side of her body revealing feminine curves similar to those displayed on the catwalk by Toni Garrn despite the distancing of the legs in the dance body. Moreover, the battement also demonstrates the vast volume of the fabric that can be expanded from its drapery located at the back of the train. For the upper part of the garment, as described in the previous paragraph, the gown has a loose bodice which can be freely draped. Anna Foster, stylist for this shoot decides to embraces the tensile elasticity of the dance and fashion body by creating double folds in a cross axis over Maezza’s busts. The first one runs from her right abdomen and drapes diagonally over her left shoulder in a manner similar to how Karan styles her gown for her catwalk presentation. The second layer is then formed as Foster gathers fabrics at the left side of Maezza’s ribcage and drapes them over her right collarbone. Despite having extra material in the bodice, Karan’s gown does not carry a sufficient amount of fabric for these cross folds. As a result, it creates two layers of distorted rectangular pull which fastens the area of trapezius, deltoid, upper arms and ribcage of the dance body. By analysing the image through Maezza’s pose and Foster’s fashion styling, it is evident that Strike a Pose translates the concept of tensile elasticity in Graham’s dance technique and draws connections between modern dance and clothing industry. 3. Feel the Power (2010) Continuing with the concept of tensile elasticity, Feel the Power was a ten-page fashion editorial published in the Harper’s Bazaar magazine, UK, in April 2010 which translated the restrained nature of Graham dance technique into high fashion and corporeal poses. The photographic prints featured Taryn Davidson, a Canadian-born international model who has been parading on numerous catwalk shows. The collection was set against the white chapter backdrop and introduced a series of black and white attires. The overall apparels focus on the plays of silhouette suggesting a notion of empowerment made visible through female contours and strong angular shoulders. Feel the Power articulated female authority with the image of Davidson. Her tall and slim fashioned body was adorned with a stretched silk dress designed by renowned British designer Vivienne Westwood. Underneath the dress was a sheer silk-knit brassiere from Pringle of Scotland obscuring Davidson’s bosoms from explicit nudity. In terms of choreography, Mark Pillai, the photographer responsible for the event, constantly captured image of Davidson in various stylised dance poses. In Image 3, she turns her hip away from the camera and lowers her bodyweight towards the floor. Although she pushes the left knee forward, both of her inside legs and ankles are pressed together. As Davidson thrusts her buttock towards the left side of the frame, she pulls the opened neckline of the buttoned dress with her hands in a shape of a fist towards the ceiling lights.

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__________________________________________________________________ Frowning in concentration, she stretches out her elbows yet pulls the shoulder blades together.

Image 3: Taryn Davidson in Vivienne Westwood Stretch Silk Dress. 6 © 2010. Image Courtesy of Mark Pillai/markpillai.com There is no firm evidence as to whether or not Davidson has received any dance training. However, tensile elasticity from the interrelationships between stretching fabrics and moving bodies, experimented over the development of modern dance, are translated and embedded in this fashion performance. It is most apparent in Davidson’s pose. As Westwood’s sheath and the brassiere tightly embraced the body, she resists this entrapment by pulling its shoulder seams above the crania stretching its elasticity to the limit. Within the executed choreography, the contraction in Graham’s dance technique is also evident in her body parts. The tight fisting gesture of the hands where her fingers are pressed against the palms, tensions between the eyebrows as she frowns, pressures between opposing shoulder blades, inner thighs, knees and ankles that are drawn towards each other constitute evidence of Graham’s choreographic stylisations. Furthermore, Davidson provides contrasting release in her lumbar spine and ribcage that pushes forwards against the restricted tension of the pull. Her bended left knee also advances the tensile relief of the dress as it pushes the slit of the front seam to open even further. These visuals and the kinetic readings in Feel the Power reference Graham’s modern dance technique of contraction and release which is translated into fashion poses and manipulation of stretched garments.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Conclusion This photographic essay marks genealogical charts from Lamentation to Strike A Pose and Feel the Power that expresses experimentation in manipulating stretched fabrics. It is evident that, through pushes and pulls, contractions and releases, Graham’s choreography influences current fashion performances displaying a restrained tension between fabrics and the body. The terms ‘tensile elasticity’ becomes one of a metalanguage of modern dance choreography that can be used to describe trends in fashion which can then be mobilised by the industry to transform the mode of display in high fashion performance.

Notes 1

See ‘Spring 2004 Ready-to-Wear: Alexander McQueen’, accessed 1 September 2013, http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/S2004RTW-AMCQUEEN; Nick Knight, ‘Dynamic Blooms’, AnOther Magazine 20 (Spring/Summer 2011): 338353; ‘Richard Alston Dance Company’, accessed 1 September 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35Hc4eK6ZM. 2 Susan Foster, ‘Dancing Bodes’, in Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, ed. Jane Desmond (London: Duke University Press, 1997), 246. 3 Martha Graham, Blood Memory: Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 117. 4 Gustavo Papaleo, ‘Strike a Pose’, Grazia, 28 September 2009, 95. 5 New York Fashion Week, 16 February 2009. 6 Mark Pillai, ‘Feel the Power’, Harper’s Bazaar, April 2010, 154.

Bibliography Berger, John, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, Michael Dibb, and Richard Hollis. Ways of Seeing. Based on the BBC television series with John Berger. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1972. Bremser, Martha. Fifty Contemporary Choreographers. London: Routledge, 1999. De Mille, Agnes. Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham. London: Hutchinson, 1992. Duggan, Ginger. ‘The Greatest Show on Earth: A Look at Contemporary Fashion Shows and Their Relationship to Performance Art’. Fashion Theory 5, No. 3 (2001): 243–270.

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__________________________________________________________________ Entwistle, Joanne. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress, and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. Evans, Caroline. ‘The Enchanted Spectacle’. Fashion Theory 5, No. 3 (2001): 271– 310. Foster, Susan. ‘Dancing Bodies’. In Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance, edited by Jane Desmond, 235–257. London: Duke University Press, 1997. Graham, Martha. Blood Memory: Autobiography. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Kondo, Dorrine. About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theatre. London: Routledge, 1997. Knight, Nick. ‘Dynamic Blooms’. AnOther Magazine (Spring/Summer 2011). McDonagh, Don. The Complete Guide to Modern Dance. New York: Doubleday, 1976. Mower, Sarah. ‘Spring 2004 Ready-to-Wear: Alexander McQueen’. Accessed 9 October 2003. http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/S2004RTW-AMCQUEEN. Sturken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Filmography Mackrell, Judith. Dancemakers. BBC2, Broadcasted 15 August 1992. Manrutt Wongkaew is a dance and fashion scholar who has completed his PhD thesis in Fashion Performance at the department of Dance, Film, and Theatre at the University of Surrey, UK. Besides academia, Manrutt works as professional dancer and choreographer as well as carrying an extensive portfolio in fashion styling. He also has his own practice where he incorporates his choreographed movements and poses from contemporary dance with his fashion styling and art direction to enhance visuals and kinetic properties in high-fashion clothing.

Designing Tim Walker: Story Teller Book and Exhibition Tim Hossler Abstract One role of fashion, like that of sports, is to distract society temporarily from its problems and give it material from which to dream. Fashion photography and its dissemination through print and exhibitions, presents the public with these fantasies. One of the most original fashion photographers working today is Tim Walker. Known for his complex film-like sets, Walker creates visual narratives rooted in fairy tales, surrealism and the absurd. His newest book and exhibition, Story Teller, displays his visions of high fashion couture engaging in worlds inhabited by Humpty Dumpty, toy soldiers, giant wasps and 13 ft. tall dolls. The design of Story Teller began with a study of the inspiration for Walker’s photographs: Cecil Beaton and his scrapbooks, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Surrealism art. By using Lewis Carroll’s famous visual poem The Mouse’s Tale as a reference point, the typographic design of Story Teller sought to connect the visual narratives of Walker with children’s books and the rich history of early 20th century avant-garde concrete poetry. Design inspiration was found in the work of Guillaume Apollinaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Futurist and Dada typography, Dr. Seuss books and the graphic design of Alexey Brodovitch’s Harper’s Bazaar magazine. This research was then distilled into a series of grids and guidelines to focus the design layout. In both the book and exhibition typeset quotes move across pages and walls, reinforcing the power of the stories the photographs tell, as well as connecting Walker’s work to historic references. Key Words: Tim Walker, fashion photography, photography book, book design, exhibition design, history, Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, Alexey Brodovitch, typographic design, graphic design, art direction, concrete poetry, Lewis Carroll. ***** Fashion can temporarily distract society and give it hitherto unseen and unimagined illustrations of idealised worlds like those it might dream. These conscious and sometimes subconscious stories can cause all sorts of emotions, ranging from love-at-first-sight to extreme discomfort and anxiety. These fantasies are captured in fashion photography and presented to an unresisting audience through magazines, advertising, books and exhibitions. One of the most original fashion photographers working today is British photographer Tim Walker. Known for his complex film-like sets, he creates visual narratives rooted in fairy tales, surrealism, and the absurd. His newest book and exhibition, Story Teller, displays his visions of models clad in high fashion couture

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__________________________________________________________________ set inside worlds inhabited by Humpty Dumpty, toy soldiers, glass ships, giant wasps, and 13-foot tall dolls. Most discussions of Walker’s work mention his unusual commitment to the use of traditional photographic technologies. He is known for his distain for digital cameras and the surprising fact that all of his images are shot on film with no digital manipulation. 1 He is an old-fashioned photographer, an anachronism in a contemporary photography culture that relies heavily on post-production in the creation of images. He uses the sweetness of nostalgia to entertain to us while presenting current fashions that are enmeshed with today’s overwrought celebrity culture. Through this personal vision he captures remembrances of a past that never quite existed in images that feel fresh and contemporary. Some consider Walker as a saviour of fashion photography today. His work is linked to the traditions of fashion photography as it leads viewers into his fantastic storytelling and engaging adventures. Walker’s photographs refer us to the best photographers in the history of fashion. We see the playfulness, flamboyance and British-ness of Cecil Beaton. We see the energy and the emotional connection with subjects that Richard Avedon was known for. We see the attention to detail, the colour and the craftsmanship of Irving Penn. Walker credits all of these masters as influences and his links to two of them are more than just a shared visual language. 2 Walker’s professional experience began as an intern at Condé Nast’s Cecil Beaton archives and continued with a short stint in New York City as an assistant to Richard Avedon. After returning to England, British Vogue gave Walker his first assignment. Fashion director Lucinda Chambers said that her ‘attention to his work had little to do with fashion... it was the spirit of his pictures.’ 3 Walker was following in the footsteps of his heroes by doing fashion editorials. His own style quickly developed and since the mid-1990s Walker’s images have frequently been featured in the pages of W magazine, British and American Vogue, Vogue Italia, Love magazine as well as in numerous ad campaigns. In the book, The Gift, Lewis Hyde states that ‘Finding one’s voice isn’t just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses... Invention does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.’ 4 This quote sums up the concept of lineage that can be seen in Walker’s work. John Szarkowski, the renowned curator of photography at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, expressed the same thought by saying simply: ‘Interesting new pictures come (mostly) from interesting earlier pictures.’ 5 In October of 2012 the exhibition Tim Walker: Story Teller opened at Somerset House in central London. Lines of visitors wrapped around the perimeter of the museum’s courtyard. The book Tim Walker: Story Teller, published by Thames & Hudson, was released to coincide with the exhibition’s opening. In late 2012 the

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__________________________________________________________________ book also appeared in French, Spanish, and German language editions. Story Teller was a follow-up to Walker’s 2008 book Pictures. 6 Gathering rave reviews from a multitude of art, fashion and pop culture media sources, Walker’s Story Teller helped cement his reputation as one of fashion’s most influential photographers. 7 Story Teller was designed with the same process, of referencing history that Walker has developed in his photography. This methodology uses history as a starting point, a place of departure to help the viewer recall and engage the past. Through that reference point a bond is founded that links the past and the present. Ideas are built upon to create stories that work on both a visual level to entertain as well as on a historically informed level to solicit memories. The design of the book Story Teller started by not only looking at the photographers that inspired Walker’s work but at the graphic representations and historical contexts that were connected with those inspirations. Story Teller’s design and in particular its typographic design, sought to connect the visual narratives of Walker’s work with children’s books, fashion magazines and the rich history of early 20th century avant-garde concrete poetry. The exploration of these references lead all the way to Lewis Carroll’s famous visual poem The Mouse’s Tale published in 1866. 8 This poem, found within the text of his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, wraps around the page, mimicking the tail of a mouse. In Story Teller, the page opposite a portrait of fashion stylist and creative director Grace Coddington is an homage to Carroll’s design. Although the playful type of Story Teller is heavily influenced by this work of Lewis Carroll, connections can be made to the works of Guillaume Apollinaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Futurist typography and Dada typography. But Story Teller is a direct descendant of the 1959 book Observations, designed by Alexey Brodovitch, an important classic of the photo book genre. It showcased the photographs of Richard Avedon alongside writing by Truman Capote. Brodovitch created Observations near the end of his storied careerthat began with his work as art director of Harper’s Bazaar magazine in the 1930s and continued through the late 1950s. He mentored both Avedon and Irving Penn early in their careers. 9 For the past 75 years, Brodovitch’s graphic design innovations have had a profound impact on how fashion is portrayed. He developed a kind of editorial design that used type and page content to work in harmony with images. In earlier editorial and advertising work the layout of type had little to do with the photos that ran along side. Brodovitch integrated type and image, empowering the use of both. Typography began to be seen as something that could enhance photography. The exhibition graphics for Story Teller were a reconfigured design of the book, scaled to fit the unique spaces of Somerset House, a former 19th century palace-turned-museum located in the heart of London. In the exhibition, souvenirs of the original photo shoots surround the framed photographs in which they were originally depicted, and created mazes for visitors to navigate. The experience is a complete fairy tale environment that challenges viewers to acknowledge the

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__________________________________________________________________ fantasy of the photographs as a new reality: as the props have become tangible, so might the fashion. In both the book and exhibition, typeset quotes move across pages and walls in direct relationships to the photographs in their proximity, breaking away from the boxes of text typically used to describe art on museum walls. One of Walker’s quotes dances across a gallery wall, and states: ‘While fashion photography’s imperative is to sell product as well as dreams, a narrative strand has often marked out its best practitioners.’ The power of fashion photography is its ability to transport its viewers away from their daily routines. The book and the gallery exhibition sought to do just that, while also representing Tim Walker’s works as an extension of the continuum of the history of fashion photography. The fashion blog showstudio.com summed up the design of Story Teller by stating: ‘It’s not only an exhibition of Walker’s photography, but also an experience of the worlds he creates, built out of elaborate wall text, props, and even some sand, all arranged to contextualize his photographs and film. The wall text, which often twists along the wall or literally round a corner, is a narrative of its own, clearly presenting a picture of Walker as an artist of enchanted tales.’ 10 The storybook world envisioned by Tim Walker is truly original, even as it also expresses a unique understanding of the historic roots of photography and fashion design that preceded him. Their significance does not diminish the quality or originality of his final productions. In Walker’s work the observer sees the work of others, but that work is not an inferior copy. He has appropriated these influences and formed a body of work that builds upon history, but is authentic and also pioneering. It is the work of a true original that can take these references and make them his own.

Notes 1

Tim Walker, interviewed by Penny Martin, 24 October 2012, Mulberry Presents Tim Walker in Conversation with Penny Martin (Somerset House). 2 Robin Muir and Tim Walker, Tim Walker: Story Teller (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), 18-20. 3 Charlotte Sinclair, ‘Tim Walker’, British Vogue, May 2008, 122. 4 Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 148. 5 John Szarkowski: A Life in Photography, dirs. Richard B. Woodward and Sandra McLeod (1998, Checkerboard Foundation, 2005, DVD). 6 Robin Muir and Tim Walker, Tim Walker: Pictures (Düsseldorf: Te Neues, 2008), 8-11.

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Tim Walker, interviewed by Penny Martin, 24 October 2012, Mulberry Presents Tim Walker. 8 Penny Martin, ‘Tim Walker’s Thrilling Fashion Photographs Go on Show’, The Telegraph, 29 September 2012, accessed 12 February 2013, http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG9571172/Tim-Walkers-thrilling-fashionphotographs-go-on-show.html. 9 Andy Grundberg, Brodovitch (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989), 128-145. 10 Megan N. Liberty, ‘Review: Tim Walker: Story Teller at Somerset House’, SHOWStudio, 29 October 2012, accessed 2 November 2012, http://showstudio.com/blog/post/review_tim_walker_story_teller_at_somerset_hou se.

Bibliography Grundberg, Andy. Brodovitch. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989. Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. 25th Anniversary Edition. 2nd Edition. New York: Vintage Books, 2007. Liberty, Megan N. ‘Review: Tim Walker: Story Teller at Somerset House’. SHOWStudio (London), 29 October 2012. Accessed 2 November 2012. http://showstudio.com/blog/post/review_tim_walker_story_teller_at_somerset_hou se. Martin, Penny. ‘Tim Walker’s Thrilling Fashion Photographs Go on Show’. The Telegraph (London), 29 September 2012. Accessed 12 February 2013. http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG9571172/Tim-Walkers-thrilling-fashionphotographs-go-on-show.html. Mulberry Presents Tim Walker in Conversation with Penny Martin. Interview. London: Somerset House, 2012. Sinclair, Charlotte. ‘Tim Walker’. British Vogue, May 2008. Walker, Tim, and Robin Muir. Tim Walker: Pictures. Düsseldorf: Te Neues, 2008. —––. Tim Walker: Story Teller. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012.

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Filmography Woodward, Richard B., dir. John Szarkowski: A Life in Photography. New York: Checkerboard Film Foundation, 1998. DVD. Tim Hossler, as the former in-house art director for photographer Annie Leibovitz, helped Ms. Leibovitz create her most memorable images, books and exhibitions of the late 90’s through the early 2000’s. Hossler holds a degree in Architecture from Kansas State University (1993) and a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2005). He was the Director of Design at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Art Director of The Wolfsonian – Florida International University in Miami Beach. Hossler is currently an assistant professor of Visual Communications at the University of Kansas where in addition to teaching he continues to work with artists, photographers and cultural institutions to create narrative work. In 2011/2012 he collaborated with British fashion photographer Tim Walker and art director Ruth Ansel to create Walker’s book and exhibition Story Teller.

Simulation: Effectual and Applicable Learning in Fashion Curriculums Deidra W. Arrington Abstract Creating learning environments using simulation teaching methods prepares students for the fast-paced and rigorous demands of their future careers. By replicating the real world, learning transfers directly from the classroom to the workroom. ‘The advantages of using simulation are numerous and include the ability to help learners make meaning of complex tasks, while also developing critical thinking and cultural skills required for the 21st century workplace.’ 1 This chapter explores simulation teaching in a fashion curriculum. Retail buying, line development, and fashion show production classes allow students to navigate the processes of a department store buyer, product developer, and fashion show producer by calling on students to supplement their learning through research, practice, experience, and logic. In retail buying, students act as newly promoted buyers for a fictitious department store. Throughout the semester students complete research in areas such as, shopping competitive retailers, demographics, and psychographics. The research leads to financial and assortment decision making. Students are encouraged to use U.S. Census data, consumer and market research, their own experiences, and common sense to substantiate their decisions. The result is a comprehensive buying plan created and justified by students. The product development class includes exploration comparable to the buying class. However, the final outcome is a student designed denim collection. The course includes inspiration and design boards, technical packs, marketing plans, and a critical review. Choices must be explained and defended. Fashion show production is a small class of high calibre students. Their task is to plan and produce a professional fashion show that features the work of design students. The class is organised into committees that cover promotions, models, and backstage duties. Key Words: Fashion simulation, fashion curriculum, teaching methods. ***** 1. Using Simulation as a Teaching Method The act of simulation is a process whereby a learning outcome is achieved through copying, representing, and replicating. Simulating a fashion industry environment is rare; however, the method has widespread use in medical curriculums. Practicing medicine on a live human has grave consequences when a mistake is made, but using simulation techniques removes the risk of injury or even death yielding to an opportunity to learn via one’s mistakes. Timothy C. Clapper quotes Eric Jensen as saying ‘medical residents who received training and practice

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__________________________________________________________________ using simulation not only exhibited higher rates of confidence, but also performed the procedure faster and with fewer errors than those not receiving simulation training.’ 2 Fashion is hardly a life or death situation, but if learning occurs through simulation in a profession where the mandate is to keep people alive, fashion curriculums could use similar teaching techniques to prepare its students for the future. Employability is arguably the primary motivation for earning a college degree. Graduates are recognised as valuable assets when they demonstrate a knowledge base that transfers easily into the industry. Virginia Commonwealth University alumni, Jeremy Robinson says ‘I’ve seen a lot advantages in taking simulation classes at VCU and I’ve had several employers comment on the fact that I'm knowledgeable about different aspects of the fashion industry especially in buying and production. It’s been a great competitive edge during the interview process.’ 3 Simulation promotes analytical aptitudes, critical thinking, and problem solving skills that advances a student’s initiative and drive to go beyond the surface of an issue. ‘Experiential learning is in that respect held to foster deeper information processing and elaboration, to build up learning skills, and to lead to a higher motivation for learning engendered by the form of activity learners are directly involved in.’ 4 Furthermore, simulations, typically involve teamwork presenting students with situations and challenges associated with working in groups in the workplace. Students learn the importance of communicating effectively. Often students in a simulation environment motivate themselves and one another as experiential learning follows. 5 In a fast-paced business, like fashion, it is imperative to have employees that are able to view a situation, analyse the issues and problems, make decisions, and execute a plan towards the resolution of a problem. ‘Preparing students for these types of skills and knowledge has long been considered one of the primary objectives of American colleges and universities.’ 6 At VCU, simulation classes mimic a function within the fashion industry as closely as possible in a classroom environment. In buying, product development, and fashion show production classes, students are called on to develop and sharpen their critical thinking skills through research and practice. Simulation is a highly effective teaching method because it allows students to apply concepts and theories introduced in prior course work in a real world setting. Students see and understand how retail math formulas are used in a merchandising situation, they gain firsthand knowledge of the steps necessary to take merchandise from concept to consumer, and they are called on to produce a fashion show, rather than watch a fashion show. In simulation classes, students feign a career and through the simulation process, they reach a level of multifaceted understanding. The critical thinking that occurs is stimulating, stressful, and powerful. In his article, Role Play and Simulation, Timothy Clapper quotes Eric Jensen, ‘The advantages of using

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__________________________________________________________________ simulation are numerous and include the ability to help learners make meaning of complex tasks, while also developing critical thinking and cultural skills required for the 21st century workplace. Simulation accomplishes this by incorporating active learning, emotions, and reflection, key components to creating lasting understanding.’ 7 Simulation teaching is an effective teaching method; however, students often struggle with the idea that there is more than one correct answer and the true test is their ability to justify and defend their decisions. ‘The advantages of using simulation are numerous and include the ability to help learners make meaning of complex tasks, while also developing critical thinking and cultural skills required for the 21st century workplace.’ 8 The Retail Buying Simulation, Product Development, and Advanced Show Production classes at VCU are prime examples of the advantages described by Clapper. 2. Retail Buying Simulation Retail Buying Simulation is a junior level class. The objective of the class is to immerse students in a merchandising environment and call on them to complete the steps and processes of a retail buyer. Students work in teams of two and arrive at their own conclusions about planning a junior sportswear business. There are multiple correct answers; however, student teams must justify and defend their decisions in a professional, realistic, reasonable, and well-informed manner. It is through the articulation of the reasoning and logic behind their decisions where learning occurs. Students take on the role of a newly promoted buyer in a local department store chain with five stores in the Northern Virginia geographical area. The class involves a series of assignments that culminate in a complete buying plan that includes a competitive shopping report, a consumer profile report, a business trend report, a fashion trend report, a six-month buying plan, assortment plan, and a market plan. Each of these tasks guides the new buyers (students) to a more vibrant and comprehensive understanding of the buying process. First the competition is examined with regard to customer base, merchandise assortment, visual merchandising, and competitive strengths and weaknesses. The students visit stores that are most likely to present competition for the department store chain. After a careful inspection of the store’s layout, merchandise assortment, visual merchandising, customer services, and the store’s strengths, and weaknesses, a report is prepared with their findings. Students see and recognise what makes a store interesting and appealing, what gives a store a competitive advantage, and the areas in which a store is weak. The competitive shopping report is the first of three preliminary reports that educate the new buyer and facilitates the understanding of their target consumer. The next step is an in depth study of the consumer. The consumer profile report assesses the consumer base from a psychological and demographical point of view.

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__________________________________________________________________ The psychological profile comes from the VALS™ Survey, which segments the marketplace based on a framework of eight segments that identify the psychological motivations of consumers and their resources. Based on the psychological and demographical research, students draw conclusions about their consumers and utilise this information in assortment planning decisions by connecting the desires and demands of their consumer groups with the merchandise they ‘buy.’ This report demonstrates the complexity of understanding consumer groups and their buying preferences while establishing that a buyer’s personal preference is not the primary consideration. The business trend report is a comprehensive discussion about how the department store chain will conduct business. It is through this report that students are enlightened about the level of detail and the broad scope of the fashion business. Students answer questions that expose them to the depth of buyer’s decisions, such as: Which markets will buyers attend? When are the markets? Where are the markets? For which season will goods be purchased during those markets? Additionally, business policies such as return to vendor, cooperative advertising, and terms of purchase are settled. Finally, students discuss lead times, off price merchandise, and promotional merchandise, which demonstrates their level of understanding on these topics. Upon completion of the three above mentioned preliminary reports, students begin work on the financial piece of the project, the six-month plan. The six-month plan works exactly the same way in the simulation as in a real merchandising environment where sales, inventory, markdowns, purchases, gross margin, and turnover is planned. Student’s critical thinking skills determine how well this task is completed. Many students grasp the mathematical element of the six-month plan; however, it is their ability to explain and substantiate their decisions that determines if learning has occurred. The calculations of the six-month plan carry forward into the assortment plan, the point at which the dollars become product. The purpose of the assortment plan is for students to build a balanced presentation of merchandise based on what they have learned about their consumer’s preferences using their financial plans as a guide. To demonstrate to the students the planning involved in traveling to market, the last phase of the project is to plan a market to trip to New York City. Students create appointment itineraries, write purchase orders, and complete a buying office report. The fast and rigorous of market week are evident as the itinerary is filled. At the end of the semester students present a binder of their semester’s work that includes all reports, the six-month plan, the assortment plan, and a New York market week plan. Evaluation is based partially on the accuracy of the calculations and largely on the justifications for their decisions. Therefore, there is a dual objective of understanding the mechanics of a buying environment and gaining the

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__________________________________________________________________ ability to work in that environment through sound decision making and critical thinking skills. 9 3. Product Development Simulation The Product Development class simulates the creation of a denim based line from concept to consumer. The class reveals to students the progression of product from an idea to a garment purchased by consumers. Furthermore, the class allows creativity to shine in conjunction with business decisions such as cost, retail, markup, and the myriad of details required to transform a flat drawing into a threedimensional garment. Learning is enhanced by the cross-pollination of design and merchandising students illuminating the collaboration of designers and merchandisers in the industry. Five to six students work in creative teams where they conceptualise a line of denim jeans with coordinating tops. In addition to grasping the concept of product development, the experience of working on a creative project combining design and merchandising students affords immeasurable benefits for all involved. Students begin by researching the marketplace and the consumers. Upon gleaning information useful to identifying the target market and customer, the students seek inspiration to create a line that will appeal to the target consumer. Inspiration for their lines can be anything from a piece of art, a photograph, a swatch of fabric, or a television show. Inspiration is conveyed via a theme and inspiration board, which is presented to the professor. The professor provides feedback, which clarifies the direction of the line. The inspiration board is followed by a design and concept board and it is here that the inspiration comes to life and takes shape as a line. The board includes line drawings of silhouettes (flats). These drawings are of the front and back of the garment and include details like trims, embellishments, pockets, zippers, colours and fabrics. At this point, the student’s perception of their inspiration and how it translates into a saleable garment is evident through their ability to take a high level idea and execute it on a consumer level. Once again the design board is shown to the professor for feedback and students move on from here to complete detail sheets that comprise the technical pack. It is beneficial to consult trend forecasting services during the inspiration and design and concept board step for important trends, colours, and silhouettes. The technical pack is prepared by completing fabric (including findings and trims), style, cost, and size; detail sheets that simulate packs prepared for factories to ensure the accurate and timely manufacturing of product. Justifications follow the detail sheets forcing students to think about and explain the reasons for their choices. The project also includes designing and selecting hang tags, abiding by labelling laws (‘Bureau of Consumer,’ 2005) required by the United States, quality control, and a marketing plan. The marketing plan is critical for demonstrating to

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__________________________________________________________________ students that marketing is not the singular act of selling, but begins at the moment the line is conceived and a primary consideration throughout the product development process. There must be an unmet consumer need that the new line will satisfy. Students learn, through marketing, to create an identity for their new line across public relations, advertising, and visual merchandising. The course culminates with a presentation to an industry professional who offers a critique of each team’s line. Teams earn points for understanding the target customer, creating collections with pieces that work together and are customer appropriate, pricing, meeting gross margin goals, visuals (inspiration boards, design boards, hang tags, and collateral), and their oral presentation to the critic and professor. The critic offers a unique opportunity for students to hear from someone with expertise in the denim arena and a prominent position in the fashion industry. Initially the criticism is difficult for students; however, upon further reflection, most students realise that the feedback is constructive and vital for their growth as students, as future leaders in the fashion industry, and as human beings. 10 4. Fashion Show Production The Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising at VCU has two educational tracks: design and merchandising. The design students work throughout the academic year in classes and studios creating garments. In midApril, garments are modelled before a jury of 10-12 fashion industry professionals who rank the garments via confidential ballot. The juror’s votes are counted and the top 100-125 garments are shown in the department’s Annual Juried Fashion Show. Months prior to the jury, 10 of the finest merchandising students are chosen to participate in the Advanced Show Production class. The class is responsible for producing the Annual Juried Fashion Show. Advanced Show Production is a class where a professional level show is planned, promoted, and executed. The class is divided into three committees that handle models, promotions, and backstage. The committees formulate budgets and learn to control spending by living within their budgets. The model committee’s primary responsibility is the recruitment of models and maintaining constant communication throughout the semester. Recruitment of models is chiefly through a model call. Model casting is completed by midFebruary and training begins with a professional runway coach. The model committee exemplifies the importance of communication as the students keep models informed of their commitment to the show. The promotions committee spends the semester promoting the show via social media, press releases and a media event, where the press is invited to preview a few of the garments in the show. The promotions committee prepares and distributes press kits, purchases promotional materials, and produces the program

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__________________________________________________________________ for the show. Students working on promotions work with the press and vendors calling into play their ability to network, communicate effectively, and handle themselves in a professional manner. The committee with the largest amount of responsibility is the backstage committee. This committee is the glue that holds the entire show together on show day. Committee responsibilities include staging the show, running rehearsals, sound/music, lighting, front-of-the-house, backstage night of show, and timelines for the weeks prior to the show and day of show. Organisation, communication, and implementation by this committee are imperative and guarantee a successful show. Advanced Show Production offers many unique teaching and learning opportunities. The outcome is a show that is seen by approximately 800 people; therefore, every decision is critical and mistakes are evident. Students learn to take responsibility for their actions and understand that they are held accountable for the success of the show. Problem solving skills are tested daily. The class provides a rare opportunity for merchandising students to work with design faculty and design students. Most students describe the experience as one of the most difficult things they have ever done and a life changing experience. 5. Conclusion Simulation teaching offers students the opportunity to use concepts, theories, and mathematics on projects that replicate fashion industry situations. Based in research, the assignments facilitate critical thinking and problem solving skills. In the process, students experience a bevy of emotions and frustrations, but by the end of the semester, they expressed how much they learned as they progressed through the semester. ‘Educational leaders would be well advised to include this important strategy in their professional development plans as a school-wide initiative across disciplines.’ 11

Notes 1

Timothy C. Clapper, ‘Role Play and Simulation Returning to Teaching for Understanding’, Education Digest (2010): 39-43. 2 Ibid. 3 Jeremy Robinson, email message to author, 3 September 2013. 4 Annette Kluge, ‘Experiential Learning Methods, Simulation Complexity and Their Effects on Different Target Groups’, Journal of Educational Computing Research 36, No. 3 (2007): 323-349. 5 John Fripp, ‘A Future for Business Simulations?’, Journal of European Industrial Training 21 (1997): 138-142.

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Yolanda T. Moses, ‘Quality, Excellence, and Diversity’, New Directions for Institutional Research 81 (1994): 9-20. 7 Clapper, ‘Role Play’, 39-43. 8 Ibid. 9 Karen M. Videtic and Cynthia W. Steele, Perry’s Department Store A Buying Simulation for Juniors, Men’s Wear, Children’s Wear, and Home Fashions/Giftware, 3rd Edition (New York: Fairchild Books, 2009). 10 Karen M. Videtic and Rosalie Jackson Regni, Perry’s Department Store: A Product Development Simulation (New York: Fairchild Books, 2006). 11 Clapper, ‘Role Play’, 39-43.

Bibliography Mayer, Brad W., Kathleen M. Dale, Katherine A. Fraccastoro, and Gisele Moss. ‘Improving Transfer of Learning: Relationship to Methods of Using Business Simulation’. Simulation & Gaming 42 (February 2011): 64–84. Doi: 10.1177/1046878110376795. Clapper, Timothy C. ‘Role Play and Simulation Returning to Teaching for Understanding’. Education Digest (April 2010): 39–43. Fripp, John. Learning through Simulations. London: McGraw-Hill, 1993. —––. ‘A Future for Business Simulations?’ Journal of European Industrial Training 21 (1997): 138–142. Kluge, Annette. ‘Experiential Learning Methods, Simulation Complexity and Their Effects on Different Target Groups’. Journal of Educational Computing Research 36, No. 3 (2007): 323–349. Moses, Yolanda T. ‘Quality, Excellence, and Diversity’. New Directions for Institutional Research 81 (1994): 9–20. Videtic, Karen M. Guthrie, and Rosalie Jackson Regini. Perry’s Department Store: A Product Development Simulation. New York, NY: Fairchild Books, 2006. Videtic, Karen M., and Cynthia W. Steele. Perry’s Department Store a Buying Simulation for Juniors, Men’s Wear, Children’s Wear, and Home Fashions/Giftware, 3rd Edition. New York, NY: Fairchild Books, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Deidra W. Arrington is a seasoned fashion professional having spent 20 years an apparel buyer and Divisional Merchandise Manager for Belk and Stage Stores, among others. She possesses extensive knowledge of the buying process and the fashion industry from a business perspective. Deidra joined the faculty at VCU in 2004 teaching classes in fashion merchandising in the Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising.

Three Case Studies on Russian Online Fashion Retailers Evgenia Tarasova Abstract This research chapter intends to embrace issues and themes addressing the fashion consumption in the quickly developing Russian market. With Russian online sales of clothing growing at a double-digit rate due to the explosive expansion of Internet penetration, studying this online market has never been that important. To analyse current online fashion situation this chapter presents case studies of three online fashion retailers targeting middle class consumers – the booming consumer strata. The main purpose of this research is to facilitate the understanding of the relations of social media and online consumption by examining Russian fashion market online and its social media landscape as a way of communicating with end consumers. Additionally, the chapter also discusses the gap between capitals – Moscow and St. Petersburg and the regions. This chapter analyses how three Russian online fashion retailers – KupiVip, Sapato and Trends-Brands employ four major social media platforms in the country, both local, such as Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki and international, such as Facebook, Twitter, Livejournal. This research aims to draw a relationship between use of social media for fashion industry and the online shopping environment. Key Words: Internet, e-commerce, social media, Russia, fashion consumption. ***** 1. Russian Market and Its Consumers Russia is home to 143 million consumers and is the most prosperous of the BRIC 1 countries as McKinsey research outlines. 2 According to the recent Ernst and Young research, 3 approximately 73% of Russia’s population is urban and makes up 85% of the purchasing power, with 82% of all households projected to be a part of the middle class by 2015. Consumer trends in Russia continue to change, leading to purchasing power boom as well as consumer activities expansion. Russian fashion market has been showing stable growth of 10-15% during the past decade, putting itself way ahead of many European markets. 4 According to industry reports 5 clothing market plays an important role in fashion consumption contributing with impressive 12 billion dollars a year on average. This chapter is focused on middle class as the target group. The middle class has been a widely discussed issue in modern Russia for a long time now. Researchers 6 have outlined three main aspects challenging the definition of the middle class in Russia, namely, income policy; market and consumer behaviour; and the Russian mentality. For the purpose of this chapter middle class was divided

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__________________________________________________________________ into 3 levels: lower middle class, middle middle class and higher middle class, based on income as well as experiential levels. 1.1 Russian E-Commerce in Numbers To start with Russia’s retail sector being the fastest growing among BRIC countries and Russian Internet growing faster than almost anywhere else in the world, giving Russia second position in Europe, after Germany, with more than 42 million internet users and almost 90% of Russian internet users making online purchases, makes it important to study. 7 Just in the first quarter of 2012 alone, 18 million Russians shopped online which in total accounts for 14% of national population. 8 Supported by impressive size of Russia’s E-commerce market 240bn rubles or 1.6% of the country’s GDP 9 and 82% of the 70 million Internet users in Russia having an account on at least one social network, spending 9.8 hours monthly online, twice the global average 10 makes it an emerging topic for the research. Despite the fact that online retail in 2012 only accounted for less than 2% of total Russian retail market, it has been showing sustainable growth of at least 25% a year as the market research has shown. 11 Russia has a rapidly developing Internet presence with Russian use of the Internet accounts accounting for a sizable percentage of use internationally. Internet use is steadily increasing in Russia with Russian language based web sites exploding and substantial percentage of population going online. While in Moscow and St. Petersburg Internet connectivity remains almost universal, this is not the case in the rest of the country. 12 Notably, around 50% of adult population belongs to the Internet users and 15% of those are shopping online regularly putting Russian consumers in the top 10 European countries, ahead of Italy with 13% and 25% respectively; and Greece with 10% and 27%. 13 This research focuses on Moscow and St. Petersburg due to their intense and rapid E-commerce development. As the research 14 indicates, Moscow and St. Petersburg remain the biggest consumer bases with approximately 15 million people with total of 9,123 million unique active Internet users who are able and willing to spend. 15 A. Specifics of Russian Fashion Market Once dominated by open-air markets and department stores, Russia’s online fashion market is now booming with few major online retailers dominating the market. 16 Despite its geographic proximity Russia’s fashion market differs a lot from its European counterparts. First of all, Russian fashion market is highly fragmented without strong leaders and some of the goods are only sold online and not offline. Secondly, Yandex’s garderob.yandex.ru 17 is highly significant with its

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__________________________________________________________________ specialiSed shopping comparison service enabling users to compare clothing items and footwear online thus making online trade pretty transparent across the retailers. Thirdly, price factor plays a great role, because shopping online is significantly cheaper, however, due to the mismatch of goods available online and offline in some areas the price advantage of e-retail is nearly invisible. Fourth, cash payments are still dominant, with only 20% of online shoppers paying by credit card, and 49% using online payment systems and the rest is paying with cash to the delivery person or at the post office. 18 Finally, typically, Russian customers will order several items and consider the delivery as a ‘try-at-home’ service, accepting only a few or even no items for final purchase. The ‘try-it’ attitude translates into the two needs for e-commerce companies in Russia: they should maintain a relatively higher level of physical inventory and they must be efficient in terms of processing rejected items. Furthermore, online penetration is lower in regions due to the lower income of regional Internet users, which also leads to lower average Internet experience in regions. Also, due to the country’s size delivery is of low quality, complex and expensive and regions still are not too much time averse. Moreover, Russian society is lacking viral effect. Finally, product offer from the online shops is limited in the regions, which also in its turn leads to lower share of online shoppers with lower average bill, exercising not diversified, very homogeneous in nature purchases. 2. Significance of Social Media for the Fashion Industry and Russian Social Media Landscape While there are few articles 19 that explain the specific structure of the fashion company’s communication strategies there are few that mention social media. 20 This knowledge gap could be explained by the fact that authoritative reading material on social media – as a broad subject – only has finally got published now since the interest towards social media is increasing. Being social creatures, having social interactions and belonging to social groups as well as listening to stories and sharing experience despite the distance, makes us gather into social networks to fulfill our needs. 21 Social media is a tool that improves society’s communication with the core value of interaction. It serves few critical corporate functions: public relations, marketing, customer services and marketing research. 22 Therefore it is primarily used and has a substantial impact within firms’ communications department. 23 Social media is not a passing trend – it is a radical shift in the communication model. 24 This research chapter deals with major social media channels present in the country. Apart from the Facebook and Twitter, Russian online media landscape is dominated by home grown social media networks – Odnoklassniki 25 with 148 26 million active users and over 30 million visits daily and Vkontakte.ru 27 with 231 28 million users.

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__________________________________________________________________ The next subsection of this chapter discusses three specific cases of Russian online fashion retailers employing social media. It first gives a brief overview of each retailer and than runs a comparison around social media platforms. Online fashion retailers were chosen to cover all the sub-segments of the target middle class group. Taking into account that two of the retailers were formed around the same time and all the spectrum diversity of sales, analysing those retailers will provide a clear picture of what the consumer-brand social media politics are. 3. Online Fashion Retailers and Their Use of Social Media For this research I have run a comparison of those three online shops across 4 platforms Facebook, Odnoklassniki, Vkontakte and Twitter. I have not touched upon YouTube since retailers purely post their TV ads on it and do not even have official channels. All of the information on platforms is summarised in the appendix. A. KupiVip: Sales Startup Riding the Middle Class Wave KupiVip – launched in 2008 is the first flash-sales site that contends for leadership in Russian e-commerce. It is a unique shopping club selling second season clothes with an impressive $300 million turnover a year. 29 It targets the socalled aspirational middle class consumers who want to buy branded Western goods but also look for a bargain better deal. It does up to 20 flash sales daily, selling impressive 1500 brands with up to 10000 new goods added daily. 30 Each sale event offers one brand for the duration of 1-3 days at ‘club prices’ 31 which are significantly lower than average retail. Coherent with its slogan ‘Shopping is an experience,’ KupiVip is definitely at the helm of luxury shopping in Russia. B. Trends-Brands: Your New Favourite Shop Trends-brands is not a classic online shop, it is bigger fashion project with market platform aimed at promoting young designers as well as powerful blog allowing this online retailer to be also a trend-setter. Putting up urban festivals, concerts, fashion weeks, special projects with photos of celebrities wearing the clothes offered, and clothes in the context of major places in Moscow and SaintPetersburg is the key for success of Trends – Brands. Once launched in June 2011 by Nastia Sartan, who was named the most successful young entrepreneur by Hopes & Fears magazine 32 in 2012, this shop quickly became the key platform for lower middle class hipsters. The underlying concept of stock formation is straightforward: clothes are selected from famous blogs worldwide and then sold to the mass audience in Russia. Trends-Brands is the only company selling Beyond Retro Brand 33 in Russia. Furthermore, in 2012, this retailer has launched its own brand, which aims to give consumers catwalk trends at affordable price level. On top of that it is the only retailer that is doing clothing auctions on its Facebook and Vkontakte pages.

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__________________________________________________________________ C. Sapato: All the Shoes in One Place Sapato is a niche market shop selling shoes and accessories online. With the turnover of $2,800,000 in 2011, it busted in 2012 with $1,300,000 in debt and was bought by Russia’s online giant Ozon, which brought its performance back to normal – an impressive case of building up a market leader in less than two years. 34 It is the only retailer in the whole country that allows 365 days return policy on unwanted good and has a customer support line open 24/7. 35 4. Social Media Channels Used by Online Fashion Retailers in Russia This section discusses the presence of the three online retailers on the four main social media platforms both Russian – Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte, as well as international Twitter and Facebook. A. Presence of Online Retailers on http://www.odnoklasniki.ru Being one of the biggest online platforms in Russia, Odnoklassniki, was, however, missed by the innovative Trends-Brands business. The underlying reason is that despite its substantial consumer base, it was not coherent with the company’s image. Among the two left – KupiVip and Sapato, the second one, taking in account the specific fashion market niche, is doing well on this platform with over 13,000 followers and having over 360 active topics that have been being discussed (see Table 1 for more details). 36 However, this activity could also be explained by that fact that Sapato’s page was created in 2010 as opposed to the late 2011 of KupiVip. However, Sapato’s activity on this specific platform is not consistent, posts appear only every 7-12 days, as opposed to KupiVip’s frequency of minimum two posts daily. B. Presence of Online Retailers on http://www.vkontakte.ru Sapato is undoubtedly leading the dominant social media platform with 44,321 followers in June 2013. 37 To sustain this significantly large consumer base, company has over 50 albums showing the shoes selection being on sale as well as posting highly diversified content up to seven times a day. Despite the fact of having only around 16000 followers, Trends – Brands has engaged in the new wave of social media communication model and is experiencing an active C2C conversation stream, which once again shows the blog and newsmaker oriented nature of the project. It also uses Vkontakte as a platform to have clothing auctions, which in its turn has a high response rate with the customers. KupiVip is following both B2C ad C2C streams and is also very active with posting highly diversified content up to 5 times daily. Notably, both KupiVip and Trends-Brands both have active C2C communication stream, which is common on Vkontakte.

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__________________________________________________________________ C. Presence of Online Retailers on http://www.facebook.com Trends-Brands has engaged in slightly different politics on its Facebook page. They did a pre-campaign on Facebook six months before their initial launch, which allowed them to get the buzz going about the project leading to a substantial follower base. In the present moment, their Facebook page has over 20,000 likes with a diversified content of posts. However, audiences do not engage much with what the brand is posting on its timeline, and rather use this as a way to purely ask brand stock-related questions. However, this page is also used to run auctions to sell the vintage clothing items. KupiVip should be proud of their page because their followers interact actively one with another. However, taking in account the fact that their Facebook page was launched in 2008, there are not too many followers, only 5,875 people as of June 2013 (see Table 3 for more details). This, however, could also be explained by the fact that Facebook is not the dominant platform for B2C communication in Russia. Sapato on the contrary is actively using Facebook posting on its page up to 10 times daily and reaching over 11,000 subscribers. Moreover, Sapato is offering style advice and has an extensive video range showing how brand is connected with its consumers. D. Presence of Online Retailers on http://www.twitter.com Twitter is only in its development phase in Russia, making local retailers still hesitant to use it (see Table 4 for the statistics). However, Sapato with nearly equal amount of followers and following people, 4,225 as opposed to 4,233, is again at the helm of the channel. Its posts are highly diversified and range from new stock arrivals to general fashion advice. Trends-Brands, despite the fact of trying to be a prominent online retailer, has very simple role of using Twitter as an advertising channel rather than a company actively engaging in conversation with consumers on this media. However, Trends-Brands has smart politics of interlinking its social media channels and also having links back to the main company’s website thus allowing customers to follow the brand in the most convenient way. Despite KupiVip tweeting actively, it has very low amount of 82 followers. It’s tweets concern purely new stock arrivals and follow the old-fashion B2C communication mode. 5. Conclusion and Summary Russia presents a potentially lucrative ecommerce market opportunity for foreign companies. At the same time, it has numerous challenges due to its distinct language, consumer behavior, media properties and sheer size. Although growing from a rather small base – online sales made up 1.9% of total retail sales in 2012 – recent projections from the brokerage Morgan Stanley 38 estimate that this figure will rise to 4.5% by 2015, yielding an average annual

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__________________________________________________________________ growth rate of 35% and a market size of $36 billion. As a result, the Russian ecommerce market is increasingly on the radar screen. Having conducted an overview of three retailers, it could be said that all three brands’ communication is not purely focused on stock promotion, but is rather based on style-related tips and product information, together with more generic contents, such as horoscopes, and contests and quizzes of various kinds – from the ones giving rewards and discounts to simpler ones, related to pop-culture and celebrities. The activity on Vkontakte.ru is the most intense, both in the content creation and in the interaction with the community, with an intensive monitoring of the consumer responses. However, Facebook is also gaining momentum with online retailers expanding on its use.

Notes 1

BRIC stands for Brasil, Russia, India, China. Alex Sukharevsky and Karl-Hendrik Magnus, ‘Dress for Success: Cracking Russia’s Apparel Market, Consumer and Shopper Insights’, accessed 1 September 2013 (McKinsey, November 2011). http://csi.mckinsey.com/knowledge_by_region/europe_africa_middle_east/crackin g_russian_apparel_market. 3 Emmanuelle Roman and Dmitry Khalilov, ‘Making it Work in Russia. Local Perspectives on the Consumer Products Sector’ (Ernst & Young, 2011), accessed 1 May 2013, http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Making_it_work_in_Russia_-_2011/ $FILE/Making%20it%20work%20in%20Russia%20-%202011.pdf. 4 Ibid. See both 2nd and 3rd endnotes. 5 Agnes Reiter, ‘Russia Is Ahead of EU in Terms of Fashion Consumption’ (RBC, 5 July 2007), accessed 1 September 2013, http://www.emecon.eu/current-issue/22012/reiter/. 6 See for example Olesia Kravchenko and Pavel Starobin, ‘Russia’s Middle Class’, Business Week or Tatiana Maleva, Srednye Klassy Rossii: Ekonomicheskie i Socialnye Strategii (Carnegie Centre Moscow, 2003), 16-17. 7 comScore, ‘MMX, Demographic Profile, Russia 15+ January 2012. Russia Online’ (Moscow Fashion HUBFORUM: April 2013). 8 Data Insight, ‘FCG, Public Opinion FoundaPo’ (Insales, 2012). 9 Ibid. 10 comScore, ‘MMX, Demographic Profile, Russia 15+ January 2012. Russia Online’ (Moscow Fashion HUBFORUM: April 2013). 11 Data Insight, ‘FCG, Public Opinion FoundaPo’ (Insales, 2012). 12 Daniel, Peleschuk, ‘Old Habits Die Hard Two Nations, One Vision, Russia’s Profile: Unwrapping the Mystery Inside the Enigma’ (Fall 2012), accessed 1 2

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__________________________________________________________________ September 2013, http://russiaprofile.org/culture_living/50977.html. 13 Ibid. 14 Based on Emmanuelle Roman and Dmitry Khalilov, ‘Making it Work in Russia. Local Perspectives on the Consumer Products Sector’ (Ernst & Young, 2011). Check also ComScore, ‘MMX, Demographic Profile, Russia 15+ January 2012. Russia Online’ (Moscow Fashion HUBFORUM: April 2013). 15 Robert Wagner, ‘Contemporary Marketing Practices in Russia’, European Journal of Marketing 39, No. 1 (2005): 199-215. 16 Alex Sukharevsky and Karl-Hendrik Magnus, ‘Dress for Success: Cracking Russia’s Apparel Market, Consumer and Shopper Insights’ (McKinsey, November 2011). Also mentioned in Scott Devitt, ‘Russian E-Commerce’ (Morgan Stanley (6 January 2013), accessed 1 September 2013 (McKinsey, November 2011). http://csi.mckinsey.com/knowledge_by_region/europe_africa_middle_east/crackin g_russian_apparel_market. 17 Yandex is the biggest search engine in Russia and CIS, alternative to Google. 18 Inna Zinina, ‘Finding the Future Online, E-commerce Trends in Russia’ (PwC, 2011), accessed 1 September 2013, http://www.pwc.ru/en_RU/ru/retail-consumer/assets/Finding-the_future-online-formailing-eng.pdf. 19 See various sources Tom Clark, ‘Strategy Viewed from a Management Fashion Perspective’, European Management Review 1, No. 1 (2004): 105-111; Benedict Frey and Stefan Rudloff, Social Media and the Impact on Marketing Communication (Helsinki: Luleå University of Technology, 2010); Angella-J Kim and Eunju Ko, ‘Impacts of Luxury Fashion Brand’s Social Media Marketing on Customer Relationship and Purchase Intention’, Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1, No. 3 (2010): 164-171. See also Hema Yoganarasimhan, ‘Cloak or Flaunt? The Fashion Dilemma’, Marketing Science 31, No. 1 (2012): 74-95. 20 See, for example, Kim and Ko, ‘Impacts of Luxury’; Hann Kontu and Alessandra Vecchi, ‘Social Media and Their Use in Fashion Retail: Some Illustrative Evidence from Luxury Firms’, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Luxury Retail, Operations and Supply Chain Management. (Polytechnic of Milan, 4-5 December 2011). 21 Oliver Blanchard, Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (Indianapolis, USA: Que Publishing, 2011). 22 Ibid. 23 Christina Berlendi, The Role of Social Media within the Fashion and Luxury Industries, Depicting Social Media Role within the Peculiar Communication Strategy Carried by a Fashion or Luxury Company (UK: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011).

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W. Glynn Mangold and David Faulds, ‘Social Media: The New Hybrid Element of the Promotion Mix’, Business Horizons 52, No. 4 (2009): 357-365. 25 Odnoklassniki.ru is based upon classmates.com user interface. 26 East-West Business News, Social Network Odnoklassniki.ru Reaches 130 Million Accounts, accessed 12 July 2013, http://www.ewdn.com/2012/06/21/social-network-odnoklassniki-ru-reaches-130million-accounts/. 27 Vkontakte.ru is based upon Facebook user interface. 28 Vkontakte.ru has life information on the amount of actual users, accessed 1 September 2013, http://vk.com/catalog.php. 29 Allen Kent, ‘Investing in International e-Commerce? Russia Bears Watching’, accessed 24 October 2013, http://www.commercecrossingborders.com/2011/04/investing-in-international-ecommerce-russia-bears-watching.html. 30 Company information could be found on their website under the ‘About us’ section, accessed 1 November 2013, http://www.kupivip.ru/about. 31 Ibid. 32 Natalie Osipova, ‘Top 25 Most Successful Young Russian Entrepreneurs’, Hopes & Fears Magazine (2012), accessed 2 October 2013, http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopesandfears/entrepreneurs/hf/117950-reyting-sa myh-uspeshnyh-predprinimateley-rossii. 33 Trends-Brands buyers search the world for once-off unique vintage pieces and then sell them online, normally based on an auction. 34 Reuters, Ozon.ru Buys Russian Online Retailer Sapato.ru (2012), accessed 12 September 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/15/ozonru-sapatoru-idUSL5E8DF20X201 20215. 35 All the company information could be found on their About us page, accessed 1 November 2013, http://about.sapato.ru/history/. 36 All the data for the activities of respective retailers on Social Media channels is summarised in the Appendix. It all is valid as of the 1 September 2013. 37 Fan page of Sapato.ru on vkontakte.ru, https://vk.com/shoeslovers. 38 Morgan Stanley, Russian E-Commerce (2013), accessed 6 January 2013, http://www.slideshare.net/YandexBusDev/ecommerce- jan2013#btnPrevious.

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Bibliography Berlendi, Christina. The Role of Social Media within the Fashion and Luxury Industries, Depicting Social Media Role within the Peculiar Communication Strategy Carried by a Fashion or Luxury Company. London: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011. Blanchard, Oliver. Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. Indiana: Que Publishing, 2011. Clark, Tom. ‘Strategy Viewed From a Management Fashion Perspective’. European Management Review1, No. 1 (Spring 2004): 105–111. comScore. ‘MMX, Demographic Profile, Russia 15+ January 2012’. Russia Online.’ Moscow Fashion HUBFORUM, April 2013. Data Insight. ‘FCG, Public Opinion FoundaPo’. Insales, 2012. East-West Business News, ‘Social Network Odnoklassniki.ru Reaches 130 Million Accounts’. Accessed 12 July 2013. http://www.ewdn.com/2012/06/21/social-network-odnoklassniki-ru-reaches-130million-accounts/. Ernst & Young. ‘What Is Russia’s Middle Class? Making It Work in Russia. Middle Class Consumer Profile’, 2009. Accessed 28 of July 2013. http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Industries/Consumer-Products/Making-it-work-in-Rus sia---Middle-class-consumer-profile. Frey, Benedict, and Stefan Rudloff. Social Media and the Impact on Marketing Communication. Helsinki: Luleå University of Technology, 2010. Kent, Allen ‘Investing in International e-Commerce? Russia Bears Watching’. April 2011. Accessed 24 October 2013. http://www.commercecrossingborders.com/2011/04/investing-in-international-e-co mmerce-russia-bears-watching.html. Kim, Angella J., and Eunju Ko. ‘Impacts of Luxury Fashion Brand’s Social Media: Marketing on Customer Relationship and Purchase Intention’. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 1, No. 3 (2010): 164–171.

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__________________________________________________________________ Kontu, Hanna, and Alessandra Vecchi. ‘Social Media and Their Use in Fashion Retail – Some Illustrative Evidence from Luxury Firms’. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Luxury Retail, Operations and Supply Chain Management. Polytechnic of Milan, 4-5 December 2011. Kovalchuk, Vladislav. Russia, Onwards and Upwards: Strong Consumption Growth Continues, Russia Research. BNP Paribas Report, 2011. Accessed 10 May 2013. http://www.tkb-bnpparibasip.info/i_eng/msg_i/83/p1105049_russia_strongconsum ptiongrowth_en.pdf. Kravchenko, Olesia, and Pavel Starobin. ‘Russia’s Middle Class’. Business Week, 16 October 2000. Osipova, Natalia. ‘Top 25 Most Successful Young Russian Entrepreneurs’. Hopes & Fears Magazine. 22 November 2012. Accessed 20 October 2013. http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopesandfears/entrepreneurs/hf/117950-reyting-sa myh-uspeshnyh-predprinimateley-rossii. Maleva, Tatiana. The Russian Middle Class: Economic and Social Strategies. Carnegie Centre Moscow, 2003. Mangold, W. Glynn, and David Faulds. ‘Social Media: The New Hybrid Element of the Promotion Mix’. Business Horizons 52, No. 4 (2009): 357–365. Peleschuk, Daniel. ‘Old Habits Die Hard Two Nations, One Vision,’ Russia’s Profile: Unwrapping the Mystery Inside the Enigma (2012). Accessed 21 January 2013. http://russiaprofile.org/media/file/78/19778.pdf. Reuters. Ozon.ru Buys Russian Online Retailer Sapato.ru. 2012. Accessed 12 September 2013. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/15/ozonru-sapatoru-idUSL5E8DF20X201 20215. Reiter, Agnes. ‘Russia Is Ahead of EU in Terms of Fashion Consumption’. RBC, 5 July 2007. Accessed 12 December 2012. http://top.rbc.ru/retail/05/07/2007/108427.shtml.

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__________________________________________________________________ Roman, Emmanuelle, and Dmitry Khalilov. ‘Making It Work in Russia. Local Perspectives on the Consumer Products Sector’. Ernst & Young, 2011. Accessed 1 May 2013. http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Making_it_work_in_Russia_-_2011/ $FILE/Making%20it%20work%20in%20Russia%20-%202011.pdf. Stanley, Morgan. Russian E-Commerce. Accessed 6 January 2013. http://www.slideshare.net/YandexBusDev/ecommerce- jan2013#btnPrevious. Sukharevsky, Alex, and Karl-Hendrik Magnus. ‘Dress for Success: Cracking Russia’s Apparel Market, Consumer and Shopper Insights’. McKinsey, November 2011. Accessed 12 April 2013. http://csi.mckinsey.com/Knowledge_by_region/Europe_Africa_Middle_East/Crac kin g_R ussian_apparel_market. Wagner, Richter. ‘Contemporary Marketing Practices in Russia’. European Journal of Marketing 39, No. 1 (2005): 199–215. Yoganarasimhan, Hema. ‘Cloak or Flaunt? The Fashion Dilemma’. Marketing Science 31, No. 1 (2012): 74–95. Zinina, Inna. ‘Finding the Future Online, E-commerce Trends in Russia’. PwC, 2011. Evgenia Tarasova is full-time PhD researcher at London College of Fashion, UK. Her research project focuses on studying social media channels employed by online fashion retailers in Russia. Her major research interest lies in the area of changes in consumer behaviour within the post-Soviet space from offline markets to online spaces and use of social media channels by fashion industry as a method to raise brand awareness as well as sales.

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Appendix Data as of 1st September 2013. Table 1: Social Media Activities: Analysing Odnoklassniki.ru Profiles

Table 2: Social Media Activities: Analysing Vkontakte.ru Profiles

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__________________________________________________________________ Table 3: Social Media Activities: Analysing Facebook Profiles

Table 4: Social Media Activities: Analysing Twitter Profiles

‘The Best Way I Knew – Through Fashion’: On Personal Style Bloggers and Self-Expression Rosie Findlay Abstract The connection between personal style and self-expression has emerged as a foundational concept in early studies of personal style blogging, as consistent with the field of fashion theory in general. Yet the kinds of expression facilitated by blogs and the implications of this for style bloggers themselves has yet to be examined. The selves performed on the spaces of blogs are not only articulated through dress, but also through its documentation; selves that flow outwards in an ongoing narrative towards a readership as well as inwards as bloggers creatively think through who they feel themselves to be and how they wish to be seen. The dressed and blogged self, then, becomes a self in dialogue, a self-taking shape through performance on the exploratory space of a personal style blog. Starting from a Butlerian conception of performativity, this discussion will explore the possibilities of self-expression on style blogs, focusing in particular on the complex relationship between style bloggers, their blogged selves (or ‘blogging personae’) and their readers. The online performance of selfhood of British blogger Rosalind Jana will be constitute the central case study, demonstrating as it does the creative, intimate and alternative performances of self made possible by blogging. Jana is a blogger who employed styling and photographic angles to conceal and then reveal her severe scoliosis to her readers, later writing in a reflective blogpost that she revealed her condition in ‘the best way I knew – through fashion.’ The role that clothing played as a means through which Jana could both share her scoliosis and ensuing emergency surgery – and engage with it herself – and the response that this blogged revelation evoked from her readers demonstrates the possibilities of style blogging to represent and explore selfhood in ways precluded by offline life. Key Words: Style blogging, identity, self-expression, performativity, dress, Judith Butler, Rosalind Jana. ***** 1. Introduction Personal style blogs are sites of the performance of self for their bloggers, who enact their identity through the display and discussion of their personal style for a reading public. Yet the creative and discursive possibilities inherent in this subgenre of the fashion blogosphere have not yet been adequately explored in the growing field of literature on style blogs, despite the alternative perspectives they provide on the communicative qualities of dress. This will constitute the focus of this article, as I argue that dress is performative, a means of self-knowing and of

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__________________________________________________________________ self-creation. I will demonstrate both how this process is evident on the style blogosphere and how style blogs as a medium facilitate different kinds of ‘speaking’ through dress. Furthermore, I will engage with the oft-argued assertion that dress is self-expressive, reconceptualising what this can look like in practice, namely on the style blogosphere. This phenomenon will be discussed through a case study of one blogger in particular, Rosalind Jana. Not all bloggers are as articulate as Rosalind, nor do many share the extremity of her experience, yet she is indicative of the manner in which selfhood, dress and self-reflexivity are enmeshed and performed on the style blogosphere. Personal style blogs are a sub-genre of fashion weblogs, an online platform for the regular publication (‘posting’) of written and visual texts, most often created and maintained by an individual working outside of the fashion media (‘bloggers’). Personal blogs are characterised by bloggers’ use of an informal and conversational tone and their individualised, ‘first-person perspective’ content. The defining feature of this sub-genre is ‘outfit posting,’ in which bloggers style, photograph and upload images of their own dressed selves in a range of poses. 1 These may comprise of an outfit worn that day or one donned specifically for display on the blog. As the sole publisher of their blogs, bloggers enjoy the liberty of writing particular aspects of their selves into visibility and concealing others, an editorial choice customarily framed by their blog’s focus on the nexus between fashion and their own lived experience. This allows for discussions of the personal, the embodied – or the ‘private’ – an aspect of fashion rarely discussed in the mainstream fashion media. As Rocamora and Bartlett argue, fashion blogs represent a space for ‘commonplace’ conversations: ‘[they have] introduced a new type of information into fashion discourse, one nourished by the ordinary experiences and personal viewpoints of their authors.’ 2 Style blogging, then, is space for the public thinking through of the subjective significance of fashion and style. As content is situated within the realm of the personal, it also allows for a public thinking through of self, an exploration of aspects of experience that might not find articulation in other spheres of bloggers’ lives. Particularly notable is the way that these two themes converge: this ‘thinking through’ on a style blog is framed by the lens of a blogger’s personal style. Here, style blogs operate as a reflexive space: not just a platform for the performance of a styled self but also of a self in the process of being understood through style. 2. Rosalind and Her ‘Scoliodress’ On 17 October 2010, fifteen-year-old Rosalind Jana posted on Clothes, Cameras and Coffee, the style blog she has kept since June 2009. Rosalind posts an average of two or three times a week, yet she described clicking the ‘publish post’ button in this particular instance as ‘nerve-wracking.’ 3 Even a cursory glance at the blogpost, ‘Twisted Embrace,’ reveals why she may have felt this way. At the

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__________________________________________________________________ centre of the post’s first image is Rosalind herself; although in this instance, she wears not one of her vintage frocks but a short black dress from a charity shop that she has modified, and she is crouched down, a ball of girl facing away from the lens, so that at the centre of the shot is her back. And her back is precisely where the eye alights. Her spine is mapped out by a row of silk patches in the shape of vertebrae that are stitched in a sinuous line down the dress. Yet instead of flowing straight and strong down the centre of her back, this spine curves out towards her right side in a gentle parabola. Yet it is not until you scroll down another two images that you see the significance of Rosalind’s alteration to her dress. In the third photograph of the post, she stands tall in the sunlight, perpendicular to the even line of the horizon. We can now see that the central section of her back juts out on her right side, traced by the curve of her stitched spine, as if that portion of her body has been firmly pushed out of alignment to mimic a question mark.

Image 1: An image from ‘Twisted Embrace: In homage to the late Alexander McQueen.’ © 2013. Image courtesy of Rosalind Jana.

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__________________________________________________________________ Each image in this outfit post is carefully framed so that the warped curve of Rosalind’s spine is always the focal point, surrounded by the organic lines of her environs. The series of six images has a cumulative effect of normalising the unusual shape of her back until I notice, on a closer look, that although the central seam of the dress starts between her shoulder-blades, instead of running straight down as such a seam would customarily do, it twists diagonally down her back, ending in a placket over the far side of her left thigh. I became aware at that moment of how the muscle and bone of her back were pulling in two directions, her body demanding more room than the straight tunic was able to give.

Image 2: Another image from ‘Twisted Embrace: In homage to the late Alexander McQueen.’ © 2013. Image courtesy of Rosalind Jana.

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__________________________________________________________________ In the accompanying prose, Rosalind explains what has occurred. At the end of 2009, she discovered that she had scoliosis, a condition in which the spine twists out of alignment due to uneven growth spurts as one side grows faster than the other. What was not a particularly serious condition to begin with worsened as Rosalind kept growing. As her ribs and shoulder blades became further distorted, she began experiencing intense aches and discomfort, and by the time her spine had twisted 80 degrees to the right, she ran the risk of suffering internal damage to her organs if she did not undergo emergency surgical correction. It was this eventuality that led her to write a post about her back and to create what she called the ‘scoliodress.’ 4 This post marked the first time Rosalind had ever made mention of her scoliosis on her blog, and despite the fact that she had regularly uploaded photographs of herself posing in her clothes, there had never appeared to be anything out of the ordinary about her back. In the post itself, she wrote that she had actively tried to ‘conceal the more obvious mis-shapes with careful clothing, wide belts, my long hair and good camera angles.’ 5 In a subsequent interview, she elaborated on this, saying that for many months she was ‘in denial’ about what was happening to her body, to some extent, if I had talked about it on my blog then it would have felt much more real to me and at that point I didn’t want it to be real […] in some ways [it] was me actually being able to be the Roz who still had a really straight back and just enjoyed fashion and was really enjoying blogging and meeting new people and interacting with them. 6 Taking shape on her blog prior to this post, then, was an alternative Rosalind, as attested by her own words written in a personal essay for Vogue UK two years later: ‘I draped and layered myself into an illusion of straightness.’ 7 Emerging here is a complex performance of self, facilitated both by the presentational possibilities of a blog and the embodied practice of dressing. In dressing into an illusion of straightness, Rosalind employed her clothing and photographs to overwrite her embodied self with a particular dressed self, the kind so often portrayed in mainstream fashion imagery: that of the healthy, slender individual engaging in the world from the threshold of her style. Yet what the scoliodress spoke into being in the space of her blog was an alternative Rosalind, one more closely aligned (as she saw it) with ‘the real’ by which she meant her offline self. 8 I hesitate to employ the term ‘real’ to distinguish between what occurs offline and online: that the online is somehow less real for its occurrence on a digital realm. Rosalind’s prior dressed self on her blog, while illusory in that it concealed her scoliosis from her readers, was also ‘real’ – it was Rosalind herself dressing

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__________________________________________________________________ and photographing herself in particular poses and editing her photos to conceal the shape of her back. This was the Rosalind who her readers were encountering on her blog. It was real in another way as this illusory blogged self-enabled Rosalind to distance herself from dealing with her worsening condition. In her article for Vogue UK, she wrote that: I was determined to hide it, not only from my friends, peers and increasingly my model agency, but also from myself. I tried to shape it into something separate from me, hidden out of sight [...] more than wanting it better, I wanted it swept out of existence, as though it had never happened. I was irritated at any mention of my back, feeling simultaneously responsible for–and completely removed from– my condition. 9 3. Style Blogs as Performative, Reflexive Spaces Evident here is the way that style blogs are a tool in the process of self-knowing and the exploration of possible selves. In fact, these two aspects of style blogging – the explorations of self and of personal style – are often intertwined, due to the manner in which the self is primarily performed through style on these blogs, a process shaped and facilitated by clothing. Style blogs, then, are a locus at which concepts of dress and self, identity and performativity converge. There is an overlap between style blogs and clothing here: both implicated in subjectivity, both operating with simultaneity towards the eyes of those that surround as well as inwards as the subject engages with the doing – the wearing, the blogging – and is constituted as a subject in that moment. However, interestingly, often this complex, ambiguous reflexive process is reduced to definite statements of fact: style bloggers might claim that their style is a ‘self-expression,’ as if they have a stable, interior, prior self that is not only identifiable but easily rendered material through their clothing. 10 This is an argument about the dress that has long been argued in academic work on fashion by writers from various disciplines from sociology to subcultural theory, who have sought to explain the significance of clothing in human society; that is, that clothing speaks a wearer’s social identity (as wealthy, aspiring, fashionable, punk, and so on), the clothing itself imbued with social codes that are overlaid onto the wearer as indicative of their identity and that are readable by those who encounter them. 11 The communicative quality of clothing here is unidirectional, monologic, emanating out from a dressed self towards society. When read this way, fashion and dress can be seen to distinguish groups of people from one another and provide a language by which clothing can be talked about as doing something: not just operating as a material covering, but also as a symbolic and communicative overlay. Yet, as Joanne Entwistle observed, there is also a homogenising quality about this perspective: the intentions and individual

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__________________________________________________________________ selfhood of the person underneath the clothes obscured by the fixed meanings apparently encoded in their garments. The prevailing dynamic is of an individual framed in relation to what is external from them: their peers, the expectation of their society, and the fashion system of sartorial products that carry signification that people, by donning them, might embody. This is evident in Fred Davis’ assertion that dress is ‘a kind of visual metaphor for identity.’ 12 Yet how this ‘identity’ is actually enacted in the lives and embodied practice of being dressed is rarely discussed. While this research is valuable in articulating the negotiation of personal taste and social expectation that individuals engage in within their society, it does not adequately address all of the ways in which dress is communicative. Not only do these approaches not speak to the experience of being dressed itself – between clothing and skin – they also characterise dress as an external symbol of an already formed identity, not part of the process of its ongoing formation; they concentrate on the execution rather than the creative discovery inherent in dressing. However, as Susan Kaiser suggests (after Ossi Naukkarinen), how people dress daily and make sense of their appearances is more elastic and integrative than traditional philosophy can address, that ‘for some individuals style becomes a critical and creative strategy for negotiating new truths and subjectivities […] a vehicle not only for being, but also for becoming.’ 13 Style blogs are a site at which this process of creative discovery both occurs and is discussed. With their writable and visual capacities, they are a space upon which styled identities are shaped and where bloggers are able to reflexively engage with the affective qualities of dress. This affectivity occurs between a wearer’s corporeal self and their clothing, a vital aspect of dressing and a fundamentally embodied one that is surprisingly under-theorised in studies on fashion and identity. 4. Dressing Identity into Being To push this idea further, then: the expressive and identificatory qualities of dress do not just emanate out towards society: they also emanate inwards to the person wearing the clothes, reflexively communicating to them about their identity and being in the world. Perhaps this is discussed on the style blogosphere because it is a space that requires bloggers to articulate and perform themselves towards their readers, leading to a consideration of personal experience. Fashion here is not just the representation of a prior knowledge of one’s identity, then, but also the process of that identity coming to be known, both for readers and for bloggers themselves. ‘Identity’ as I here employ the concept is founded on Judith Butler’s work on performativity, in which she argues that our gendered identity is an aspect of ourselves that constantly comes to be through the ‘repetition of stylised acts,’ taking shape in the iterative moment of being performed. 14 This is a process that is informed by societal expectation of gender normativity but also mutable,

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__________________________________________________________________ negotiated by individuals as they transgress or reinterpret gender through their own performative behaviour. As she argues, one’s gender – and more broadly, one’s identity – is thus not prior, innate or fixed, but a phenomenon that is constituted by a sustained repetition of behavioural acts. Likewise, our dressed identity, or our ‘personal style,’ is ever becoming through the intimate and everyday process of donning certain clothing, and as a corollary, in performing that dressed self for a reading public through outfit posts. Identity is therefore a process, which problematises the connotations of unidirectional communication implied by the statement that ‘dress is a self-expression.’ Yet more intriguing is to consider the ways in which our dress can be a part of the process of self-knowing, an articulation of what would otherwise be inarticulable. This is a complex, embodied interrelation between an individual’s self and the clothes that they wear, a performative process evident throughout the style blogosphere. An example of this is a post published by British blogger Susie Bubble in 2007, in which she described that her style was a means of speaking back to her own perceived ugliness, [i]n some ways, I think [my love of fashion] might have helped me escape into a world where I could fool myself into thinking that as long as I clothed myself in beauty [...] what my face looked like might not matter so much [...] I’m deeply passionate and act on whimsy and desire with my style yet probably the one thing holding me back is my ability to be 100% comfortable in my own skin. To illustrate, whilst I have no shame about photographing my outfits in all their various mishapen (sic) stages and developments, the camera stays firmly over my face. It’s an open invite to view my love of fashion and how I express that in my style but I’m also saying “Look at the outfit.... not the face....” 15 For Susie, like Rosalind, clothing was a means of creating an illusory self to conceal her discomfort with her embodied self. Here we see Susie in dialogue with her clothes, as she dresses with passion and whimsy and yet is ‘held back’ by her inability to feel comfortable in her own skin. Her eclectic style then helps her feel more beautiful while also standing in contrast to what she sees as not beautiful − her face. Clothing here acts as the intermediary between Susie as she feels herself to be and Susie as she wants to be, the tension between these two states played out at the surface of her skin. Furthermore, as with Rosalind, Susie’s blog acts as the space for the articulation – and the thinking through – of this dynamic. These kinds of intimate discussions of personal experience, particularly in regard to clothing and feelings

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__________________________________________________________________ about themselves, is made possible by the unwritten spaces of blogs, which offer bloggers, the majority of whom are girls and young women, a means of speaking publicly about their lived experience. To return to a consideration of Rosalind, making the scoliodress enabled her to think through her scoliosis and reconcile her towards her operation. She later wrote that when she was told that she would have to undergo surgery, ‘aside from all the obvious questions − such as, “How much pain will I be in?” − I wondered how I would introduce the issue on my blog, as it was now unavoidable. In the end, I did it in the best way I knew− through fashion.’ 16 The dress literally rendered Rosalind’s scoliosis visible, metaphorically turning her embodied self inside out to display her difference. Entwistle’s assertion that clothing can become like a second skin is pushed further by this example, in which the distinction between clothing and embodied self blurs as the dress operates as exoskeleton, rewriting Rosalind’s embodied self into fabric while being the means by which she is able to identify and articulate her situation for her readership. 17 Moreover, for Rosalind, this particular moment of dressing–and appearing dressed for her readers – was, in her words, ‘cathartic,’ as she − again, in her own words − ‘express[ed] it in a way that felt real for [her].’ 18 Clothing, then, was the interface at which Rosalind could engage with her scoliosis, holding it at a distance before aligning it with her self-perception in a way that she was comfortable with. Here we see dress not just a means of aesthetically performing an identity, but as the means through which that identity is experienced. Dress, then, is implicit in the process of becoming, a complex, embodied interrelation between an individual’s embodied self, the clothes that they wear and their articulation of narratives of self. 5. Conclusion The interplay between blogger and style demonstrates that there is a more complex dynamic at work on style blogs and in dressing than simply ‘selfexpression.’ Rather, blogs make available a space for different discussions about fashion and style, ones that are firmly emplaced within the personal experience of a blogger and, as such, often reflect the process by which bloggers engage with themselves through fashion and style. As I have argued, this process is performative, an ongoing dialogue between fabric and sentient self as bloggers explore ways of being in the world in ways that feel necessary and true to them through the threshold of their dress.

Notes 1

See Agnès Rocamora and Djurdja Bartlett, ‘Fashion Blogs: New Spaces in Fashion Discourse’, Sociétés 104, No. 2 (2009): 105-114; Rosie Findlay, ‘At One

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__________________________________________________________________ Remove from Reality: Style Bloggers and Outfit Posts’, The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 1, No. 2 (2011): 195-206. 2 Rocamora and Bartlett, ‘Fashion Blogs: New Spaces’, 108. 3 Rosalind Jana, in interview with the author, 2011. 4 Rosalind Jana, ‘Twisted Embrace – In homage to the late Alexander McQueen’, on Clothes, Cameras and Coffee, last modified on 17 October 2010, accessed 1 July 2013, http://www.clothescamerasandcoffee.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/twistedembrace-in-homage-to-late.html. 5 Jana, ‘Twisted Embrace’, 2010. 6 Jana, interview with author, 2011. 7 Rosalind Jana, ‘Twist of Fate’, Vogue UK, March 2013, 222. 8 Jana, interview with author, 2011. 9 Jana, ‘Twist of Fate’, 222. 10 For examples of this, see Susie Bubble, ‘Frequently Asked Questions’, Style Bubble, accessed 25 September 2013, http://www.stylebubble.co.uk/ style_bubble/faq.html; Amy Peachy, ‘Fashion: My Form of Self Expression’, Peachy Life, Fashion Inspirations, last modified 3 January 2013, accessed 25 September 2013, http://peachylifefashion.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/fashion-myform-of-self-expression/; Eva Domijan, ‘Something Is Rotten in the State of Fashion Blogging’, Dressful, last modified 6 June 2013, accessed 25 September 2013, http://www.dressful.com/8735/something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-fashion-bl ogging; Jaslin Tan, blogger profile caption, Just Jaslin, accessed 25 September 2013, http://www.justjaslin.com/. 11 See Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wilson, Introduction to Body Dressing (2001) for an excellent overview of the different theoretical approaches in this vein – namely, by Veblen, Simmel, Barthes and subcultural theorists such as Hebdige and Hall. 12 Fred Davis, Fashion, Culture, and Identity (London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 25. 13 Susan Kaiser, ‘Minding Appearances: Style, Truth and Subjectivity’, in Body Dressing (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 83. 14 See Judith Butler, ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal 40, No. 4 (1988): 519-531. 15 Susie Bubble, ‘Look At Me, Don’t Look At Me’, Style Bubble, last modified 14 August 2007, accessed 1 July 2013, http://www.stylebubble.co.uk/style_bubble/2007/08/look-at-me-dont.html. 16 Rosalind Jana, ‘Blogging Against Adversity’, Independent Fashion Bloggers, last modified 27 April 2011, accessed 1 July 2013, http://heartifb.com/2011/04/27/blogging-against-adversity/.

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__________________________________________________________________ 17

See Joanne Entwistle, ‘Fashion and the Fleshy Body: Dress as Embodied Practice’, Fashion Theory 4, No. 3 (2000): 334. 18 Jana, interview with author, 2011.

Bibliography Butler, Judith. ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’. Theatre Journal 40, No. 4 (1988): 519– 531. Davis, Fred. Fashion, Culture and Identity. London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Entwistle, Joanne. ‘Fashion and the Fleshy Body: Dress as Embodied Practice’. Fashion Theory 4, No. 3 (2000): 323–348. Entwistle, Joanne, and Elizabeth Wilson. Introduction to Body Dressing, edited by Joanne Entwistle, and Elizabeth Wilson, 1–9. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Findlay, Rosie. ‘At One Remove from Reality: Style Bloggers and Outfit Posts’. The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 1, No. 2 (2011): 195–206. Jana, Rosalind. ‘Twist of Fate’. Vogue UK, March, 2010. Kaiser, Susan. ‘Minding Appearances: Style, Truth and Subjectivity’. In Body Dressing, edited by Joanne Entwistle, and Elizabeth Wilson, 79–102. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Rocamora, Agnès, and Djurdja Bartlett. ‘Fashion Blogs: New Spaces in Fashion Discourse’. Sociétés 104, No. 2 (2009): 105–114. Rosie Findlay is researching personal style blogging for her PhD at the University of Sydney. The focus of her work is what the practice means for bloggers and their readers, and its implications on wider theories of readership, publics, performativity, identity and fashion communication. She has been published in The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture and Fashion Theory and blogs at fashademic.blogspot.com. ([email protected]).

Fashion Communication in Asia: Participant Observation and Qualitative Interview with Media Personnel at MILK X Monthly Tommy Ho-lun TSE Abstract The presentation, extracted from the author’s doctoral research named ‘This Is Not an LV Bag – The Simulacra of Fashion in and beyond the Media Business in Hong Kong and Mainland China,’ investigates how global fashion brands and Hong Kong print media appropriate and negotiate the meaning of ‘fashion’ and its vicissitudes in and through the process of marketing communication in the local context. The researcher played the role of participant observer in the editorial team of high fashion magazine MILK X Monthly (2011). Through the process, the author partook in the realistic work environment and daily routines, and examined the interactions of fashion media workers; befriended and dialogued with eight internal co-workers from ad sales executives to editors, from (advertorial) copywriters to graphic designers; connected and interviewed other external fashion media workers in the Asian context, altogether help the researcher acquire valuable insights to outline the contemporary fashion media landscape in conjunction with diverse academic theorisations of fashion and fashion communication. The interviewed fashion media personnel come from an array of cultural, experiential and organisational backgrounds, which contributes to the comprehensiveness and firsthandedness of this case study. The transcribed interviews have been thematically coded and analysed. The interviewee’s position within the media organisation, understanding of the publication’s positioning and intended portrayal of fashion, perception of the power of various fashion media in defining ‘what fashion is’ were inquired and investigated. The result shows that, in the production process of textual and graphical/visual fashion, various internal and external negotiations of how to demonstrate the appropriate fashion messages were frequently staged. Such process narrowed down, redefined and consolidated a wide range of fashion meanings, followed by the final representations of such in specific manner. The findings validate the ‘exploitative and creative’ nature of fashion communication theorised in the Western academic discourse. Key Words: Fashion communication, fashion media, fashion journalist, fashion personnel, fashion theory, participant observation, Hong Kong, Asia. ***** 1. Overview Fashion is ubiquitous, and it plays a significant role in the contemporary global market, in the creative industries and in urban social space. In the realms of art, history, philosophy and cultural studies, however, fashion is often regarded as a

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__________________________________________________________________ subaltern, peripheral or even unorthodox topic. Hence, this study aimed at remapping the relationships among the interdisciplinary and conflicting notions of fashion, determining which and how fashion theories are applicable to the real fashion industry in a specific place at a particular time, apprehending the nuanced mechanisms involved, and seeking to create a substantial case for the social construction of fashion. In the literature review, two broad camps of debating views towards fashion are discerned. In the critical Marxist camp, Marx, 1 Veblen, 2 Adorno, 3 Baudrillard, 4 Barthes, 5 Derrida 6 and Bourdieu 7 are among those who criticise fashion as a means of economic exploitation. They believed that the industry actively manipulates the illogical and empty fashion trends to cheat the public. Veblen and Bourdieu addressed fashion as a conspicuous vanity of the leisure class and a weapon in social position-taking. Both highlighted how fashion exclusively privileges the bourgeois over what in their day was termed the working classes. 8 In contrast, Wilson, 9 Jobling, 10 Barnard, 11 Hall, 12 Lipovetsky, 13 Skov, 14 Chevalier and Mazzalovo 15 have more recently tried to go beyond the critical Marxist perspective, all proposing that fashion has social utility and involves multiple twists in its meanings throughout the complicated encoding and decoding processes. Wilson and Lipovetsky asserted that the fashion consumer/wearer can alter fashion meanings – it can serve as a creative activity and entertainment, and as a means to define human individuality and lessen the social distance between classes. 16 Barthes and Jobling have highlighted the fashion media as fashion’s mediator, generating its meanings. 17 Skov, Chevalier and Mazzalovo claimed that the fashion creator/producer plays a major role in encoding fashionability. 18 In Hall’s and Barnard’s view, the creator, the mediator and the wearer are all involved in negotiating fashion’s meanings. 19 Again, the above ideas will be adopted to test their validity in the real social setting through participant observation. 2. Methodology The researcher served as a voluntary and unpaid junior fashion reporter with local high fashion monthly publication MILK X Monthly (see Appendix) for three months. The work involved daily face-to-face interaction with other employees of the magazine, but also with other external members such as freelance photographers, models and fashion publicists. This enabled studying and analysing their styles of cooperation. Meanwhile, the data were also collected through the interviews with eight of MILK X Monthly’s personnel who came from all four of the magazine’s major teams – editorial, copywriting/project, design, and advertising sales. All the media workers have been given false names and their personal traits have been altered and displaced. A key research question is whether fashion is, as the critical theorists suggest, purely an arbitrary, preemptive message controlled and imposed according to the

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__________________________________________________________________ preferences of fashion producers; or, as the pluralistic theorists assert, especially Barnard, is it negotiated through the process of fashion communication? Exploring it may provide insight into the power politics involved along the communication chain. This chapter investigates how MILK X Monthly and its personnel try to maintain and negotiate a specific set of fashion meanings in daily operations. Coded observation data and interview responses give an impression of the MILK X Monthly staff’s vigorous negotiations with various internal and external parties. 3. Negotiations in and beyond MILK X Monthly

Image 1: Negotiations in and beyond MILK X Monthly

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__________________________________________________________________ A. Copywriting/Project Team In the eyes of the journalists and designers, the copywriters worked in two teams simultaneously: advertising sales and editorial. They had difficulties in deciding which suggestion to follow and which way to go artistically. Senior copywriter Ginny said she had experienced many conflicts with the design team and the advertising sales team. She criticised the aesthetic sense of the in-house graphic designers. ‘[I]n many cases, these so-called designers…could totally mistake what you say…you even have to provide them guidelines for mixing and matching palettes and typography…The basic requirement of being a designer can be merely the technical software skills…[to collaborate with them] sometimes you need to spend even more time to solve the problem.’ As for the advertising sales personnel, Ginny thought that they only focused on the sales perspective but were unaware of the reader’s interests. They neglected the needs of readers and advocated hard-selling product shots and texts. All she could do was to tactfully convince the ad sales team and strike a balance between the demands of clients and magazine readers. When copywriter Timothy was asked if he considered himself a fashion creator, he responded, ‘…it is not my role. For fashion editors, [theoretically] they are endowed with the right to choose whatever fashion items they prefer to introduce, like now they consider this item chic and then declare these are the trendy items of this season or those products will become hits in the next season. It would be difficult in my position [to do so]…In the end I still take the needs of our client as my first priority.’ After his 2-year experience at MILK X Monthly, Timothy understood that many items introduced by the fashion magazines were in fact not genuinely the editors’ choices. More often, the ‘editorial content’ is advertorials and sponsored features, and there is little genuine editorial content left. Timothy had discerned that even fashion reporters chose to feature some items, they might incline to feature their favourite clients. Such editorial content might even be used by the advertising sales team as a reference or included in a media sales kit tailored for the client for the sake of selling advertising. ‘In the end it’s about increasing ad sales. Thus I personally think that [fashion] magazines are not neutral when portraying the fashion trends…All about money…Maybe other media companies are not like that, or [maybe] similar.’ B. Design Team According to culture and lifestyle reporter Kim’s experience, the graphic design team was usually the passive party in fashion encoding. Even when the graphic designers applied their aesthetic judgment and recommended graphical adjustments, they mainly followed the editorial team’s layout brief. Junior designer Cammy supposed even if the fashion media might aspire to insist on their viewpoints, they would have to give in eventually. ‘We cannot hold to our standpoints; [the clients] always override us…What we can say is, “Alright,

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__________________________________________________________________ whatever they want we will follow.” That’s the way things are.’ She described collaborating with an American outdoors wear brand. ‘I tried to propose several graphical ideas to them. Eventually they rejected them all and even asked “Why don’t you just follow our [in-house] designer’s layout?’” Cammy did not realize that the magazine had to replicate the client’s sample layout faithfully. Most disapprovingly, she recounted the client’s criticism in a sarcastic tone. ‘Our designer worked so hard to create the layout. Why don’t you just follow?’ She was furious and did not understand why the brand’s marketers did not place a print advertisement right away if the in-house designer had already fixed everything. ‘They pay the bill and get what they want…Because of that we [the design team] had a meeting with the chief editor, and his comment was it’s simply a waste of time so we should just give in…See, you can never, ever express your creative ideas, because they [the client] have already got one.’ When asked if there was space for negotiation, Cammy exclaimed, ‘We can’t even contact the client directly, the advertising sales team does…When we told [the ad sales team] we really didn’t like the proposed styling and graphic design as it really doesn’t match MILK X Monthly’s aesthetic style, they promised they would pass the message to the client, but they never did.’ Cammy mimicked the consoling voice of the ad salesmen, ‘Okay, don’t worry. We’ll try our best to stand by you,’ but she was disappointed every time when she received the subsequent response from the client. Designer Mag quoted another commercial project with a major Hong Kong jewellery brand. ‘We mostly had [conflicts] with the sales team…It was just due to our different standpoints. I feel that they will stand by the clients’ side and try not to offend them…For the work schedule we are even more antagonistic. The designer knew very well that brands like ABC Jewellery, even if they were not unethical at all, had what Mag called a ‘corny and outdated’ brand image far from the fashion image to which MILK X Monthly aspired.’ ‘They just want to infinitely enlarge [the image of] their classic ‘gold plaque’ engraved with a dragon on the page…to the extent it [the layout] no longer looks like an editorial piece, not even a print ad, but an excessively hard-selling advertising poster…Whenever we reach that point, we will be in sheer despair.’ Mag concluded that flexibility in encoding fashion only comes when it is offered by the client, and this rarely happens. C. Editorial Team It was rather noticeable that the chief editor Cello took a dominant role in determining the magazine’s direction, monitoring every MILK X staff’s work schedule as well as pushing them to meet editorial deadlines and advertising sales targets. He was at once the chief editor, chief designer and head of advertising sales. Most MILK X Monthly staff admired Cello’s ability and expressed their strong faith in his judgment.

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__________________________________________________________________ In the daily work at MILK X Monthly, Cello elucidated the practical difficulties in the external communication process, such as featuring an ‘inside story’ about a fashion brand. Cello repeatedly reminded the observer how easily the editorial team might trespass on the untouchable territory of the fashion brands. The client’s marketing and communication team is only a tiny little gear of the giant fashion industry and unauthorised to speak on behalf of the brand’s creative direction. Everything has to be controlled and monitored carefully because a few incorrect messages may potentially undermine or even ruin the consistently communicated brand identity. In Cello’s view, uncertain individual opinions should be silenced and eradicated in most cases, such as the marketers’ personal fashion tastes and favourite brands.

Image 2: MILK X Monthly Issue 34. © 2009/ Featuring Marc Jacobs, Former Creative Director of Louis Vuitton. So who, then, could speak for a fashion brand to the press? ‘Only those deified fashion figures,’ usually the legendary head designer or creative director of a fashion brand, has the right to express their ideas, such as Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Jacobs (see Imagde 1). In Cello’s experience, the local team was even more powerless than the head-office team. They acted as an order-taker who might not necessarily know the original or authentic meanings of a new season’s fashion collection and shop window design. That underlay his discouraging the editorial staff from interviewing local office representatives in hope of getting into the heart of a fashion brand and exploring the true meanings beneath various manifestations of fashion. When fashion publicists are asked speak on behalf of their brands, no matter on what topic, many become very nervous and immediately say, ‘We would like to seek for permission from the head office’ – and that already means ‘no’

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__________________________________________________________________ according to Cello. This caution is common to all the prominent brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel and Prada. Even if they consider a media interview, their publicists will first ask what other brands have promised to participate. They will also enquire about their interviewee’s position in the organisation, the number of print pages involved, the questions to be asked and so forth, before promising to do the interview. They fear any unfavourable comparisons. Overall, a subconscious and internalised censorship system was observed among both the media gatekeepers and the fashion marketers. However, the fashion PR executives also take initiatives to maintain positive relationships with fashion editors. They send seasonal greeting cards and regularly deliver new product samples for trial. Fashion editor Fei Fei and senior editor Tina regularly received expensive fashion products, cosmetics and skin care product samples from various brands. In Tina’s case, she got too many of them each season and she herself could hardly use them all. It shows how fashion publicists strive to build rapport and influence fashion journalists to write good reviews of their products. Mag once said, I feel that sometimes…the proposed editorial idea really depends on the relationship between the editors and fashion publicists…Maybe because the fashion editor personally doesn’t like a fashion brand or its publicist, not so relevant to its level of fashionability or its products, so he or she will not feature it…Or if you accept a particular brand’s sponsorship to attend its catwalk show during the [Paris or Milan] Fashion Week, naturally you have to offer the brand editorial support. In a casual conversation, Fei Fei exposed her discontent about how Cello warned the editorial staff to be cautious when promising fashion marketers any specific amount of free editorial coverage. The number of pages allowed for editorials was tightened. ‘The price of paper has risen significantly in the last two months due to the reduction of paper supply from Japan after the earthquake and tsunami…demand for paper from different magazines has increased…hence the price of printing paper from mainland China has been raised too.’ Fei Fei insisted, however, that it is vital for a fashion magazine to contain an appropriate amount of non-advertorial content featuring a wide variety of fashion brands, as ‘[I]t could also help building relationships with fashion brands for potential collaboration and advertising sales in the future too.’ D. Sales Team A comment from advertising sales manager Billy summarises the entire organisation’s nuanced negotiation with the fashion advertisers. ‘We successfully lead the readers to perceive fashion from various perspectives…Many other

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__________________________________________________________________ magazines…they take the materials from the fashion brands and directly present them [to the readers]…almost in a “straight-in-straight-out” mode….At MILK X Monthly we digest the information provided, and then we’ll do a brand new photography session…adopt a new angle appropriate to the subject.’ Yet, Billy also admitted that he had encountered problems in cooperating with the editorial team in his daily work. ‘I’m not familiar with the situation in other fashion magazine companies…[The fashion journalists] don’t prefer handling these client-subsidized projects…this is a fundamental conflict…We are on many occasions not welcomed by the MILK X Monthly journalists.’ 4. Summary The observations at MILK X Monthly confirm that the process of fashion media communication frequently involves negotiation of meanings. Negotiation is about the priority, suitability and fashionability of various textual and visual messages, and it often emphasises economic factors rather than aesthetics. In such negotiations, power relations favour the major advertisers and global fashion conglomerates. Other social, cultural and interpretive factors, for instance the upcoming fashion trends, personal tastes and aesthetic sense, are involved primarily when fashion marketers and fashion media personnel negotiate about how best to encode the correct fashion meanings. Most international fashion enterprises adopt a top-down, ‘one-voice’ approach in handling communications with the media. The fashion meanings set by the global headquarters, symbolising the ‘authentic fashion,’ is prioritised in most cases. Even though the Asia-Pacific region and greater China have become prominent markets for such firms in recent years, they still tightly control the dissemination of their messages to the Asian media. At the same time, a consensual self-censorship scheme operates, at least at MILK X Monthly. The editorial staffs are acutely conscious of the influence and interests of the magazine’s advertisers. This was a tacit understanding rather than the subject of clear regulations. The situation of traditional print media in Hong Kong, as elsewhere, is becoming more difficult and competitive. This leads to decreased editorial and creative autonomy and increased advertiser power in any negotiations. In Hong Kong, local fashion marketers have more power than the local fashion media, and the power of global fashion marketers supersedes that of the Asian marketers. International fashion brands, especially the successful ones, try their best to control not only the presentation of their advertising messages but also the editorial content that surrounds them. In deciding the topics of their editorial content, the staff of MILK X Monthly, mainly the reporters and editors, can negotiate to a certain extent. The chief editor wielded the power of encoding fashionability. He tended to encourage the editorial team to include product articles. In these the journalists can express a more individualistic, mix-and-match aesthetic style, but very often they still follow the

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__________________________________________________________________ logic of commerce and emphasise potential advertisers’ brands. This tends to leave Hong Kong photographers and designers little creative control over the notion of fashion. Even on occasions when the fashion editors and reporters think that the products from a brand ‘look ugly’ or ‘are not very wearable,’ they still must feature them if the brand is a significant advertiser. They understand that they do not want to irritate their sponsors, the influential communication managers. Overall, both economic and cultural factors were involved in the process of negotiation in and beyond MILK X Monthly. Media personnel in the media organisation were conscious of the publication’s commercial concerns for their editorial production. However, it did not guide all media workers’ actual practices entirely through the encoding process in which creativity and improvisation were essential and inevitable. The official and preset fashion messages were commonly sent from the marketer to media, expecting to maintain a sense of consistency, though it was not always effective. A more complex mode of self-censorship on the fashion media’s side, adaptation of social and cultural trends, as well as injection of personal tastes, aesthetic and cultural preferences were always involved. These echo Barnard’s theorisation of fashion communication as a nonlinear and fluid process which interplays with various encoders and decoders, in addition to the social, cultural and economic concerns that influence them.

Notes 1

Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (London: Dent, 1967). Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of The Leisure Class (New York: Macmillan, 1899). 3 Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectics of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (London: Verso, 1986). 4 Jean Baudrillard, ‘Fashion, or the Enchanting Spectacle of the Code’, in Fashion Theory: A Reader, ed. Malcolm Barnard (London: Routledge, 2007). 5 Roland Barthes, The Fashion System, trans. Matthew Ward and Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). 6 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). 7 Pierre Bourdieu, Sociology in Question (London: Sage, 1984). 8 Veblen, Theory of Leisure Class, 52-54; Bourdieu, Sociology in Question. 9 Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity (London: Virago, 1985). 10 Paul Jobling, Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography since 1980 (Oxford: Berg, 1999). 11 Malcolm Barnard, Fashion as Communication (London: Routledge, 1996). 2

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Stuart Hall, ‘Encoding/Decoding’, in Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, eds. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). 13 Gilles Lipovetsky, The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 14 Lise Skov, ‘Hong Kong Fashion Designers as Cultural Intermediaries: Out of Global Garment Production’, in Fashion: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies Volume III, ed. Malcolm Barnard (Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2012). 15 Michel Chevalier and Gérald Mazzalovo, Luxury Brand Management: A World of Privilege (Singapore: John Wiley & Sons (Asia), 2008). 16 Wilson, Adorned in Dreams, 64-65; Lipovetsky, Empire of Fashion, 60-63. 17 Barthes, The Fashion System, 277-278; Jobling, Fashion Spreads, 70-72 and 7678. 18 Skov, ‘Hong Kong Fashion Designers’, 335-336; Chevalier and Mazzalovo, Luxury Brand Management, 81-84. 19 Hall, ‘Encoding/Decoding’, 163-165; Barnard, Fashion as Communication, 7072.

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. Dialectics of Enlightenment. Translated by John Cumming. London: Verso, 1986. Barnard, Malcolm. Fashion as Communication. London: Routledge, 1996. Barthes, Roland. The Fashion System. Translated by Matthew Ward, and Richard Howard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Baudrillard, Jean. ‘Fashion, or the Enchanting Spectacle of the Code’. In Fashion Theory: A Reader, edited by Malcolm Barnard, 462–474. London: Routledge, 2007. Bourdieu, Pierre. Sociology in Question. London: Sage, 1984. Chevalier, Michel, and Gérald Mazzalovo. Luxury Brand Management: A World of Privilege. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons (Asia), 2008. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

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__________________________________________________________________ Hall, Stuart. ‘Encoding/Decoding’. Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham, and Douglas M. Kellner, 163–173. Malden: WileyBlackwell, 2012. Jobling, Paul. Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography since 1980. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Lipovetsky, Gilles. The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. London: Dent, 1967. Skov, Lise. ‘Hong Kong Fashion Designers as Cultural Intermediaries: Out of Global Garment Production’. In Fashion: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies Volume III, edited by Malcolm Barnard, 326–342. Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2012. Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Macmillan, 1899. Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. London: Virago, 1985. Tommy Ho-lun TSE completed his MPhil degree in Comparative Literature at The University of Hong Kong, and his PhD degree in the Department of Sociology (HKU). He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University.

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Appendix Organisation Structure of MILK X Monthly

Part 3

Luxury Brands, Products and Innovation

The Future of Global Luxury Fashion: Growth, Source of Design and Inspiration and Prime Markets for the Sales of Luxury Goods Rosalie Jackson Regni Abstract According to a 2012 Mintel report on the luxury market, the value of the worldwide luxury market in 2011 was $151.8 billion, an increase of 16.8% over 2010. Following the two very difficult years of 2008 and 2009 when upscale businesses suffered recessionary slowdown for the first time in many years, the industry now seems to be on a strong upward path with increases also from 2009 to 2010. Will this growth pattern continue, and if so what products will see the most sustained growth? From what parts of the globe will the new trends come? Where will be the primary markets for the sales of these luxury products? As the society ages, will older consumers with changing lifestyle needs impact the global sales of an industry that has largely depended on young, innovative, and upwardly mobile executives? According to a 2009 article in Women’s Wear Daily, Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, predicts that when the recession is finally over, ‘Nothing will be the same again. It would be illusory to think it will be the same again.’ He predicts that customer priorities will focus on values like quality and craftsmanship, and will expect brands to demonstrate social and environmental proactivity. Key Words: Luxury, recessionary impact, future growth, trends, consumer expectations. ***** 1. Luxury Defined The definition of luxury varies by the speaker, but all versions have certain commonalities. The essence of luxury is probably best and most succinctly defined in a Mintel research report as products that ‘represent the top sector in any product market.’ 1 Mintel further explains luxury by reporting that many consumers consider luxury to be ‘the special element of a luxury product that makes it desired for its own sake rather than any function that it may have.’ 2 The Collins English Dictionary refers to luxury as ‘indulgence in rich and sumptuous living,’ referring to the important lifestyle factor that is part of the luxury experience. Luxury is not new; it has been a part of civilisation since early times. The ability to consume and experience luxury helped to create the differences between the classes, as it was available only to the elite. An early definition may have been ‘whatever the poor cannot have and the elite can.’ 3

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__________________________________________________________________ Mostly everyone aspires to some form of luxury and has his or her personal vision of what a luxurious life should be. It is not just about the latest Prada outfit or a Rolex watch; it implies a lifestyle that includes luxury homes, cars, vacations, food, beauty, service, and (increasingly important to the consumer) a special or unique experience. Luxury brands have desirable qualities of being scarce, sophisticated, and in good taste, as well as a dimension of being slightly understated and aristocratic. 4 In her book, Luxe: Marketing Strategies, Danielle Alleres identifies three tiers of luxury: 5 

 

Inaccessible – these are handmade, one-of-a-kind, exclusive models that are very expensive and very unique; for example, a Christian Dior haute couture gown or a specialmodel Rolls Royce. Intermediary – these are expensive replicas of inaccessible luxury brands, duplicates of couture designs Accessible – luxury products manufactured on a larger scale to be available to more consumers, for example Christian Dior RTW, designer fragrance, or Ferragamo loafers.Ferragamo loafers

It is interesting to learn that 98% of all luxury is accessible. It is also important to note the differences in perceptions of luxury by United States consumers versus more traditional Europeans. While Americans probably see Donna Karen and Ralph Lauren as luxury brands, Europeans more commonly think of them as prestige brands because they did not originate in couture. Luxury has many sectors. While it is commonly thought that luxury products and luxury experiences are different markets, increasingly consumers are seeking and expecting a lifestyle that combines the two. In a presentation on the luxury market at The Luxury Roundtable in May of 2013, Boston Consulting Group Managing Director Jean-Marc Bellaiche gave a breakdown of the luxury industry as the following: apparel; leather; watches and jewellery; cosmetics; cars; art; homes and furniture; technology; food and alcohol; and travel, hotels and yachts. Of these categories, according to Mr. Bellaiche, the luxury car business is worth $270 billion per year, while the apparel business produces $50 billion dollars in annual sales. 6 By further definition, luxury products must have strong artistic content, high levels of craftsmanship, and international appeal. These products must engender an emotional response from the consumer because many luxury consumers react to the goods that are pleasing to them as objects; they do not see them as mere necessary products.

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__________________________________________________________________ Craftsmanship is key in luxury products, especially in today’s post recessionary mindset; consumers are looking for quality in hand-produced, beautiful, artistic, well-crafted objects. 7 It is important that luxury goods be seen world-wide. Brands that do not have a presence in luxury capitals of the world such as New York, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, London, and Berlin may have less importance to the luxury consumer. 2. Current State and Projected Growth of the Luxury Market According to Jean- Marc Bellaiche, in his speech at the Luxury Roundtable on May 1, 2013, the worldwide luxury market represents 1.4 trillion dollars in sales annually. He maintains that the growth of this market can be attributed to two main groups of consumers: the emerging middle class and the growth in the number of millionaires:     

The emerging middle class, with more numbers of people able to engage in aspirational purchasing The rise of aspirational masses in trendy metropolitan areas where this emerging class lives and works (330 million strong) The influence of the ‘proud business woman’ (also part of the emerging middle class), who accounts for as much as 70 million people or 25% of this new market of consumers The growth in the number of millionaires worldwide The continued spending patterns of old money; he refers to them as the ‘noble Italian entrepreneur;’ this group represents 2.5 million consumers and 10 to 15% of the luxury market

He goes on to project a 7% growth in luxury business over the next three years. 8 It is of note that there has been a change in the priorities of consumers who partake in the luxury market. Traditional luxury consumers place emphasis on purchases that provide quality, service, exclusivity, a ‘shopping experience,’ and innovation. Emerging luxury market customers are seeking excess, identifiable status, extravagance, and they are more likely to be loyal to certain brands. 9 The report goes on to show a significant 13% growth in worldwide spending on luxury products between 2009 and 2010, and another 10% in 2011, in spite of worldwide recession. Emerging markets showed a staggering +25% growth in 2011. 3. History and Target Market for Luxury Goods The history of luxury can be traced to Napoleon III and the Second Empire of France, beginning in 1852 with his modernisation of Paris and subsequent establishment of that city as the central city of Europe and the location for many

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__________________________________________________________________ grand state occasions. 10 As a result, the demand for luxury goods, including textiles and fashion, rose to levels not seen since the French Revolution. 11 Luxury fashion was given a further boost in 1858 when Englishman Charles Frederick Worth, who had set up the House of Worth in Paris the previous year, was commissioned to design a gown for the wife of the Austrian ambassador. The Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, saw the dress at a ball in the Tuileries Palace and engaged Worth to create a wardrobe for her. 12 From her influence, his business blossomed among the aristocracy and then internationally. By the 1870’s, his fame had even spread to America. He is often called the Father of Haute Couture. With Worth came a drastic change from an industry that consisted primarily of individual dressmakers making home visits to wealthy customers. He offered the elite a salon experience with fashions shown on live models and several choices of styles. Fashion magazines appeared during the latter half of the nineteenth century, providing women with another source of information on the latest trends. This was the essence of luxury fashion at this time. 13 Worth also had an influence on another industry, the silk industry. He began to use silk in dresses with voluminous skirts and helped to make the silk industry in Lyon world known. While it was Worth and his primary control of the couture industry for over fifty years who largely invented luxury, it was Paul Poiret and Gabrielle Chanel who modernised couture in the first part of the twentieth century. Poiret’s influence by the exoticism of the Orient led to his colourful fashions and opulent balls. He was also the first designer to develop his own perfume, even before Chanel. 14 He certainly understood the power of branding, and influenced later designers like Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and Calvin Klein. The gatekeeping organisation for haute couture, The Chambre Syndicate De La Confection Et De La Couture Pour Dames Et Fillettes was founded in Paris in 1868 by Worth and his sons; it evolved into the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. Its original purpose was to prevent the copying of couture designs. Over time, the number of members has decreased from 106 in the early part of the twentieth century to only 11 in 2012. 15 Chanel further changed the luxury world with her clothing for the practical, more active lifestyles of women. 16 Her focus on quality fabrics and beautiful cuts instead of ornate design changed the way women dressed. She also had a tremendous influence on jewellery by making it acceptable to wear costume jewellery as well as fine jewellery in modern designs. The next major influence on fashion came in 1947 when Christian Dior launched his ‘New Look’ as a welcome respite from the fashion limitations imposed by World War II. This led to the renewed dominance of haute couture with success that exceeded even the pre-war era.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Who Is the Luxury Target Customer of Today? According to the Luxury Report 2013 from Unity Marketing, the recent growth in spending is coming primarily from increased spending by affluent consumers in the $100,000 to $249,999 income bracket. This segment has been labelled HENRY’s (High Earnings, Not Rich Yet). ‘I think the most important shift in the economy at large is the growing importance of the affluent (top 20%) of U.S. households by income which represent about 24.2 million households) in driving the economy.’ 17 Certainly, the current and future luxury target customer must include a high percentage of these HENRY’s in addition to the affluents who have arrived at an enviable level of success. This newer group of young consumers is increasing spending, while the ultra affluents (defined as those in the top 2% of earnings of $250,000+) decreased their spending as of 2012. 18 Two product categories that have contributed significantly to the growth of luxury are the rise of men’s luxury and luxury accessories. 19 According to Pam Danzinger, ultra affluents (only 2% of all consumers), especially since the last recession, have modified shopping behaviours in that they do not make all purchases from the luxury market. An ultra affluent might just as likely purchase a consumer brand like L’Oreal or Olay for their beauty needs. This has been evident as well with celebrities, who often create an outfit with a tee shirt from Old Navy and a Ralph Lauren suit. 5. Changing Expectations of the Luxury Consumer With the introduction of ready-to-wear in the 1960’s, the look and idea of luxury began to be available to more consumers, and the definition of luxury expanded. Today, many consumers think that brands like Hugo Boss and Lacoste are luxury. 20 Since the onset of this expansion of luxury consumers, many luxury businesses have recognised the aspirational nature of consumers and have expanded their businesses to reach a larger consumer base. As well as the HNWI’s (high net worth individuals), these brands seek to reach a wider audience through secondary lines, licensing, and beauty products like perfume. 21 A distinguishing feature of luxury goods is that they can be defined as ‘slow fashion,’ taking up to 18 months to two years for the development of some categories of product. Customer service is paramount to the success of selling luxury brands. Exceptional salesmanship is one of the main features that separate luxury from mass-market brands. A typical luxury sales staff is trained to know their customers, to engage with them, and to make them feel special. These elite sales people must be very well groomed and often are provided clothing and accessories from the brand’s line to wear on the job. The Charles Luck Stone Center in Richmond, Virginia provides both a luxury service and top quality product for owners of expensive, luxury homes. According

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__________________________________________________________________ to Shannon Dugan, Studio Manager, they provide augmented services to luxury clientele. We provide a deep range of options to choose from with regards to natural stone materials for both the interior and exterior of commercial and residential buildings. We also provide design expertise, educating the customer on the product, and the highest level of customer service. 22 Since the impact on the global economy of the most recent recession, consumers (especially younger ones) have modified their buying experiences with ‘more specific demands, from having to being.’ 23 The excessive accumulation of product with weighty extras and prominent logos has given way to a focus on beautiful simplicity of design, top quality components, and understated elegance. The true luxury consumer of today is not interested in the conspicuous display of brands and labels; instead, she is focused on the pleasures of how the purchase makes her feel. A key element of this is the obvious inclusion of top quality into every step of production. A recent visit with Jahayra Harrell, wife of visionary designer Donwan Harrell revealed the focus of PRPS on both quality and exclusivity. Their very limited line of high priced, unique denim is sold primarily to celebrities, sports figures, and those with the money to purchase and the desire for products that are made in limited quantities. Every step in the design, development, and production of their PRPS jeans is focused on creating a garment that speaks of individualised luxury. From the African cotton fiberes, to the hand-loomed denim cloth (made on vintage shuttle machines in Japan), to the selvedge edges and the hand finished distressing, the garments are truly special and unique. Perhaps the most important element of the changing expectations of consumers since the recession that started in 2008 is the understanding that the luxury consumer wants more than just a product from her purchase. She is interested in the company behind the product and its role in society. It has been reported that, following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the tsunami in Thailand, celebrities shopping on Rodeo Drive would ask to have their purchases put into plain brown paper bags to avoid being photographed purchasing expensive items, when so many people in the world had nothing. That feeling of guilt and responsibility for helping others has remained in some form, and the elite now want to know that the companies with whom they do business are giving something back to help those in need. It can be in the form of environmental sustainability of products and practices, sharing of profits through charitable donations, or the hosting of fund raising events to give back to society or support local or global causes.

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__________________________________________________________________ The truly wealthy seek the truly unique. Verdura is one of the last private jewellers in the world, a company that produces a very limited line of exclusive jewellery based on the 10,000 items created by the namesake designer in the early 1920’s and 1930’s for clients such as Linda and Cole Porter and Coco Chanel. Even so, says Vice President James Haag, the attitudes and purchasing behaviours of the truly wealthy have undergone quite a transformation over the last twenty years. He reports that the luxury goods market began to change dramatically in 2000. Prior to that, the decade of the 1990s was a period of acquisition when the wealthy bought jewels as part of an investment portfolio. In 1999 especially, millennium fears motivated these consumers to turn cash into precious jewels. After the tragic events of 2001, however, the motivations of the wealthy changed, as they no longer seek jewels as investments or collectibles. Instead, these luxury pieces must be wearable and functional. James Haag tells of one customer who purchased a $400,000 bracelet because ‘it is something that I can wear everyday.’ Today, says James Haag, luxury is about having the time to explore your personal style. This is what Verdura does best – to help a customer fine tune her personal style. There are no safe looks here. It takes confidence to wear something that only forty pieces exist in the world. 24 He goes on to explain that customers today like a ‘back story.’ The history of an item is important; to let her know that her new bracelet was designed and made in the same small factory where the same item was once made for Tyrone Power adds unique value to the item. Also, even though the elite want understated elegance in their purchases, the items must also be noticed by their peers; they must stand out and be unique. 6. Future of Luxury Industry As more brands become available to more consumers in some form, where will the truly elite go to experience the exclusivity that they desire to set them apart from the masses? It is to be expected that the upper classes will continue to seek pleasure and comforts that are not for everyone. Much attention is being given to the pursuit of younger customers for luxury goods. The millennium generation is believed to be the future of luxury. With a new attitude and approach from the American luxury customer, where are the emerging luxury markets? According to Mr. Bellaiche, new luxury markets are China and Russia, with consumers that he describes as ‘new money verses old money’ in the Americas and Europe. He quantifies the Russian market potential as 7.5 million people with 30 – 35% of the luxury market. 25 According to Stylesight, another country with a burgeoning luxury market is India. In a recent posting, they refer to a study by ASSOCHAM-Yes Bank that

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__________________________________________________________________ predicts the luxury market in India to grow from its current level of 8 billion dollars (a projected growth in 2013 of +25%) by continuing double digits over the next two years. 26 Increasingly, the internet is playing a major role in the luxury market. While some brands (Verdura, for example) have no plans for selling product over the internet, they do have an informational website. This seems to be a common thread among very high priced, very exclusive brands that depend largely upon personal contact to sell product. However, Saks 5th Avenue men’s fashion director Eric Jennings reported that the Manhattan 5th Avenue store has the highest volume of the forty Saks stores, internet sales are number two. 27 When looking at the future of luxury, it is important for marketers of these products to understand the priorities of the millennial generation, who will be the primary luxury consumers in 2020. These consumers will likely take a different approach to spending than their parents. According to the Unity Marketing Group, they will ‘find status in their achievements rather than their purchases.’ 28 Their concerns will be finding more time for family, leisure pursuits and success in such things as athletics and giving back to society. Unity Marketing sees this new era as the most significant since the revolution of the 1960’s when new definitions of marketing made a significant impact on what and why consumers make purchases.

Notes 1

Mintel database, Consumer Attitudes towards Luxury Goods, U.S., last modified March 2011, accessed 3 March 2012, http://gmn.mintel.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/. 2 Ibid. 3 Paurav Shukla, ‘Defining Luxury: The Conundrum of Perspectives’, 13 May 2010, accessed 10 September 2011, http://www.luxurysociety.com. 4 Michel Chevalier and Gerald Mazzalovo, Luxury Brand Management: A World of Privilege (Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Asia, 2008). 5 Danielle Alleres. Luxe: Marketing Strategies, n.d. 6 Jean-Marc Bellaiche, Luxury Daily Newsletter, May 2, 2013, accessed 19 June 2013, http://LuxuryDaily.com. 7 Chevalier and Mazzalovo, Luxury Brand Management. 8 Bellaiche, Luxury Daily Newsletter. 9 The Brookings Institution, Challenges and Opportunities in the New Luxury World: Winners and Strategic Drivers (Italy: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2012), accessed 18 June 2013 http://www.pwc.com/it/it/publications/assets/docs/marketvision-luxury-2012.pdf.

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Mark Tungate, Fashion Brands Branding Style from Armani to Zara, 2nd Edition (London: Kogan Page, 2008). 11 Teri Agins, The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business Forever (New York: Quill, 2000). 12 Tungate, Fashion Brands Branding Style. 13 Akiko Fukai, Tamami Suoh, Miki Iwagami, Reido Koga and Rie Nii, Fashion: A History from the 18th to 29th Century The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute (Taschen America Llc, 2006). 14 Charlotte Seeling, Neil Morris, Ting Morris and Karem Waloschek, Fashion: The Century of the Designer, 1990-1999 (Cologne: Konemann, 2000). 15 Fashion-era, The Decline of Couture Houses, accessed 7 November 2013, http://www.fashion-era.com/chambre_syndicale.htm. 16 Reiko Koga, Fashion: The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute; A History from the 18th to the 20th Century (China: Taschen GmbH, 2006). 17 Pamela N. Danziger, ‘Luxury Report 2013: The Ultimate Five Year Guide to the Luxury Consumer Market’, Unity Marketing, accessed August 2013, http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/catalog/product_detail.php/pid=83-subid=7 0/index.html. 18 Ibid. 19 The Brookings Institution, Challenges and Opportunities in the New Luxury World: Winners and Strategic Drivers (Italy: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2012), accessed 18 June 2013, http://www.pwc.com/it/it/publications/assets/docs/marketvision-luxury-2012.pdf. 20 Chevalier and Mazzalovo, Luxury Brand Management. 21 Mintel, Consumer Attitudes. 22 Shannon Dugan, interview by Rachel Ward Studio Manager (New York: James Madden, 2011) 23 Bellaiche, Luxury Daily. 24 James Haag, interview by Rosalie Regni, Vice President, Verdura (June 2013). 25 Bellaiche, Luxury Daily. 26 Stylesight, ‘New Luxury Customer Attitudes’, December 2011, accessed June 2013, http://www.stylesight.com. 27 Eric Jennings, Men’s Fashion Director Saks 5th Avenue, personal interview by Rosalie Regni, March 2013. 28 Pamela N. Danziger, Putting the Luxe Back in Luxury (Ithaca, NY: James Madden, 2011).

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Bibliography Agins, Teri. The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business Forever. New York: Quill, 2000. Alleres, Danielle. Luxe: Marketing Strategies. n.d. Bellaiche, Jean-Marc. Luxury Daily Newsletter. May 2, 2013. Accessed 19 June 2013. http://LuxuryDaily.com. Chevalier, Michel, and Gerald Mazzalovo, Luxury Brand Management: A World of Privilege. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Danziger, Pamela N. Putting the Luxe Back in Luxury. Ithaca, NY: James Madden, 2011. —––. ‘Luxury Report 2013: The Ultimate Five Year Guide to the Luxury Consumer Market’. Unity Marketing. Accessed August 2013. http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/catalog/product_detail.php/pid=83-subid=7 0/index.html. Dugan, Shannon. Interview by Rachel Ward. Studio Manager. New York: James Madden, 2011. Fashion-Era. The Decline of Couture Houses. Accessed 7 November 2013. http://www.fashion-era.com/chambre_syndicale.htm. Fukai, Akiko, Tamami Suoh, Miki Iwagami, Reiko Koga, and Rie Nii. Fashion: A History from the 18th to 20th Century: The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute. Taschen America Llc, 2006. Group, Unity Marketing. Business Insights into the Mind of the Affluent Consumer. 2012. Accessed 8 My 2013. http://www.unitymarketinggroup. Haag, James. Interview by Rosalie Regni. Vice President, Verdura (June 2013). Koga, Reiko. Fashion: The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute: A History from the 18th to the 20th Century. China:Taschen GmbH, 2006.

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__________________________________________________________________ Mintel Database. Consumer Attitudes toward Luxury Goods. March 2011. Accessed 3 March 2012. http://gmn.mintel.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/. Seeling, Charlotte, Neil Morris, Ting Morris, and Karen Waloschek. Fashion: The Century of the Designer, 1990-1999. Cologne: Konemann, 2000. Shukla, Paurav. Defining Luxury: The Conundrum of Perspectives. May 13, 2010. Accessed 10 September 2011. http://www.luxurysociety.com. The Brookings Institution. Challenges and Opportunities in the New Luxury World: Winners and Strategic Drivers. Italy: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2012. Accessed 18 June, 2013. http://www.pwc.com/it/it/publications/assets/docs/marketvision-luxury-2012.pdf. Tungate, Mark. Fashion Brands Branding Style from Armani to Zara, 2nd Edition. London: Kogan Page, 2008. Rosalie Jackson Regni is Assistant Professor of fashion merchandising in the Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She has a 30 year background in the fashion industry in New York City and has written two textbooks and presented papers in the United States and around the world.

The Unique Standard Clara Olóriz Sanjuán Abstract Throughout the recent history of fashion, the management of sizes related to ‘uniform,’ ‘off-the-peg’ and nowadays ‘mass-customisation’ phenomena has not only shown strong linkages with its production processes but also influenced their contemporary social, cultural and political milieus. Similarly, architecture has crossed its disciplinary boundaries to make use of fashion’s terms and production strategies: its spaces are meant to be shaped, ‘ready-made,’ consumed or ‘masstailored’ to the inhabitant’s demands. In this way, both fashion and architecture are constantly constructing an image of the society they are addressing. Moreover, during the twentieth century, both reveal a paradigm shift from Fordism to postFordism or from standard to non-standard forms of production and consumption. This chapter will address this issue through the study of two specific moments in history, where both fashion and architecture have shared common market preoccupations. First, it will draw a parallel between the manufacture of large quantities of prêt-à-porter clothing during the post-WWII period and the efforts to mass-produce pre-fabricated off-the-peg spaces in architecture, in what is considered the height of the fordist dream. These new modes of mass-production entailed for both enterprises an all-encompassing systematisation of standards and the production of a specific tabula of sizes, moulds and spaces, in which the consumer society would fit and live, thus fabricating the lens through which both disciplines looked at society. Then, this chapter will re-draw this parallel in today’s post-fordist mass-customisation and marketing approaches (such as intellifit, Nike ID customisation, 3d scans and web platforms such as http://www.youtailor.net or consumers’ data protocols) to finally propose possible repercussions in the emerging ever-adaptive architecture triggered by the new potentials of digital production. By doing so, this chapter will critically address the crossing boundaries of both realms regarding the invention of the ‘mass non-standard’ and therefore, its new social and cultural paradigms. Key Words: Fordism, mass-consumption, standard, off-the-peg, ready-to-wear, post-Fordism, mass-customisation, architecture, society. ***** 1. Parameters and Standards ‘Uniform,’ ‘off-the-peg’ and nowadays ‘mass-customisation’ phenomena are terms related to technologies of clothing production developed from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. They reveal the ways in which the fashion and architecture manage diversity or construct a vision of the society they

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__________________________________________________________________ are addressing. As required by production techniques, the coordination between designers, producers and consumers, implies the establishment of a set of measurements, sizing systems and feedback protocols, that is to say, a common language among the agents involved in the production of both fashion and architecture. Sizing systems and consumer analysis are based on scientific formulas to measure society. The surveys conducted by the National Bureau of Home Economics of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Division of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now NIST) in the 1940s and currently digital data research on consumer preferences as well as body scans show the use of scientific and statistic formulas to measure society and to read their demands and taste. The 59 measurements taken from each volunteer of the NBS in the 1940s generate a catalogue of various body types to standardise industrial production, some of them even proposing the image of ‘the perfect man.’ 1 These parameters or common language are an example of the construction of an image of society from which designers operate. They represent the standardisation of the diversity of society to a set of approximations which optimise the variations. Nowadays the body scan is challenging the classification of body types from the end of the 19th century. The latter shows the reduction of the human diversity to a finite list of generic types and the former shows the almost infinite, accurate measures of the individual body. Similarly, in an attempt to systematise design coping with the complex conditions faced by architecture, architects from the beginning of the 20th century tackled the multiplicity of society through type classifications. Inspired by the academicist attempts from the 18th and 19th century to define a clear and systemic design methodology which could respond to any functional condition and influenced by the productive conditions of massproduction, architects, worked with concepts such as the maison-type, maison fabriquée en série, or machine à habiter. 2 As a critique to the reductionist approach of generic types, contemporary claims in garment fashion and architecture, respond with ever-adaptive, customised and individualised proposals which are meant to cater for the complexity and diversity of contemporary conditions. Both disciplines, under the influence of fordist production, construct a tabula or grid on which each individual from society can be classified based on parameters extracted from typological studies whose simplifications are criticised by post fordist claims. Both in architecture and garment design, these constraints or standards, implied by production methods, are often associated to mentalities, that is to say, the way we manage and produce knowledge about society. In the aforementioned cases, they reflect the shift from fordist to post-fordist modes of production, from material to immaterial labour; the way society is pictured respectively as a mass consumer or a mass customised culture.

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__________________________________________________________________ The tabula or common language used to represent such parameters and standards immediately raises questions such as the consequences of thinking society, the consumer or the inhabitant, through a tabula or taxonomy defined by a type – in the fordist case- or an algorithm – in the post-fordist scenario, with which, borrowing from Foucault’s words ‘we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things.’ 3 These questions relate to the aforementioned mentalities: does this grid lead us to ‘simplifications,’ ‘absolute classifications’ or to ‘superimpositions’ which neutralise things? How do we operate within this realm of taxonomy? On which cultural codes do we establish such a tabula? 2. Uniform Along the 20th century innovations in these modes of production have been deeply influenced by military and war developments, such as the need of uniforms, the implement of mass-production techniques and the normalisation of units and measures. According to the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), the American ‘civil war was a pivotal element in the historical development of men’s ready-made clothing.’ 4 The development of the soldiers garment, as a uniform, as a single form which would make all the soldiers look identical in different normalised sizes, initiated the standardisation of dimensions that would be further developed with a broader survey conducted to 15000 women in the 1940s. The resulting sizing system, used by catalogue companies to define their sizing standards, became the language with which designers, producers and consumers would communicate. During WWII, USDA data was augmented by ‘the Research and Development Branch of the Army Quartermasters Corps.’ Similarly, in the first half of the 20th century, post-war breakthroughs under military programmes in the field of mass-production and industrialisation forced architects to incorporate new construction techniques. As a consequence of both wars, the shortage of skilled labour, together with the urge to provide dwellings for the masses, obliged architects to cope with those demands by means of more efficient, accurate and fast techniques within an affordable economy. The manufacture of large quantities of identical components, transformed the status of the architectural object. The repeatability of mass-produced architecture transformed not only the nature of building but the architectural profession. The aggregation of prefabricated components entails a modular coordination or sizing systems between design, production and assembly which not only determines the geometrical definition of the parts but the way architects operate. 3. 1950s and 1960s Off-the-Peg Spaces The initial attempts from the beginning of the 20th century to standardise production found their realisation after WWII. The implementation of the massproduction phenomena gave birth to a consumer society that was born during the

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__________________________________________________________________ 1950’s. Inherited from WWII, industrialisation techniques allowed a wider broadcast of fashionable products for the masses which were considered advantageous in terms of affordability, up-to-datedness and replaceability: Ready-made articles of clothing were portrayed as modern and fashionable during a time when the new consumer industries were rapidly redefining the way Americans viewed massmanufactured goods. Instead of seeing the purchase of massproduced clothing as entailing a loss of individuality, American women began to accept the pieces of ready-made merchandise as convenient, affordable, and up-to-date fashion items that could be replaced easily as styles changed. 5 Regarding clothes marketing, the ‘demand grew for less traditional, more affordable outfits.’ Added to this, the London pop scene influenced the Fashion realm and ‘most well-known designers started to sell their own off-the-peg ranges through department stores.’ The popularisation and rise of new technologies such as television transformed fashion’s relationship to the consumer, constructing a desirable image of the society that it was addressing within ‘the dynamics of masscommunication.’ 6 As the British critique Reyner Banham puts it, these developments happened hand in hand with the advances in the techniques of serial production. And the Pop-Arts, being almost all of them inconceivable without a high level of mechanization and mass-production, are integral with technology […]. 7 The aesthetics of serial production must be the aesthetics of the popular arts, not of fine arts. 8 Socially, the fact that products became fashionable built the foundations for a society based on pop-culture and pop-technology which evolved into market research on consumer preferences, merchandising and human ergonomics. Added to this, the particular or elite client of the previous decades ceased, giving rise to a mass-client society and the democratisation of fashion, as a result of a wide broadcast of the products. In like manner, at the architectural field, architects were forced to cope with housing demands, providing affordable buildings for the masses with a special emphasis on the response to user needs. Consequently, the necessity of mass-production techniques emerged and the industrialisation of architecture introduced a new constraint for design: consumer’s taste, which located architects in the realm of fashion.

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__________________________________________________________________ like that of – say – motor manufactures, will be to produce the best housing at the most attractive price. This is what spells success in industry; the client’s requirements determine the standards of the product. 9 The relation between architecture and technology gave birth to consumable, affordable, fashionable and expendable architectures. The 1950s and 1960s economic, social and cultural panorama marked the conditions within which new architectural concepts emerged. As the E.P.A. 10 report on modular coordination stated in 1959, the principle of modular coordination was not new; the novelty during the 1950s and 60s was to be found in the systematic study of its massive application on construction methods. 11 Mass-production techniques in architecture developed into prefabricated and standardised methods of construction. Thus, architectural production shifted from tailor-made buildings and traditional methods of construction to off-the-peg assemblies of components or kits of ready-made parts, transforming conventional concepts of space and design in the 1950s and 1960s. These concepts are reflected in Wachsmann’s and Gropius’ General Panel System from 1947, which consisted on a packaged set of components delivered and assembled on site which could be ordered from a catalogue. Also, this new domesticity is shown in the Eames’ own house, constructed in two days from elements ordered from a catalogue of industries external to architecture, such as aircraft and factory construction. 12 Added to prefabricated and standardised experiments, some more radical or utopian approaches were developed in the 1950s and 1960s British architectural climate in relation to fashionable and consumable architecture. According to Banham ‘change’ was a fundamental aspect of the condition of technology in the twentieth century together with an ‘acceptance of fashionability and concomitant change of the technological, fast-moving Second Machine Age.’ 13 Due to the breath-taking technological updates, objects became obsolete, developing intellectual attitudes for living in ‘a throwaway economy.’ This notion of expendability, mentioned above in relation to clothing design, was also reflected in Archigram’s ideas about expendable environments, plug-in cities and inhabitable capsules or in the Smithson’s concepts such as ‘caravan-embryo’ and ‘appliance house.’ New functional programmes demanded design flexibility to be continuously adaptive to their needs, comfort and pleasure, thus, triggering the emergence of open-systems and architectural qualities such as indeterminacy, expendability, obsolescence or impermanence: the emergence of fashionable architecture. Therefore, the architects’ response to the 1950s and 1960s panorama of massproduction and mass-culture gave birth to consumable off-the-peg spaces. Architectural projects evolved into prefabricated prêt-à-habiter spaces which due

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__________________________________________________________________ to the fast evolution of technology could be interchangeable, replaceable and expendable. Cedric Price’s unbuilt Fun Palace proposed an architecture adapted to the user’s demands and the tendencies of the moment; a purchasable item which could be advertised as an open prefabricated system, re-arrangeable by a crane and adaptable to changing demands, condensing some of the ideas that permeated the 1950s and 1960s architectural and fashion milieus. 4. 21st Century: The Unique Standard As a critique to the repeatability of fordist production and its imposing control over society, as well as the technical obsolescence and faith on technology of the 1950s and 1960s, post fordist ideals on mass-customisation and new approaches towards the user’s, consumer’s or inhabitant’s adaptability are emerging under the development of new technologies of rapid manufacturing systems. Based on the use of rule-based computational ‘generation,’ the new phenomena of masscustomisation produces adaptation, variation and flexibility according to each individual. Once again, scientific modes of operation in the form of computational algorithms are in control of the forms of production, be it the gathering of users’ data or the generation of an infinite fabric of variations. These tools are increasingly becoming the new operative framework for designing and managing data. In the fashion realm, mass-customisation has been defined as ‘the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output. Those systems combine the low unit costs of mass production processes with the flexibility of individual customization.’ 14 Mass-customisation aims at meeting the demands of every individual at a mass-produced cost, by introducing the consumer’s interaction at the last stages of production. As an example of customisation of a product, one can buy online a pair of jeans, send their actual measures and get it shipped at no extra cost. Some brands such as Adidas or Nike provide consumers with online systems for choosing shoes’ finishes. These ideas are also related to the mass-customisation phenomena ‘custom-fit’ which means ‘personalized with regards to shape and size,’ a common practice in car design. Data capturing and body scans using CAD and CAM technologies are required in order to fabricate ‘custom-fit’ products. 3D body scans are meant to provide manufacturers with more precise measures and thus, more acurate input parameters. Given the complex, diverse and rapidly changing conditions that both fashion and architecture face today, designers use digital techniques in order to understand complexity, manage data and provide the necessary flexibility to accommodate users’ diversity. This flexibility or operational modification according to needs, conditions and demands becomes an argument for ‘adaptive variation’ and a critique to the aforementioned normative conceptions of type. In architecture authors such as Patrick Schumacher have named this flexibility as ‘the ecologically

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__________________________________________________________________ adaptive eloquence’ of ‘parametrically malleable elements,’ which are for him, the very ‘premise of parametricism.’ 15 Their logics are based on defining ‘output variables’ responding to ‘input parameters.’ As the urban masterplan by Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher in Istambul 16 shows, the infinite variation provided by a parametric block allows maximum adaptation. Looking closer at both examples, ‘parametricism’ and ‘mi adipure’ custom shoes, their variation only happens with regards to shape and size, as in the custom-fit, at a geometrical and superficial level. In the case of adidas, the only customisable aspect is the colour of its parts; in the case of Istambul, a topologically identical block is repeated, the only changing factor being its geometric dimensions and angles. To operate, manage or control the multiple, complex, contemporary urban conditions, the same urban spaces and blocks are repeated catering for a form of diversity merely based in sizes and angles, a reductionist adaptation based on purely geometrical or quantitative terms. Following Bergson’s distinction between qualitative and intensive multiplicities versus quantitative and extensive ones, Kwinter refers to the reductionist notion of ‘controlled quantitative modelling’ which hopefully, clarifies this point: Reductionism is the method by which one reduces complex phenomena to simpler isolated systems that can be fully controlled and understood. Quantitative methods […] are related to reductionism, but they are more fundamental, because they dictate how far reductionism must go. According to them, reductionism must reduce phenomena to the ideal scale at which no more qualities exist within a system, until what is left are only quantities, or quantitative relations. This is, for example, the basis of the Cartesian grid system that underlies most modern models of form. The classical grid system does not, strictly speaking, limit one to static models of form, but it does limit one to linear models of movement or change. A linear model is one in which the state of a system at a given moment can be expressed in the very same terms (number and relation of parameters) as any of its earlier or later states […] it can do so only insofar as it plots the movements of a body within that system, and never the changes or transformations that the system itself undergoes. 17 Thus in Kwinter’s words, the aforementioned examples despite their critique to the normative approaches of mass-production are in a way condemning change ‘to a degree (quantity), never allowing adaptation in kind (quality).’ Too often, systemic approaches based on digital technologies of design and production, in order to deal with complexity, multiplicity or diversity, reduce adaptability to

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘controlled quantitative modelling,’ confined to vary within a linear grid. As a result, the consumer or inhabitant is left with a superficial choice – a marketing ploy of consumers’ data – trapped in a malleable grid or in a different manner of control. In relation to the supposed lessening of control behind post fordist approaches, many authors have pointed out that is just a different form of control. 18 The reappearance of the hidden grid – or a different form of grid – behind mass-customisation brings us back to our initial reflection on the tabula with which Foucault’s describes in the preface of Order of Things ‘the ordered surfaces and all the planes’ or in this case algorithms that we use to think, manage and organise society. It raises questions in relation to mentalities such as: What does it mean that something is fit or adaptable to the individual? Is it an alibi of flexible control? What is the real aim of mass-customisation? Does it entail a meaningful variation? Do we simplify diversity under a malleable grid? Added to this, Joseph Pine, author of Mass Customization, offered 20 years ago ‘a taxonomy of customization/modularity’ based on Abernathy’s and Utterback’s ‘degrees of modularity’ in which changes or adaptation happen according to modular systems which control the degrees of variability. 19 Thus, it is yet another sign that reveals that the taxonomy that managed knowledge, inherent to normative modes of mass-production from the first half of the 20th century, does not seem, at the moment, radically challenged. Our modes of thinking and operating in relation to society still continue to be an ordered surface in which we classify, with the risk of simplifying or taming individuality and multiplicity, questioning the very possibility of the unique standard under systemic digital approaches.

Notes 1

NIST website, ‘Short History of Ready-Made Clothing’, accessed 21 June 2013, http://museum.nist.gov/exhibits/apparel/history.htm. 2 For more information see Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (London: Architectural Press, 1960), 244. 3 ‘[…] and also a table, a tabula, that enables thought to operate upon the entities of our world, to put them in order, to divide them into classes, to group them according to names that designate their similarities and their differences – the table upon which, since the beginning of time, language has intersected space’. Michael Foucault, Preface to Order of Things (London: Routledge, 1989), xix. Or: Les Mots et les Choses first published 1966. 4 ‘As the war continued, however, manufacturers started to build factories that could quickly and efficiently meet the growing demands of the military. Mass production of uniforms necessitated the development of standard sizes. Measurements taken of the soldiers revealed that certain sets of measurements tended to recur with predictable regularity. After the war, these military

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__________________________________________________________________ measurements were used to create the first commercial sizing scales for men’. NIST website, accessed 21 June 2013, http://museum.nist.gov/exhibits/apparel/ history.htm. 5 Wally Barker, ‘Apparel Industry Series: History of the Apparel Industry: Part 1’, accesssed 21 June 2013, http://www.wallybarker.com/History%20of%20apparel %20industry.html. 6 ‘These trends, which become more pronounced as a culture becomes more mechanized and the mass-market is taken over by middle-class employees of increasing education, indicate the function of the product critic in the field of design as popular art: Not to disdain what sells but to help answer the now important question. Both designer and critic, by their command of market statistics and their imaginative skill in using them to predict, introduce an element of control that feeds back information into industry. […] Both designer and critic must be in close touch with the dynamics of mass-communication’. Reyner Banham, ‘A Throw-Away Aesthetic’ (1955) in Design by Choice, ed. Penny Sparke (London: Academy Editions, 1981), 90-93. 7 Banham, ‘ON TRIAL 5. The Spec-Builders: Towards a Pop Architecture’, Architectural Review 132 (July 1962): 43. 8 Banham, ‘Space for Decoration: A Rejoinder’, Design (July 1955): 24. Quoted in Nigel Whiteley, ‘Olympus and the Market Place: Reyner Banham and Design Criticism’, Design Issues 13, No. 2 (Summer 1997): 34. 9 Jean Prouvé, Prefabrication: Structures and Elements (London: Pall Mall Press, 1971), 24. 10 E.P.A. The European Production Agency was created in May 1953 to act as an operational arm of the O.E.E.C., the Organization of the European Economic Cooperation, created in 1948 to coordinate the distribution of the American support. The introduction of Modular Coordination in Building states: ‘Its task is to stimulate productivity, and thereby raise European standards of living, by influencing not only Governments but also industrial, agricultural and research organisations, private and collective enterprises and public services. One of its primary aims is to convince management and workers alike of the benefits of productivity and enlist co-operation’. European Productivity Agency, Modular CoOrdination in Building (Paris: Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, European Productivity Agency, 1956), 9. 11 Ibid. ‘The principle of modular co-ordination […] is not new but it is only since the Second World War that its application to modern building methods has been systematically studied.’ 12 James Stirling, James Stirling: Writings on Architecture, ed. Robert Maxwell (Milan: Skira, 1998), 68. 13 Nigel Whiteley, ‘Olympus and the Market Place’, 35.

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Wikipedia, ‘Mass Customization’, accessed 21 June 2013, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Mass_customization. 15 Patrick Schumacher, ‘The Parametric City’, Zaha Hadid: Recent Projects (Tokio: A.D.A. Edita, 2010). 16 Zaha Hadid Architects, Kartal Pendix Masterplan, 2006. Description according to the architects website: ‘Where routes connecting Europe and Asia meet coastal highways, sea terminals and rail links in an abandoned industrial area of Istanbul, the Kartal Pendik masterplan is taking shape – creating a new urban centre based on grid form and utilizing calligraphic notions of topography to create truly responsive structures and spaces’. Accessed 7 April 2014, http://www.zahahadid.com/masterplans/kartal-pendik-masterplan/. 17 Sanford Kwinter, ‘Landscapes of Change: Boccioni’s “Stati D’animo” as a General Theory of Models’, Assemblage 19 (December 1992): 54. 18 Charles Waldheim, interviewed by the author, Mexico City (June 2012) mentions from Brenner’s ideas: ‘the post-fordist era as not the lessening of state structure or control […] (but) in fact as different forms of control.’ 19 Joseph Flaherty, ‘6 types of Mass Customization’, 19 April 2009, accessed 21 June 2013, http://replicatorinc.com/blog/2009/04/6-types-of-mass-customization/. Modified from William J. Abernathy and James M. Utterback, ‘Patterns of Industrial Innovation’, Technology Review (June/July 1978).

Bibliography Archigram Group. Archigram Magazine 9 Issues. London: Archigram, 1961-1970. Banham, Reyner. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. London: Architectural Press, 1960. —––. ‘ON TRIAL 5. The Spec-Builders: Towards a Pop Architecture’. Architectural Review 132 (July 1962): 43–46. —––. ‘A Throw-Away Aesthetic’ (1955). In Design by Choice, edited by Penny Sparke, 90–93. London: Academy Editions, 1981. —––. ‘Space for Decoration: A Rejoinder’. Design (July 1955). Quoted in Nigel Whiteley ‘Olympus and the Market Place: Reyner Banham and Design Criticism’. Design Issues 13, No. 2 (Summer 1997).

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__________________________________________________________________ Barker, Wally. ‘Apparel Industry Series: History of the Apparel Industry: Part 1’. Accessed 21 June 2013. http://www.wallybarker.com/History%20of%20apparel% 20industry.html. European Productivity Agency. Modular Co-Ordination in Building. Paris: Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, European Productivity Agency, 1956. Faust, Marie-Eve, and Carrier, Serge. ‘Variations in Canadian Women’s Ready-toWear Standard Sizes’. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management 10, No. 1 (2006): 71–83. Foucault, Michael. Order of Things. London: Routledge. 1989. (Or: Les Mots et les Choses, 1966). Herbert, Gilbert. Dream of the Factory-Made House: Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann. London: MIT Press, 1984. Kwinter, Stanford. ‘Landscapes of Change: Boccioni’s “Stati D’animo” as a General Theory of Models’. Assemblage 19 (December 1992): 50–65. Neuhart, John, and Marilyn Neuhart. Eames Design: The Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989. NIST. ‘Short History of Ready-Made Clothing’. Accessed 21 June 2013. http://museum.nist.gov/exhibits/apparel/history.htm. Price, Cedric. Cedric Price: The Square Book. Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2003. Prouvé, Jean. Prefabrication: Structures and Elements. London: Pall Mall Press, 1971. Schumacher, Patrick. ‘The Parametric City’. In Zaha Hadid: Recent Projects. Tokio: A.D.A. Edita, 2010. Stirling, James. James Stirling: Writings on Architecture. Edited by Robert Maxwell. Milan: Skira, 1998. Whiteley, Nigel. ‘Olympus and the Market Place: Reyner Banham and Design Criticism’. Design Issues 13, No. 2 (Summer 1997): 24–35.

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__________________________________________________________________ Clara Olóriz Sanjuán is a practising architect and studied her PhD at the ETSA Universidad de Navarra and the Architectural Association (AA) in London. She has worked for Foreign Office Architects, Cerouno, Plasma Studio and Groundlab. She teaches at Landscape Urbanism master programme at the AA and is codirector of the AA Visiting School in Bilbao. She co-directs an AA research cluster titled ‘Urban Prototypes.’

Acknowledgements Carlos Naya Villaverde, María Villanueva Fernández and Héctor García-Diego Villarías have also collaborated in the writing of this chapter.

Innovative Products: Bags by Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi Cecilia Winterhalter Abstract Changes arise when creative ideas, which are simultaneously present in society, mix in alternative combinations, composing new knowledge, processes and products. The innovative products rise from a renewal of already existing items, through a creative idea, which, re-combining old and new elements, generates a progress. The studies about consumption do not analyse the qualities of the innovative products, although these are an indicator for change. The present contribution investigates the characteristics of innovative products, on the creations, (bags and leather goods) of Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi. He has invented a method, which uses the waste of the marc (stalks and peels of the wine production) to create his items. In his zero waste company, located in his family wine farm in Tuscany, he uses his new technology, to create a new palette of unique colours and a very soft, ‘drunk’ raw material, from which he produces a limited collection, exported worldwide. His works have been exposed at the Tel Aviv Contemporary Art Museum. His intent to innovate by turning to ancient tradition, his idea of terroir, his collaboration with fellow craftsmen, his desire to create surprise are all typical traits of contemporary products. Other examples of innovative goods will help to illustrate the complete range of the stereotype qualities of innovative products, such as customisation, flexibility, ecological and collaborative-creative issues and the ability to inspire wonder and surprise. The analysis will show that the innovative products, that strike us most are not those which base their unusualness on science, but much rather those which offer just a smart re-invention of old goods or a transferal of known items to another context. Key Words: Innovative products, Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi, bags and leather goods, new dying and tanning techniques, stereotype characteristics of innovative products, customisation, flexibility, creativity, astonishment, re-invention of the ordinary. ***** 1. Introduction Changes arise when many similar creative ideas, which are simultaneously present in different fields of society, mix in alternative combinations, composing new knowledge, processes and products. 1 A product is re-invented by rethinking the basic idea behind it. The ongoing development of the electrical plug, might, for example, no longer require for an item’s cable to be brought to its site on the wall. A newer idea of plug might instead entail, to move the plug towards the item that needs be connected to electricity, by rolling out a long cable hidden in the wall.

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__________________________________________________________________ Change creeps unnoticed, 2 into old thoughts, actions, values and modifies society. The transition to the contemporary society brought new identities and ideas, new ways to socialise and the re-invention of many products. For example the apparently strange idea to integrate recycled bicycle wheels with their pedals into a barstool, will not only allow to reuse some waste, but will actively turn the barstool into an interesting and innovative sitting opportunity. 2. The Definition of Product A product is ‘anything that can be offered to the market with the objective of satisfying a consumer’s need’ and everything he receives in an exchange with a retailer. 3 This includes not only physical goods, but also a growing amount of issues (such as culture or knowledge), items with different kinds of material and immatierial qualities (experiences, causes or spiritual values are goods as well) and obviously ideas. The innovative products rise from a renewal of already existing material or immaterial items, through a highly creative idea, which, re-combining old and new elements, in an unexpected and innovative way, generates a progress. 4 A canoe made of perspex, keeps for example all the charcteristics of the old vessel, but allowing to see the bottom of the sea, guarantees the user new advantages and a new exciting experience. Incorporating the results of scientific research, the innovative products often express themselves in beautiful lightweight structural forms made of technically advanced or sustainable materials, 5 such as Ross Lovegood’s Swarowski Solar Car. This vehicle is powered by solar panels, enhanced by Swarowski crystals and perfectly combines the scientific research of two different fields in order to produce a futuristic locomotion. 6 Innovative products are capable to put ideas into a new form and show a ‘flexible and disseminated body,’ 7 which leaving the item’s physical limits, allows a connection between the material and the immaterial world. This kind of goods, such as the enchanting chandelier by Hilden and Diaz which projects shadows of a forest into your room, are not only bought for their material characteristics, but rather for their ability to respond to the buyer’s immaterial desires and create a link to their personal phantasy world. 3. The Product’s Qualities The many studies about consumption or consumerism, very seldom investigate the qualities of the innovative products, although these are a reliable indicator for change and for the contemporary condition. What people use, buy, wear, eat and live, reproduces what they desire, know, believe and imagine. Nevertheless this process is also reversed and the new products become a force that fosters change, 8 through the collaboration of the consumer in the product’s outcome and the rise of a creative society accustomed to new medias, through the

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__________________________________________________________________ evolution of science and ethics and through the cultural forces leading towards globalisation. 9 Titanium dioxide nanofibre, a multi-purpose wonder material, created by Darren Sunm, is able to generate hydrogen, clean water and energy. The incredible qualities of this single product, will not only guarantee a series of advantages, but will undoubtedly change our way of considering all products and thereby generate a change of products and minds. 10 Society’s new knowledge and projects for the future, 11 concretising in the products’ qualities, are capable to change the lifestyles, the production of meanings and of global imaginary. 12 Green architecture, such as Tokyo’s ‘Vent Vert Appartments,’ which are designed by Edward Suzuki Associates and feature a facade of luxuriously growing greenery, rising the level of the consumer’s quality demand, will in time modify the lifestyles. 13 This contribution investigates therefore the characteristics of innovative products, especially those traits which express the new relation of man with the surrounding world. To reveal the goods’ influence and function in the change, this contribution concentrates, not on the goods’ ‘physics,’ but on their ‘chemistry.’ 4. Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi and His Creations The essence of the product’s qualities is illustrated on astonishing creations, such as the bags and leather goods by Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi. 14 A trained agronomist, which completed his education in New York, Cecchi De’ Rossi has invented an innovative 15 dyeing and tanning technique, which uses the waste of the marc, which is the stalks and peels mass resulting after the pressing of the grapes in the wine production, to create his exclusive items. 16 In his zero waste company, 17 Piel y Vino Srl, founded in 2010 in his family wine farm in Tuscany, near Pescia Fiorentina, he explores the reaction of the wastes, of their alcohol content and acidity variations, 18 on the different leathers and the colour effects produced by different dying times and grape types. De’ Rossi expands the range of colours through the addition of vegetal pigments, such as turmeric, sandalwood or spinach, extending his dying process to paper and yarn. 19 He understands luxury as form of adjustment and evolution 20 and his dying and tanning philosphy is at the same time old and new, ecological and techological. 21 His technique, the registered trademark pelleEvino®, 22 is used to create a colour palette inspired by the Tuscan landscape: magenta. purple, various shades of green, brown, grey and terracotta. 23 Tommaso’s very soft, ‘drunk’ raw material is used for a limited collection, exported worldwide, which does not excede 300 units. 24 De’ Rossi’s unstructured and disarticulated products, change. They transform by adding or subtracting elements. A bag, opening, becomes two, moving strings or steel buckles, a shoulder strap bag becomes a clutch or a backpack. 25 In a recent interview, given to the Wall Street International Magazine, Tommaso defines himself as follows:

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__________________________________________________________________ I’m a craftsman, a colorist who sees bags in his mind and tries to recreate them as he imagines them. I’m not a traditional designer in the sense that I did not study to become one, but it was an irresistible call: I had to cut the skin in that way the first time, I had to color it so, I had to fold it, I had to make it take that form. 26 Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi’s award-winning works, have been presented at White Milano, Paris Fashion Week and have been exposed at the Tel Aviv Contemporary Art Museum. 27 5. Stereotype Characteristics of Innovative Products De’ Rossi’s intent to innovate by turning to ancient tradition, his custom production, his idea of terroir, 28 his collaboration with fellow Tuscan craftsmen, his desire to create surprise are a nearly complete range of all the stereotype qualities of innovative products. Customisation, flexibility, ecological, and collaborative-creative issues and the ability to inspire astonishment are all represented in his works. The qualities of products change continuously, in line with society’s demand. The recent drive towards custom practices, which coincides with the rise of an individual lifestyle, free consumption and a refusal of the mass market, is a typical contemporary characteristics. Therefore it is not a surprise that, for example, Opel has created with its new model Adam, a fully customisable low budget car. 29 Another essential contemporary quality is obviously the items’ ability to mix: sciences, handicraft, arts and technology or old and new, local and foreign, individual and collective. Elements from different fields are today combined to invent innovative products. Peter Van Riet has for example teamed with the company Quinny to create the intelligent Longboard Stoller, which is nothing else but a buggy which is half baby stroller and half skateboard, an innovative, ‘urban mobility concept [for fast mothers, editor’s note] with an eye to the future.’ 30 The evolution of science and of electronics introduced new scientific and technological qualities into the products, which, at the first glance, seem to be the most impressive modification. The result are very striking products which incorporate scientific discoveries, such as the bendable lithium ion battery, 31 developed by a team of researchers led by Professor Lee Sang-Young at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, which will soon allow to market bendable cell phones. Otherwise this kind of goods may make use scientific progesses made in a completely different fields of study to improve their quality, such as the Philippe Starck Glasses designed for Alain Mikli, which have biomechanical joint, resembling a mini human clavicle. This innovative joint, which has evolved thanks to the research on artificial articulations, is able to sustain a traction of 85 kg. 32 Another interesting example of integration of science

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__________________________________________________________________ in the product are the digital wearables, which are garments able to interact with the body. These strange clothes, such as the Hug Shirt designed by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz in 2002, which allows to exchange a physical sensation over distance sending the hug data via bluetooth to a friend anywhere in the world, modify the boundaries of the believable. 33 6. Wonder and Surprise Today’s most sought-after items must above all cause astonishment and wonder. This brief emotional state, experienced as the result of the unexpected, is a pivotal quality of innovative products. Surprise rises by something’s unusualness, by its beauty, rarity, perfection or smartness. 34 The surprise of seeing a natural size photograph representing an unexpected beach, with sand, waves and footprints glued to the floor of a Tokyo tube carriage, rises not from the content of the picture, nor form the difficulty of its execution, but rather from the scene’s unusualness in that particular context and by the circumstance that nobody had priorly thought of putting such a picture on a train. The feeling of surprise is intimately tied to a dis-accordance with a set of habitual rules and is the reponse to an evident difference between expectations and reality. In essence, surprises are the end result of our predictions that fail, 35 for example when we are confronted with the ‘Quantum Stealth Technology,’ able to create a dress making the wearer invisible. This astonishing invisibility cloak, which reminds us of the Harry Potter story, makes use of the so-called Hyperstealth Biotechnology and was developed, unfortunately, for military usage, with the intent to make soldiers undetectable. The main function of amazement is to interrupt something ongoing and reorient towards something new and more significant, 36 which in essence is nothing else but the process of innovation. Our present era, which is capable to supply a stream of changes and innovations sufficient to constantly renew this surprise, 37 would have earned, in previous times 38 the reputation of an ‘age of wonder’ or of an ‘amazing age.’ 39 It is therefore quite interesting that on the contrary we are convinced that the present age of science and logic caused man’s loss of his capacity to wonder. 40 7. Scientific Progression or Reinvention of the Ordinary? Typically in the innovative products, surprise is subsumed in the items. They are not perceived as astonishing, only because they incorporate technological or scientific notions. Much rather they cause wonder because they turn the familiar and banal into the innovative, simply by remixing well-known old and new elements or by adapting specialised knowledge to another field. An good example of this remixing procedure is the use of of 3-D photocopiers, for scanning and reproducing ready-to-wear garments. According to the web, the US Navy is soon to use the technology of the 3-D printers to manufacture drones and weapons. 41

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__________________________________________________________________ Other examples of innovative mixtures and of knowlegde transferals are the kombucha-based material, 42 a bacterial cellulose, cut by designer Suzan Lee’s to make her interesting BioCouture clothings, 43 as well as the Smart Baby Suit, developed by the students of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, which is capable to track infant breathing, in order to prevent Sudden Infant Death. 44 Looking at many innovative products in a sequence, we realise that many of them do represent, as we would expect, simply the progress of a scientifical or technical breakthrough, such as the 3D-printed Urbee 2 Hybrid 3 Wheel Car, a vehicle produced with 3-D printing, with three wheels and a hybrid engine, which can speed up to 68 mph and has the capacity to carry up to 1200 lbs. 45 Another example of a scientifically innovative products is the Instant Spray On Clothing, invented by Manel Torres, a former Royal College of Art student. It is a garment that shoots out of an aerosol and may be washed, re-worn or dissolved to make new ones. 46 The high speed phone charger, a device that can charge a cell phone between twenty and thirty seconds, invented by the 18-year-old student Eesha Khare, who triumphed over 1600 other finalists from over 70 countries on May, 17, 2013 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, 47 is another good example of a techological breakthrough product. The very young age of the inventor, a recurrent narrative feature for this kind of new goods, is able to provide, on top of the scientific finding, the wonder, necessary to every innovative item. We realise nevertheless that the large majority of the innovative products, that strike us most are not those which base their unusualness on science, but much rather those which offer just a possible, smart re-invention of the already seen goods or astonishing re-adaptations of well known items to another or a different context. To make a few examples, we are amazed and amused by items who rethink the ordinary, such as a stair which hides drawers in its steps for people who have small living spaces, by a bike path projecting bike for an increased traffic situation, by a transparent toaster for people with less time to wait for the toast to get ready, by a ‘fairytale chair’ which has lateral children seats on each side for an increased comfort of the storyteller, by a multiple plug with lateral joints which allow to line up, in a row, an increased number of large transformers and chargers and finally by a beautiful, coloured, soft leather bag, soaked in wine, able to consume one’s wine wastes and turn them into a piece of art. 8. Conclusion Coming to a conclusion: in the contemporary era the value is in the innovative qualities of the products, powered by the emotional interaction of the people. It is their communication, their collaboration and their surprise, that changing the demand, transforms the products. This is the evolution we are witnessing. A good’s appreciation rises today from its innovative potential, an essential quality not only at the products’ acquisition, but throughout its lifecycle.

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__________________________________________________________________ The innovative products that assert themselves are supported by people’s free choice of how to consume, interact with others, communicate, eat, dress, get emotioned, express their’s knowledge and scientific skills, practice justice or faith. The change does today not just refer to a dress, a plate or a phone, but rather a way of dressing, eating, communicating, that concernes the lifestyles and their implicit values. This is not only a commercial, digital or technical improvement, but a mental evolution, in which the new products, as a living part of this change, innovate society.

Notes 1

Charles Edquist and Björn Johnson, Systems of Innovation: Technologies, Institutions, and Organizations (Oxon: Routledge, 1997), 42. 2 Free reflection on Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition, eds. David Thorburn, Henry Jenkins and Brad Seawell (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004), 44. 3 Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong, Principles of Marketing (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc., 2010), 275. 4 ‘Innovazione’, in La Piccola Treccani V (Roma: Enciclopedia Italiana, 1995), 985. 5 Patrizia Mello, Design Contemporaneo Mutazioni Oggetti Ambienti Architecture (Milano: Electa, 2008), 42. 6 The Ross Lovegrove website, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.rosslovegrove.com/index.php/custom_type/swarowski-solar-car/. 7 Danièle Hervieu-Leger, Religione e Memoria (Bologna: Il mulino, 1996), 48. 8 Simona Segré Reinach, ‘Pratiche di Consumo’, in Enciclopedia della Moda, Vol. III, (Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, 2005), 845. 9 Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya and Iwan Setiawan, Marketing 3.0. Dal Prodotto al Cliente all'Anima (Milano: Gruppo Sole 24ore, 2010), 24-32. 10 NTU Scientist Develops a Multi-Purpose Wonder Material to Tackle Environmental Challenges, Nanyang Technological University website, 20 March 2013, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.media.ntu.edu.sg/NewsReleases/Pages/newsdetail.aspx?news=14e3b61 8-c71c-4f20-935c-2a566af5a298. 11 Nevertheless the term project derives from the Latin proicere, which means throwing, driving forward or ahead, cf. Mello, Design Contemporaneo, 7. 12 Free reflection inspired by Segre Reinach, ‘Pratiche del Consumo’, in Enciclopedia della Moda, 845-846. 13 Vent Vert by Edward Suzuki Associates, 29 March 2013, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.contemporist.com/2013/03/29/vent-vert-by-edward-suzuki-associates/.

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__________________________________________________________________ 14

The Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi website, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.cecchiderossi.it. 15 Cristiano Cristiano, The Introduction of Piel y Vino: Tradition and Innovation at Pitti Immagine Uomo, 21 June 2010, accessed 13 May 2013, http://www.articleblast.com/News_and_Society/Society_and_Culture/The_introdu ction_of_Piel_y_Vino._Tradition_and_Innovation_at_Pitti_Immagine_Uomo/. 16 Federico Poletti, A.I. Artisanal Intelligence, 8 January 2012, accessed 4 April 2013, http://www.vogue.it/talents/blog-from/2012/08/a-i-fair. 17 Andrea Bono Tempo, ‘Intervista a Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi. Giovane Talento dell’Anno’, Wall Street International, 7 May 2012, accessed 23 May 2013, http://www.wsimagazine.com/it/diaries/report/moda/intervista-a-tommaso-cecchide-rossi_20120207182714.html#.UZ4hY5V1A20. 18 Andrea Deanesi, Destrutturazione Vinicola, 19 October 2010, accessed 4 April 2013, http://www.vogue.it/talents/blog-from/2010/10/de-rossi. 19 Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi, PelleEVino® Treatment, accessed 25 May, 2013, http://www.pielyvino.com/storia.html. 20 Bono Tempo, ‘Intervista a Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi. Giovane Talento dell’Anno’. 21 Cecchi De’ Rossi, PelleEVino® Treatment. 22 Elisa Rossi, In Scena una Vetrina per i Talenti di Domani, 28 February 2012, accessed 13 May 2013, http://www.mffashion.com/it/archivio/2012/02/28/in-scena-una-vetrina-per-i-talen ti-di-domani. 23 Tommaso Cecchi De’Rossi, AW12 Concept, 4 March 2012, accessed 13 May 2013, http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommasocecchiderossi/sets/72157629151968170/co mments/. 24 Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi, Metodi Innovativi dai Vigneti Toscani, 4 January 2013, accessed 23 May 2013, http://www.whiteshow.it/blog/2013/01/cecchi-derossi-metodi-innovativi-dai-vigneti-toscani/. 25 Deanesi, Destrutturazione Vinicola. 26 Juanita De Paola, ‘Intervista a Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi. Giovane Talento dell’Anno’, Wall Street International, 7 February 2012, accessed 6 September 2013, http://www.wsimagazine.com/it/diaries/report/moda/intervista-a-tommasocecchi-de-rossi_20120207182714.html#.Uin-7hZ1A23. 27 Bono Tempo, ‘Intervista a Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi. Giovane talento dell’Anno’. 28 The French term terroir (from terre, land) has no exact translation in English. It is used, in particular for wine, coffee and tea, to denote the special characteristics bestowed by geography upon particular varieties of plants. The best definition of it

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__________________________________________________________________ is ‘territorial identity,’ meaning a sum of those factors (such as soil, exposition to the sun, landscape, climate and most important man) that contribute in producing the distinctive character of a particular variety, such as for example Champagne. Le 99 Migliori Maison di Champagne, eds. Luca Burei and Alfonso Isinelli (Roma: Edizioni Estemporanee, 2010), 29 and following. 29 The Opel Adam website, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.opel.it/veicoli/showroom/auto/adam/index.html. 30 Samantha Grossman, ‘Introducing the Longboarddstroller: Half Baby Stoller, Half Skateboard’, Time News Feed, 18 June 2013, accessed 11 June, 2013, http://www.newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/18/introducing-the-longboard-strollerhalf-baby-stroller-half-skateboard/#ixzz2fLRXonxJ. 31 Lidija Grozdanic, South Korean Scientists Develop World’s First Bendable Lithium-Ion Battery, 18 June 2013, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.inhabitat.com/south-korean-scientists-develop-worlds-first-bendablelithium-ion-battery/. 32 Mello, Design Contemporaneo, 76. 33 The Hugshirt website, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.cutecircuit.com/portfolio/hug-shirt/. 34 Freely after Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms, Merriam-Webster, Inc. ed. (Merriam-Webster, Inc.: Springfield 1984), 878. 35 John L. Casti, Complexification: Explaining a Paradoxical World through the Science of Surprise (Harper Collins: New York 1994), ix. 36 Paul J. Silva, ‘Looking Past Pleasure: Anger, Confusion, Disgust, Pride, Surprise, and Other Unusual Aesthetic Emotions’, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts 3, No. 1 (2009): 48-51. 37 Free reflections on Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition, 42. 38 Other historical periods can be called ages of wonder, such as the period from the 16th to the 17th century with its technical and territorial discoveries or the turn of the 19th century with its technological and scientific acceleration. 39 Free reflections on the expressions ‘period of wonder’ (Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition, 42) and ‘amazing age’ (E. Robert Morse, Amazement: The Realization of Ideas and Dreams for a Sleeping Society (Lincoln: iUniverse, Inc., 2002), 283). 40 Jeanne Hersch, Storia della Filosofia Come Stupore (Paravia: Bruno Mondadori, 2002), 7. 41 Eric Pfeiffer, ‘Navy Could soon use 3-D Printers to Manufacture Drones and Weapons’, Yahoo! News, 28 May 2013, accessed 20 September 2013, http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/navy-could-soon-3d-printers-manufacturedrones-weapons-183412096.html.

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__________________________________________________________________ 42

Kombucha or kom-boo-cha, is a term derived from Chai is an effervescent fermentation of sweetened tea that is used as a functional food for a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, sometimes also referred to as a ‘mushroom’ or ‘mother.’ 43 The Biocouture website, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.biocouture.co.uk. 44 Jennifer Chait, High Tech, ‘Intelligent’ Baby Clothing May Help Parents Detect SIDS Warning Signs, 8 January 2013, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.inhabitots.com/high-tech-intelligent-baby-clothing-may-help-parentsmonitor-sids-warning-signs/. 45 Morgana Matus, The 3D-Printed Urbee 2 Hybrid Car is Light, Strong, and Nearing Production, 3 March 2013, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4oqNzw/inhabitat.com/the-urbee-2-a-3d-printedhybrid-car-that-is-light-strong-and-nearing-production/. 46 Bridgette Meinhold, Instant Spray-On “Clothing in a Can” Redefines Fast Fashion, 20 September 2010, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.ecouterre.com/instant-spray-on-clothing-in-a-can-redefines-fast-fashio n-video/. 47 Krystie Yando, ‘Eesha Khare, 18-Year-Old, Invents Device That Charges Cell Phone Battery in under 30 Seconds’, The Huffington Post, 20 May 2013, accessed 11 June 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/eesha-khare-18yearoldinv_n_3307519.html.

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__________________________________________________________________ —––. Metodi Innovativi dai Vigneti Toscani. 4 January 2013. Accessed 23 May 2013. http://www.whiteshow.it/blog/2013/01/cecchi-de-rossi-metodi-innovativi-dai-vign eti-toscani/. —––. PelleEVino® Treatment. Accessed 25 May 2013. http://www.pielyvino.com/storia.html. Chait, Jennifer. High Tech, ‘Intelligent’ Baby Clothing May Help Parents Detect SIDS Warning Signs. 8 January 2013. Accessed 11 June 2013. http://www.inhabitots.com/high-tech-intelligent-baby-clothing-may-help-parentsmonitor-sids-warning-signs/. Cristiano, Cristiano. The Introduction of Piel y Vino: Tradition and Innovation at Pitti Immagine Uomo. 21 June 2010. Accessed 13 May 2013. http://www.articleblast.com/News_and_Society/Society_and_Culture/The_introdu ction_of_Piel_y_Vino._Tradition_and_Innovation_at_Pitti_Immagine_Uomo/. Deanesi, Andrea. Destrutturazione Vinicola, 19 October 2010. Accessed 4 April 2013. http://www.vogue.it/talents/blog-from/2010/10/de-rossi. De Paola, Juanita. ‘Intervista a Tommaso Cecchi De’ Rossi. Giovane Talento dell’Anno’. Wall Street International. 7 February 2012. Accessed 6 September 2013. http://www.wsimagazine.com/it/diaries/report/moda/intervista-a-tommaso-cecchide-rossi_20120207182714.html#.Uin-7hZ1A23. Edquist, Charles, and Björn Johnson. Systems of Innovation: Technologies, Institutions, and Organizations. Oxon: Routledge, 1997. Grossman, Samantha. ‘Introducing the Longboardstroller: Half Baby Stoller, Half Skateboard’. Time News Feed. 18 June 2013. Accessed 11 June 2013. http://www.newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/18/introducing-the-longboard-stroller-half -baby-stroller-half-skateboard/#ixzz2fLRXonxJ. Grozdanic, Lidija. South Korean Scientists Develop World’s First Bendable Lithium-Ion Battery. 18 January 2013. Accessed 11 June 2013. http://www.inhabitat.com/south-korean-scientists-develop-worlds-first-bendable-li thium-ion-battery/.

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__________________________________________________________________ Hersch, Jeanne. Storia della Filosofia Come Stupore. Paravia: Bruno Mondadori, 2002. Hervieu-Leger, Danièle. Religione e Memoria. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996. Kotler, Philip, and Gary Armstrong. Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc., 2010. Kotler, Philip, Kartajaya Hermawan, and Iwan Setiawan. Marketing 3.0. Dal Prodotto al Cliente all’Anima. Milano: Gruppo Sole 24ore, 2010. Matus, Morgana. The 3D-Printed Urbee 2 Hybrid Car Is Light, Strong, and Nearing Production. 3 March 2013. Accessed 11 June 2013. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4oqNzw/inhabitat.com/the-urbee-2-a-3d-printedhybrid-car-that-is-light-strong-and-nearing-production/. Meinhold, Bridgette. Instant Spray-On ‘Clothing in a Can’ Redefines Fast Fashion. 20 September 2010. Accessed 11 June 2013. http://www.ecouterre.com/instant-spray-on-clothing-in-a-can-redefines-fast-fashio n-video/. Mello, Patrizia. Design Contemporaneo Mutazioni Oggetti Ambienti Architetture. Milano: Electa, 2008. Morse, E. Robert. Amazement: The Realization of Ideas and Dreams for a Sleeping Society. Lincoln: iUniverse, 2002. NTU Scientist Develops a Multi-Purpose Wonder Material to Tackle Environmental Challenge. Nanyang Technological University. 20 March 2013. Accessed 11 June 2013. http://www.media.ntu.edu.sg/NewsReleases/Pages/newsdetail.aspx?news=14e3b61 8-c71c-4f20-935c-2a566af5a298. Pfeiffer, Eri. ‘Navy Could Soon Use 3-D Printers to Manufacture Drones and Weapons’. Yahoo! News, 28 May 2013. Accessed 20 September 2013. http://www.news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/navy-could-soon-3d-printers-manufa cture-drones-weapons-183412096.html. Poletti, Federico. A.I. Artisanal Intelligence. 1 August 2012. Accessed 4 April 2013. http://www.vogue.it/talents/blog-from/2012/08/a-i-fair.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rossi, Elisa. In Scena una Vetrina per i Talenti di Domani. 28 February 2012. Accessed 13 May 2013. http://www.mffashion.com/it/archivio/2012/02/28/inscena-una-vetrina-per-i-talenti-di-domani. Segré Reinach, Simona. ‘Pratiche di Consumo’. In Enciclopedia della Moda, Vol. III. Roma: Enciclopedia Italiana, 2005. Silva, Paul J. ‘Looking Past Pleasure: Anger, Confusion, Disgust, Pride, Surprise, and Other Unusual Aesthetic Emotions’. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 3, No. 1 (2009): 48–51. Thorburn, David, Henry Jenkins, and Brad Seawell, eds. Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Yando, Krystie. ‘Eesha Khare, 18-Year-Old, Invents Device That Charges Cell Phone Battery in under 30 Seconds’. The Huffington Post. 20 May 2013. Accessed 11 June 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/eesha-khare-18yearoldinv_n_3307519.html. Cecilia Winterhalter is a contemporary historian publishing in the field of identity construction, through fashion, consumption, luxury, food, religion and selective memory. She has been employed in the luxury compartment and teaching at the London College of Fashion, the Fashion Institute of Technology (Florence) and the University of Pisa. She is member of the Steering Committee of the Global Fashion Conference Oxford and of the Advisory Board of the review Catwalk: The Journal of Fashion, Beauty and Style (ISSN: 2045-2349).

What Contemporary Jewellery Might Have to Say about Fashion Anne Brennan Abstract This chapter will take as its starting point Barthes’ essay ‘From Gemstones to Jewellery,’ in which he argues that jewellery, previously a marker of status and wealth, has been democratised by fashion through its appropriation of jewellery as an accessory, a detail of an outfit. Barthes argues that through this process, the value of jewellery is no longer arbitrated by economic value, but by taste. By addressing the ways in which photography has been used by contemporary jewellers to document and extend the meaning of their work, the chapter explores the limitations of the application of Barthes’ ideas to the preoccupations of contemporary jewellery. Key Words: Barthes, fashion, contemporary jewellery, Caroline Broadhead, Warwick Freeman, Awkward Beauty. ***** What might contemporary jewellery have to say about fashion? The question implied in my title emerged out of my own history as a one-time jeweller and relates to an observation by Barthes in his essay ‘From Gemstones to Jewellery,’ that ‘(F)ashion … no longer speaks of the gemstone, but only of jewellery.’ 1 If fashion speaks only of jewellery, what, I wondered, might jewellery have to say about fashion? Reading the essay made me consider something that had occupied the periphery of my consciousness for some time, namely the vexed relationship between much contemporary jewellery, clothing and the body. Barthes’ essay, which was written in 1961, maps a shift in the meaning of jewellery from pre-modern times to the present. In pre-modern times, the inanimate and incorruptible nature of gemstones and gold ‘(announced) an order as inflexible as things.’ 2 For Barthes, then, gemstones were signs of wealth, established order and power. Barthes argues that a change in the meaning of the jewel takes place with the rise of modernity and of the fashion industry. The jewel becomes co-opted by fashion, and like fashion, is a language that follows, expresses and signifies its time. This shift is articulated by a change in terminology: Barthes speaks deliberately of the gemstone when referring to the jewel’s pre-modern meanings, and of jewellery when referring to its contemporary significance. Liberated from the gemstone’s semiotic burden to express what he calls the ‘essentially theological nature of ancient society,’ jewellery has become ‘secularised’ and democratised. 3 Through its embrace of a range of non-precious materials, jewellery has been

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__________________________________________________________________ liberated from its sole requirement to express monetary value and can be used in an infinite variety of ways. 4 According to Barthes, value continues to be bestowed on jewellery, but it is now ascribed through taste, which is arbitrated by fashion. Ironically, bad taste in jewellery is demonstrated in those qualities that used to give it value: namely through richness and ostentation. 5 Fashion has replaced the gemstone with jewellery, which now operates as an element of clothing. Diminished in size, and depreciated in value, jewellery has become a detail in an entire ensemble, a ‘next to nothing,’ yet it is essential to the act of dressing, because it draws our attention to the wearer’s desire for ‘order … composition … (and) … intelligence … (and) … plays a vital role in making clothing mean something.’ 6 ‘From Gemstones to Jewellery’ was written a little over a decade before the emergence of the contemporary jewellery movement in Europe. This movement, also styled ‘New Jewellery’ in the United Kingdom and ‘Art Jewellery’ in America, grew out of the first post-war generation of young craftspeople and designers coming to maturity in the late 60s and early 70s. Trained in art schools and polytechnics rather than in traditional apprenticeships, and often fired by the radical politics of the time, these young jewellers dedicated themselves to a reevaluation of the social, economic and cultural role of jewellery. In the intervening forty years, the relationship between precious materials, status and monetary value has continued to be a key preoccupation of contemporary jewellers, as has an interest in the democratising of jewellery through the exploration of a range of non-precious materials. In this sense, contemporary jewellers would find a great deal of common ground with Barthes. However, in considering jewellery as a detail or an adjunct to clothing, a number of difficulties emerge. In alluding to a new ‘democratised’ form of jewellery, Barthes is really referring to costume jewellery, which developed in lockstep with the fashion industry over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This allows him to make a seamless connection between jewellery and clothing. Contemporary jewellery, on the other hand, may refer to jewellery’s own forms and histories, but may also invoke a diverse range of languages and practices, including that of sculpture or performance, which demand that an object’s formal qualities and/or its conceptual intentions take precedence over everything else. This is reflected in the way in which, in the late 1970s and 1980s, contemporary jewellers tended to describe their work in terms more aligned to sculpture: as an ‘object’ rather than a ‘brooch’ or a ‘bracelet,’ for example. Sometimes a part of the body might be indicated in the title: ‘Neckpiece,’ for example, or ‘Shoulder object.’ This practice served to separate the work from the expectations that might be conjured up by terms that were loaded with a particular social and material history, preparing the viewer for the possibility that the work’s relationship with the body was open-ended and speculative. At the same time, the

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__________________________________________________________________ direction of jewellery was deflected away from a relationship with the clothing of the wearer, or even the context of the everyday world which jewellery has traditionally inhabited. Instead, a great deal of contemporary jewellery depended for its meaning on a hypothetical or imaginative engagement with the work. One of the most useful strategies for exploring these potential meanings was, and continues to be, photography. Namita Gupta Wiggers observes that, for jewellers, ‘The photograph is more than a record or document. It’s a tool by which the experience of contemporary jewelry becomes known, fictionalized and expanded.’ 7 Indeed, given contemporary jewellery’s status as a one-off or limited edition object, the fact is that most people’s encounters with contemporary jewellery take place through its representations rather than through an engagement with the work itself. In the next part of this chapter, I want to discuss how jewellers use photography to mobilise meaning in their work and how, by doing this, they are able to control the way in which their work is seen. Using an example of work from the 1980s, I will explore the way in which the photograph of the work locates it in a hypothetical world, in which the distractions of everyday life, including clothing, can be edited out. In works such as this, I will argue, jewellery does not so much operate in relationship to clothing and fashion, as transcend them, rendering Barthes’ concept of jewellery as a detail of an ensemble of limited usefulness. In two later examples, photography is mobilised in a more open-ended way to address the relational potential between jewellery and the wearer. In these examples, I will explore the way in which photography can revitalise the potential meaning of jewellery as a detail, considering it as part of a larger, collaborative enterprise between photographer, jeweller and wearer. In 1983, Caroline Broadhead made an expandable collar, Veil, woven from translucent, flexible monofilament that has since become part of the canon of English contemporary jewellery. In the thirty years since Veil was made, I had seen it once, but had looked at its photographic representation countless times. More precisely, I had looked at one specific photograph, David Ward’s beautifully staged image of the work. His photograph captures the neckpiece activated to its fullest, as though summoned into the air by some mysterious force, encircling and rising high above the head of the young model, the translucent fibres appearing to vibrate with colour absorbed from the studio lights. When I re-encountered Veil in 2012 in the exhibition Unexpected Pleasures, I was reminded of the strangely latent quality that emerges from its status as a kind of hybrid object, somewhere between a garment and a necklace. 8 Collapsed in folds in its display case, it had something of the aura of a discarded garment, waiting for someone to put it on, to be reanimated by the presence of a body.

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Image 1: Caroline Broadhead Veil. © 1983, David Ward. Photographer David Ward. Photograph reproduced by permission David Ward. Clearly, when Broadhead and Ward first made the photograph, the image and the object were meant to operate like two parts of a proposition. The latent promise of the garment-like object is fulfilled in the photograph, which foregrounds the performative possibilities of the work in a moment that stresses its imaginative relationship with the body. However, in the intervening years since it was first made, Veil has been illustrated solely by Ward’s photograph. As far as I am aware, no image of the collar unworn has been used publicly, whilst Ward’s photograph has, over time, been circulated in countless catalogues and books and more recently on the Internet. Over time, therefore, the dialogical aspect of the relationship between the work and its representation has been lost and the photograph has usurped the object itself as an agent of meaning. David Ward’s photograph operates as a trace of a performative moment. In the image, Broadhead’s neckpiece is separated from the messy unpredictability of the everyday world in which the wearing of objects usually takes place, allowing it to persist in the mind of the viewer in an ideal and transformed state. In doing so, the image clearly states Broadhead’s agendas. Whilst the mystery of her object derives in part from its hybrid allusions to garments, necklaces and theatrical costume, it cannot in any way be considered a punctuating detail of a larger ensemble, as is made obvious by the choice to outfit the model in a neutral black leotard, which acts as a simple foil for the dynamic qualities of the neckpiece. Thus, whilst it may depend on the body to explore the theatrical possibilities of wearing an object, Veil is in fact entirely self-referential in its concerns. It is not an adjunct to clothing so

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__________________________________________________________________ much as the main event and its context is not that of fashion and its social codes but rather the open-ended aesthetic codes of the avant garde. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many jewellers, influenced by the social and cultural histories of jewellery, became interested in the possibility that the meaning of jewellery might not only be determined by themselves as the maker, but could in fact continue to be shaped by the owner of the work. Some jewellers began to reflect this in the way in which they chose to photograph their work, using their friends as models, for example, or taking their work out to be photographed in the street. Warwick Freeman has long been preoccupied with the creation of symbols that express the complexities of bicultural identity in New Zealand. In 1993 he published a book, significantly entitled Owners Manual, illustrated with portraits by Patrick Reynolds of friends and clients wearing his jewellery. These moody black and white photographs place the subjects in a variety of locations, both in New Zealand and elsewhere. The long, rectangular format of the book reads like a horizon line, in which the portraits spill across to the adjoining page, where they are juxtaposed with an image of the work being worn in the portrait. All of the photographs in Owner’s Manual are characterised by a distinct shift of attention from the jewellery to the wearer and their context. In some images the item of jewellery is in shadow, in others it is out of focus. In one photograph of Freeman’s friend Maria, her brooch could easily be just another point of light in the glittering, ceaselessly moving backdrop of the Paris bar in which she sits. The focus of the image is the wearer herself, perfectly at home in this cosmopolitan context, the brooch on her lapel a discreet – even secret – signifier of her antipodean status.

Image 2: Maria Wearing Warwick Freeman’s Star Heart brooch. © 1993, Warwick Freeman and Patrick Reynolds. Photographer Patrick Reynolds. Reproduced from Owner’s Manual by permission Warwick Freeman and Patrick Reynolds.

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__________________________________________________________________ It takes a little while to begin to register the way in which Reynolds’ photographs allow clothing and jewellery to conspire to unfold Freeman’s narratives of identity. In the portrait of Maria, the play of dark, matte lapel against dark, soft-sheened heart makes the brooch appear to swell out from the fabric itself, the star surmounting it a small burst of light against the black. Read this way, Freeman’s Star Heart becomes a small, portable navigational device: a star by which it is possible to set this expatriate New Zealander’s course for home. In another example, Max, the wearer of Freeman’s Hard Star, is photographed in front of the Auckland Museum. Once again, the focus is on the wearer. As Julie Ewington observes, the brooch on his chest reads ambiguously, like a star-shaped tear in his immaculate white shirt, exposing darkness beneath. 9 It is an unsettling detail in which, for a moment, garment and brooch merge in a gesture to the unknowable, private aspects of identity.

Image 3: Max wearing Warwick Freeman’s Hard Star brooch. © 1993, Warwick Freeman and Patrick Reynolds. Reproduced from Owner’s Manual by permission Warwick Freeman and Patrick Reynolds. The project encapsulated in Owner’s Manual seems much more amenable to Barthes’ concept of jewellery as the defining detail of an ensemble. In these two images, the brooches seem to fuse with the clothing on which they are worn in an alchemical process that renders clothing as another, social skin upon which it is possible to read a palimpsest of private and public inscriptions. In Owner’s Manual, the photographs do not privilege the formal qualities of the work. Rather, they convey a sense of temporal fluidity through which the wearer moves. In doing so, they chart the trajectory of the real life of worn things: moving in and out of spaces, sometimes in shadow and overlooked, sometimes springing to the attention of a passer-by to provide a moment of pleasure or mystery, foregrounding the idea of detail as something precarious and even subversive that lies in wait to be discovered.

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__________________________________________________________________ The final work I want to discuss constitutes a more straightforward iteration of a relationship between jewellery and fashion. Awkward Beauty was a collaboration between jeweller Helen Britton, clothing designer Justine McKnight and photographer Michelle Taylor that took place in Perth, Western Australia in 2010. 10 The starting point for the work was the Midlands Workshop, an abandoned early twentieth century railway workshop, soon to be revived as a heritage precinct with Midland Atelier, a design hub, at its centre. Responding to the material fabric of the site, Britton and McKnight established a series of reciprocal exchanges of clothing and jewellery in which each responded to the other’s work. Both artists then handed the work over to Taylor with an open brief to photograph the work in the context of the Midlands Workshop. In the exhibition that followed, Taylor’s exhibition-scale prints allowed the viewer to establish the ways in which details of the fabric of the building had shaped the collaborators’ responses to the site. The subject of the images shifted between the macrocosm of the decaying and monumental architecture of the Midlands Workshop and the microcosm of details of clothing and jewellery. This had the effect of creating an open-ended narrative for the viewer, encouraging them to move between the images and the work, adopting another form of looking that privileged the close-up and the detail over the idea of each garment or item of jewellery as a discrete entity. The format and layout of the exhibition publication allowed another way of exploring the relationship between space, clothing and jewellery. By building up sequences of images of details of the clothing and jewellery, interspersed with contextual shots of the model on the site, no photograph presents a definitive view of the work, but instead serves to move the viewer into and around Britton’s jewellery and McKnight’s clothing. If the photographs of Warwick Freeman’s work in Owner’s Manual establish a metaphorical narrative about identity, those in Awkward Beauty constitute a narrative about collaboration and its processes. This can be seen in the way in which Taylor’s camera establishes a relationship between Britton’s work and McKnight’s clothes. When Helen Britton’s bold work is photographed as discrete objects, the scale immediately becomes ambiguous, its architectonic qualities often overtaking it to suggest something monumental, much bigger than human scale. However, the narrative established by McKnight’s images insistently draws the work into a dialogue between body, jewellery and clothes. In one sequence, for instance, the scale of a large brooch is established in relation to the body of the wearer. In the detail that follows, we are afforded a view of the bodice of the dress, specifically the folds and structures of fabric of which it is comprised. As Robert Cook observes in his catalogue essay, this is a structure that allows the dress to support the weight of a brooch that would normally require much heavier fabric to sit

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__________________________________________________________________ correctly. 11 At the same time, the viewer is able to delight in the details of the formal exchanges between jeweller and designer. We notice the way the grey grids of paint on the brooch are echoed in the hounds-tooth check in the fabric of the bodice, for example, or the play between the floral shapes of the stones in the brooch and their ghostly echo in the white-on-white jacquard silk used in the bodice.

Image 4: Awkward Beauty 5. Brooch: Helen Britton. © 2010, Michelle Taylor. Dress: Justine McKnight 2011. Photograph: Michelle Taylor 2011. Reproduced by permission Michelle Taylor.

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Image 5: Awkward Beauty 5. Brooch: Helen Britton. © 2010, Michelle Taylor. Dress: Justine McKnight 2011. Photograph: Michelle Taylor 2011. Reproduced by permission Michelle Taylor. The photographic narratives of both Michelle Taylor and Patrick Reynolds direct us to a reciprocating dialogue of details, allowing us to understand Barthes’ idea of the detail as a ‘next to nothing’ anew. In their work, the detail is not something negligible, but rather something contingent, something that is always in danger of being overlooked, yet, when noticed and interpreted, enriches an experience of the whole. In the collaboration at the centre of Awkward Beauty in particular, the details of Britton’s work do not so much serve to ‘play a vital role in making clothing mean something,’ as Barthes would have it, as much as they become part of an exchange of mutual accommodation in which clothing and jewellery serve to make each other mean much, much more.

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Notes 1

Roland Barthes, ‘From Gemstone to Jewellery’, in The Language of Fashion, eds. Andy Stafford and Michael Carter (Sydney: Power Publications, 2006), 59-65. 2 Ibid., 59. 3 Ibid., 62. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 63. 6 Ibid., 63-64. 7 Namita Gupta Wiggers, ‘Photography’, in Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective, ed. Damian Skinner (New York: Lark Books, 2013), 25. 8 Unexpected Pleasures: The Art and Design of Contemporary Jewellery, curated by Susan Cohn. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and Design Museum, London, 2012. 9 Julie Ewington, Owner’s Manual: Jewellery by Warwick Freeman (Auckland: Starform, 1995), unpaginated. 10 Awkward Beauty, curated by Elisha Butler. Midland Atelier, Perth, WA, 2011. 11 Robert Cook, ‘The Intimate Porosity of an Awkward Kind of Beauty’, in Awkward Beauty (Perth: Form, 2011), unpaginated.

Bibliography Barthes, Roland. The Language of Fashion. Translated by Andy Stafford. Sydney: Power Publications, 2006. Butler, Elisha ed. Awkward Beauty. Exhibition Catalogue. Perth, WA: Form, 2011. Ewington, Julie. Owner’s Manual: Jewellery by Warwick Freeman. Auckland: Starform, 1995. Skinner, Damian, ed. Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective. New York: Lark Books, 2013. Anne Brennan is a senior lecturer in the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at the Australian National University School of Art. Originally trained as a jeweller, she lectures and publishes widely on craft and design in Australia. Her other major research interests focus on memory studies.

Sequins, Snakeskin and Stilettos: Shoe Design and the Study of Material Agency Naomi Braithwaite Abstract This chapter evolves from an extensive research into the creative and commercial practice of a select number of British based luxury shoe designers. Adopting a holistic approach to the study of creativity research revealed that ideas, contrary to existing discourse, are not always the starting point of a fashion object’s life. It was frequently the materials of shoe design, in other words the physical matter that would constitute the final form of these designer shoes, which the designers would narrate as the starting point of their creativity. The shoe is a material structure whereby materials are not solely confined to the aesthetic exterior but impel the future functioning of the shoe and significantly its creative biography. In the context of creativity in fashion, the chapter will present shoe design as an embodied process whereby materials will be revealed to be both inspirational and agentic. These materials not only define the physical form of the shoe but are integral to the stimulation of creative inspiration and thus initiate particular creative behaviours in the process of shoe design. Drawn from a twenty month long ethnography with twenty three shoe designers the research findings present creativity in fashion as a material and transformatory process whereby these practitioners of shoe design exist in a dialogue between materials, creative process and forms. Adopting a material culture perspective the discussion will contribute a dynamic approach to materiality by demonstrating how materials bring fashion to life. The chapter will argue that materials not only constitute the biographies of these fashion objects they also serve as embodiments of each designer’s own self identity. The chapter will contribute understanding to the role of materials in fashion by demonstrating that creativity is not just a conceptual process, it is significantly material. Key Words: Creativity, materials, shoe design, designers, embodiment, material culture, ethnography. ***** 1. Introduction Terry de Havilland, affectionately termed the ‘rock ‘n’ roll cobbler,’ stands in his design studio in Dalston, London, surrounded by rolls of leather, suede and brightly coloured metallic snakeskin, shoe lasts, heels and an array of designs that span his fifty year career. Terry had recently met with the composer Richard Thomas, the writer of a new show called Shoes, to be staged at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Islington, in 2010. Thomas had approached Terry to design and make

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__________________________________________________________________ ten pairs of shoes or boots for a particular tap dance score for the show, titled ‘Your Mum,’ which spoke about how mothers warn their children not to wear high heels as they are bad for your feet, causing bunions, and other unfortunate foot disorders. Terry had been selected as one of the key shoe designers to contribute to the show; this had come from his notoriety as the creator of the iconic metallic snakeskin platform shoes, so desired during the 1970s, and that are today, very collectable. Terry and his wife Liz, who assists him in the studio, were ecstatic about this new design venture, and over the next few weeks Terry would dedicate his days to creating ten pairs of brightly coloured, platform shoes with extremely high heels. His objective was to create a range of shoes that would be suited for a stage performance, as well as reflecting his own unique design characteristics inherent in his love for colourful, snakeskin platform shoes. Having been granted free reign over the designs, Terry spent time seeking the sources for his creative inspiration. Throughout my visit, Terry continued working on ideas for these designs. It was clear from the number of shoes that he had lined up on the workbench that he was looking to the past for creative reference. He never seemed to stay still for long and would often walk over to the back of his studio where he had a large door-less wardrobe full of leathers, suede, snakeskins and other materials. He would stand in front of this observing and touching the materials, pulling them out and taking them over to the workbench where he would wrap them around the lasts and sometimes the shoes. Terry was experimenting with the materials, by manipulating them over these forms he could imagine what a future design might be. Eventually he laid out a large purple suede skin on the worktop and placed next to it some strips of ultra violet leather and he said how amazing this combination would look under the stage lights. ‘Imagine,’ he said, ‘a purple leather boot that laced up to the knee, with ultra violet trims and silver snakeskin covered platform soles and heels.’ The above paragraphs are a fieldwork diary extract, drawn from an ethnographic study of creativity in shoe design. It exemplifies the creative process of a studio-based shoe designer/maker, unmasking how they go about creating shoe designs. In the realms of fashion literature, creativity is assumed to be a linear process which follows a particular trajectory from idea to end product. 1 Studies in creativity have proclaimed that ideas are the starting point of design. 2 However, observing Terry de Havilland conceptualise and make shoes, revealed that creativity was not a linear journey, but a fluid, embodied practice, which saw the practitioner engaging with materials. Materials such as leathers and snakeskin were for Terry, agentic and inspirational, having transformatory powers to both initiate creativity and make shoes. What emerged from the ethnography was that ideas were not always the starting point of creativity in shoe design rather it was the materials, the physical matter that would constitute the aesthetic exterior of the shoe that was to be observed, and, narrated by the shoe designers, as the inspirational force behind creative initiation. This chapter will draw from the data

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__________________________________________________________________ findings and explore shoe design as a material process where the body of the designer engages with the aesthetic and tactile qualities of the materials that will constitute their created shoes. Applying Sennett’s theory of craft, 3 the body of the designer will be discussed as the site of consciousness that triggers design. Through a focus on materiality the chapter will bring a dynamic approach to material culture by showing how materials bring life to fashion and also through a tacit knowledge serve as material representations of each shoe designer’s own selfidentity. This study of shoe design will demonstrate that creativity is not just a conceptual process but one that is explicitly material. 2. A Methodological Approach to Shoe Design This chapter evolves from a twenty month ethnography that observed the creative and commercial practice of twenty three luxury shoe designers. The objective was to take a holistic approach to creativity and thus reveal the largely unexplored field of shoe design and production. As an ‘instrument of inquiry,’ 4 ethnography with its emphasis on prolonged engagements with the informants presented itself as the most appropriate method of study. In order to understand creative behaviour it was important to apply a method that allowed relationships to be built with the designers. The empirical study was based around interviews and participant observations with the informants. The objective was to observe the creative process at varying stages and from different individuals’ perspectives. As a result I was able to witness the development of ideas to drawings, materials to prototypes, to finished shoes in the shops and sometimes even as a feature editorial in a magazine. Throughout the process ethnography was used to understand each designer’s experience of their creative work. The research focused on the designer end of the British shoe industry, an area which has not yet been open to ethnographic interpretation. The luxury end of the market was selected as the shoe design companies here are usually owned and run by the actual designer, allowing greater access to the individual and their creative experiences. Throughout the study creativity was understood to be relational and material and thus it became important to observe the shoe designer at work and watch them conceptualise, sketch out ideas and transform materials into the three dimensional form of a shoe. Women’s shoe designers were chosen as the central focus of this study as the shoes themselves are more interesting and open to experimentation, both in terms of structure and materials. The creative work of the profiled designers consisted mainly of high heels that were made out of more exotic materials, sequins, snakeskin and other interesting materials. Shoe designers, particularly those of women’s shoes, receive much attention in the fashion media with editorials and articles that celebrate the ‘genius’ of the likes of Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin. The fashion press caters to the consumer’s fascination with these particular shoe designers with features that discuss the latest ‘must have’ Blahnik shoe as seen on Sex and the City or the story

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__________________________________________________________________ behind Louboutin’s distinctive red soles. With these designers’ rising success comes the labelling of their created shoes as ‘iconic’ and a mounting increase in consumer desire. At the end of each selling season queues start forming outside Manolo Blahnik’s Chelsea store, for the first day of the sale, as early as 5am. As the doors open at 10am, I have observed women push and jostle in a desperate bid to get through the door first and not miss out on their longed for shoes. Despite the media frenzy that surrounds shoes and designers, the practice of fashion shoe design has been given little attention in the field of academic research. This research into shoe design has answered anthropology’s call to address and interrogate materials, 5 and thus will present shoe design as both a material and social practice. There is a need in material culture studies to explore how things are designed and made as this will contribute understanding to how human beings act on the ‘material world’ and in addition how materials act upon human beings. 6 Material culture has placed much emphasis on the meaningfulness of consumption and the appropriation of objects, taking this as the beginning of their lives. However, this approach, Attfield argued, ignores the significance of design and production, which are the true ‘starting point’ of an object’s life. 7 This study has revealed that meanings are instilled in shoes through the transformative processes of design and lie hidden inside the shoe as material representations of the designer’s ideas, tastes, experiences and memories, as well as the particular productive actions that have directed the future aesthetic of its form. This relates to what Ingold terms ‘restoring things to life,’ 8 the object becomes animated through the materials and actions performed on it, no longer can it be perceived as a static form. The chapter will argue that materials have agency and that through the embodied, sensorial creative process the practitioners of shoe design exist in a dialectic relationship with materials. 3. Material Dialogues The shoe is a material structure, whereby materials are not just the aesthetic coverings of the object but are in fact ‘the functioning thing itself.’ 9 As human beings, we reside in a world where things are made from materials and where materials also presuppose the future form of our designed objects. 10 This ethnography has revealed materials to be a fundamental part of the shoe designer’s creative process, and, drawing from raw data the chapter will discuss how these are selected to create both an aesthetic and functional form. Materials in this context refer to the physical matter that makes objects. 11 In shoe design materials not only define the structural properties of a shoe but are also imperative to the stimulation of ideas and thus the initiation of particular creative behaviour. 12 Materials in the context of shoe design are those which are in a flat state and will be selected to form the aesthetic exterior of shoes through the process of making, which sees them being manipulated and worked over the last, where they are transformed into three-dimensional, structural forms.

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__________________________________________________________________ At play in the creative process is a form of ‘enchantment’ where the designer becomes seduced by the aesthetic and sensual qualities of the materials. 13 What transpired from the research was how design choices emanated from the individual’s embodied experience with particular textures. The opening ethnographic encounter demonstrated how for Terry de Havilland, materials were the starting point to his creative process. As he began conceptualising a collection, he would sensorially engage with different materials. Research on the externalisation in design thinking has primarily concentrated on the ‘role of sketching.’ 14 Rather than the usual method of sketching out ideas and then finding the materials, Terry starts first with materials and by experimenting with them on different lasts he externalises his potential design ideas. Ideas here are being driven by the engagement between material, form and designer. The craftsman, argues Sennett, is an individual who has a sense of ‘material consciousness’ and their ability to do good design depends on ‘curiosity about the material at hand.’ 15 By engaging with these different materials, Terry is exploring their potential to become shoes that will represent his creative aesthetic. The hand is ‘the window on’ Terry’s mind and through touching these different materials his creative thought becomes stimulated. 16 Through touch Terry engages tacitly with the material’s textures and thus its possibility as a future shoe. Sensorial responses are dependent on the individual, the particular material and perhaps the designer’s physical and emotional reactions. Sensory experience was shown through shoe design to be embodied and defined by ‘perceptual experience’ and ‘engagement in the world.’ 17 As Terry engages with his favoured material of metallic snakeskin his memory is triggered and he reminisces back to his life during the 1970’s and what he termed ‘the rollercoaster of craziness.’ ‘There were just so many crazy things happening it was just a rollercoaster of craziness and whatevers and drugs and parties,’ it was he recalled ‘really rock ‘n’ roll.’ The snakeskin’s texture serves as a creative trigger for design and as an embodiment of memory. Through tactile engagement, there initiates a synaesthetic experience of remembering, bringing the past into the present. 18 Terry’s engagement with snakeskin creates a shoe that becomes a conscious and material representation of his cultural biography. The kaleidoscope of different snakeskins that he used to create shoes represented materialisations of this ‘rollercoaster of craziness,’ particularly symbolic of the 1970s era when platform shoes, discos and glitter mirror balls were all the rage. Terry’s platforms define an era but they also represent the designer’s autobiography. Through the shoes he has created, he is able to narrate something about his past experiences and memories, they ‘furnish his recollection.’ 19 Terry’s individual style is defined by his sensual experience of, and subsequent use of, metallic snakeskin. He is drawn to the exoticness of snakeskin, its rough texture and the iridescence of the coloured scales. The material here is not purely aesthetic, it stimulates memories of a particular time in his past

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__________________________________________________________________ which he can recreate through the new designs using this material. Material is thus both the embodiment of his personal (private) and creative (public) aesthetic. The material does not just represent the creation of fashion it is also the material representation of his biography. Material in shoe design holds agency over both fashion and its creators. The chapter has so far privileged the creative experiences of one particular shoe designer. However, for all the other designers of this study materials were the key inspirational source of their created shoes. As the designer Chau Har Lee talked through the ‘sources of inspiration’ behind her first collection of designed shoes, it was apparent that her engagement with, and experimentation of, different materials were a key inspirational force. Her first creation was a pair of rope dyed ‘veg tan’ leather shoes, with a heel carved from a piece of wood that had been found in a friend’s garden. Leather is the most traditional material used in shoe design, 20 but it is Chau’s treatment of the leather that evidences an experimental approach to the material. Taking a natural untreated leather, Chau dyed it by putting a green coloured dye on a rope, and then, brushing the rope over the leather by hand using broad strokes. When she first came to design, she stated that she was a ‘leather orientated’ shoe designer, but as her work progressed, she became interested in pushing the boundaries of shoe design by working with more unusual materials. As a result, Chau’s first collection included a pair of shoes made from a zip, a pair which had heels comprised of a sawn off aluminium pole and a pair of ‘flat packed’ Perspex shoes which came in six pieces that would need to be fitted together. All these different designs had initiated Chau’s desire as a designer to explore the material possibilities of shoes. The time spent with Chau revealed the significance of materials in initiating her design ideas. It is not just a visual experience but one that was predominantly tactile, by looking and feeling materials, design ideas would creep into Chau’s imagination. She would use particular words to describe the material’s sensory appeal like the ‘warmth’ of wood, the ‘coldness’ of metal and the ‘suppleness’ of leather. These descriptive words were what Pye termed subjective qualities of materials, 21 which have been projected by the designer themselves as a consequence of their emotional response to particular textures. 22 For Chau, materials were inspiring. By looking and touching them, she could feel something start to happen inside her and she began to imagine how they might look in certain forms. Chau’s discussion of the role of materials in her creative process shows that she is in a dialogue with them. 23 As she engages with their textures, she gains knowledge of their possibilities and how they could become a shoe. The chapter has demonstrated how through an ethnographic approach to creativity in shoe design, materials can be interpreted as agentic, initiating creative inspiration for the shoe designer and creating a shoe that will be consumed as fashion.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Conclusion The significance of materials to the creative process in shoe design intends to put the material back into material culture. 24 Ingold has argued that materials are absent from material culture and thus questions how is it possible to understand what materiality therefore really means. 25 In its most ‘mundane’ form, materiality stands for the study of artefacts within the larger ‘conceptualization of culture.’ 26 But what are the material properties of these artefacts and how have they come into being? One might question why this really matters anyway. But as Ingold asserts, surely one will learn more ‘about the material composition of the inhabited world by engaging quite directly with the stuff we want to understand.’ 27 To do this, he states, one must engage with the materials out of which stuff is made. To examine the shoe as a finished object will not reveal the processes and materials that have given rise to it. Terry’s platform is not just a static snakeskin shoe; it has been created in response to the particular material properties inherent in snakeskin. To describe the properties of the snakeskin and the affect they had on the designer is to tell the story of how they flow through creativity to make a shoe that contributes to material culture. 28 Materials bring creativity and thus fashion to life.

Notes 1

Herbert Blumer, ‘Fashion: From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection’, The Sociological Quarterly 10, No. 3 (1969): 275-291; Katy Chapman, ‘Inside Design: A Look at the Method behind the Madness’, AATCC Review (February 2002): 21-24; Fred Davis, Fashion Culture and Identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Gini Stephen Frings, Fashion: From Concept to Consumer (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2008). 2 Davis, Fashion Culture and Identity; Ingrid Loschek, When Clothes Become Fashion: Design and Innovation Systems (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2009). 3 Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (London: Penguin, 2008). 4 Grant David McCracken, The Long Interview (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988), 9. 5 Susanne Küchler, ‘Materials and Design’, in Design: Anthropology: Object Culture in the 21st Century, ed. Alison. J. Clarke (New York: Springer Wien, 2011), 130-141; Tim Ingold, Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials (Manchester University: Realities Working Paper, 2010), 1-14. 6 Tim Ingold, ‘Materials against Materiality’, Archaeological Dialogues 14, No. 1 (2007): 1-16. 7 Judy Attfield, Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2000), 11. 8 Ingold, ‘Bringing Things to Life’, 10. 9 Küchler, ‘Materials and Design’, 132.

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Mike F. Ashby and Kara Johnson, Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design (Oxford: Butterworth – Heinemann, 2002); Küchler, Materials and Design. 11 Jinny Rhee, ‘Materials’, in Design Dictionary: Perspectives on Design Terminology, ed. Michael Erlhoff and Tim Marshall (Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2010), 256-258. 12 Toshiko Mori, Immaterial/Ultramaterial (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Design School in association with George Braziller, 2002). 13 Alfred Gell, Art and Agency (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). 14 Claudia Eckert and Martin Stacey, ‘Sources of Inspiration: a Language of Design’, Design Studies 21(2000): 526. 15 Sennett, The Craftsman, 120. 16 Ibid., 149. 17 Thomas J. Csordas, Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 12. 18 Susanne Küchler, ‘The Place of Memory’, in The Art of Forgetting, eds. Adrian Forty and Susanne Küchler (Oxford, New York: Berg Publishers 1999), 53-73. 19 Marius Kwint, ‘Introduction: The Physical Past’, in Material Memories: Design and Evocation, eds. Marius Kwint, Christopher Breward and Jeremy Aynsley (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1992), 2. 20 Walter E. Cohn, Modern Footwear Materials & Processes (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1969). 21 David Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship (London: The Herbert Press, 1968). 22 Peter Dormer, The Meanings of Modern Design: Towards the Twenty-First Century (London and New York: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1990). 23 Sennett, The Craftsman. 24 Elizabeth Shove et al., The Design of Everyday Life (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2007). 25 Ingold, ‘Materials against Materiality’. 26 Daniel Miller, Introduction to Clothing as Material Culture, ed. Susanne Küchler and Daniel Miller (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005), 4. 27 Ingold, ‘Materials against Materiality’, 3. 28 Ingold, ‘Bringing Things to Life’.

Bibliography Ashby, Mike F., and Kara Johnson. Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design. Oxford: Butterworth – Heinemann, 2002.

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__________________________________________________________________ Attfield, Judy. Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2000. Blumer, Herbert. ‘Fashion: From Class Differentiation to Collective Selection’. The Sociological Quarterly 10, No. 3 (1969): 275–291. Davis, Fred. Fashion Culture and Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Chapman, Katy. ‘Inside Design: A Look at the Method behind the Madness’. AATCC Review (2002): 21–24. Clarke, Alison J., ed. Design Anthropology: Object Culture in the 21st Century. New York: Springer Wien, 2011. Cohn, Walter E. Modern Footwear, Materials and Processes: Topical Guide to Footwear Technology. New York: Fairchild Publications, Inc., 1969. Csordas, Thomas J., ed. Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. —––. ‘Introduction: The Body as Representation and Being-in-the-World’. In Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self, edited by Thomas J. Csordas, 1–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Dormer, Peter. The Meanings of Modern Design: Towards the Twenty-First Century. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1990. Frings, Gini Stephen. Fashion: From Concept to Consumer. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc., 2008. Eckert, Claudia, and Martin Stacey. ‘Sources of Inspiration: a Language of Design’. Design Studies 21 (2000): 523–538. Erlhoff, Michael, and Tim Marshall, ed. Design Dictionary: Perspectives on Design Terminology. Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2010. Forty, Adrian, and Susanne Küchler, eds. The Art of Forgetting. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1999.

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__________________________________________________________________ Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Ingold, Tim. ‘Beyond Art and Technology: The Anthropology of Skill’. In Anthropological Perspectives on Technology, edited by Michael Schiffer, 17–31. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001. —––. ‘Materials against Materiality’. Archaeological Dialogues 14, No. 1 (2007): 1–16. —––. ‘Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials’. Manchester University: Realities Working Paper (2010): 1–14. Küchler, Susanne. ‘The Place of Memory’. In The Art of Forgetting, edited by Adrian Forty, and Susanne Küchler, 53–73. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1999. —––. ‘Materials and Design’. In Design Anthropology: Object Culture in the 21st Century, edited by Alison J. Clarke, 130–141. New York: Springer Wien, 2011. Küchler, Susanne, and Daniel Miller, ed. Clothing as Material Culture. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005. Kwint, Marius. ‘Introduction: The Physical Past’. In Material Memories: Design and Evocation, edited by Marius Kwint, Christopher Breward, and Jeremy Aynsley, 1–16. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1999. Kwint, Marius, Christopher Breward, and Jeremy Aynsley. Material Memories: Design and Evocation. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1999. Loschek, Ingrid. When Clothes Become Fashion: Design and Innovation Systems. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2009. McCracken, Grant. The Long Interview. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications Inc, 1988. Miller, Daniel. Introduction to Clothing as Material Culture, edited by Susanne Küchler, and Daniel Miller, 1–20. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005. Mori, Toshiko. Immaterial/Ultramaterial: Architecture, Design and Materials. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Design School in association with George Braziller, 2002.

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__________________________________________________________________ Pye, David. The Nature and Art of Workmanship. London: The Herbert Press, 1968. Rhee, Jinny. ‘Materials’. In Design Dictionary: Perspectives on Design Terminology, edited by Michael Erlhoff, and Tim Marshall, 256–258. Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2010. Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. London: Penguin, 2008. Shove, Elizabeth, Matthew Watson, Martin Hand, and Jack Ingram, eds. The Design of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2007. Naomi Braithwaite is a Research Fellow in Product Lifetimes at Nottingham Trent University. She has carried out extensive research into the cultural significance of shoes and the creative practice of British shoe designers.

Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes in Contemporary British Culture Amy Twigger Holroyd Abstract This chapter is concerned with the experience of wearing homemade clothes in contemporary British culture, and the way in which such items affect the process of identity construction. There is a lack of academic knowledge in this area; fashion theory rarely discusses homemade clothing, while craft theory primarily focuses on the process of making, rather than the use of finished items. The research involved a review of literature on fashion, making and identity, combined with primary research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven female amateur knitters, aged between 43 and 66, as the initial stage of a qualitative design research project investigating amateur making as a potential strategy for sustainable fashion. These accounts are supported by over fifty comments about wearing homemade clothes, gathered at a drop-in knitting activity. In our posttraditional world, identities are always evolving. Rather than occupying fixed roles associated with work, religion and class, we reflexively construct our identities through leisure and lifestyle. We do this through dress, using the constant shifts of fashion and the meanings associated with clothes. We also construct our identities through the activities in which we engage, such as amateur fashion making. What happens when we come to wear the items we have made? These items lack the meanings associated with brands, and the sanctioning influence of industrial manufacture. Instead, they are subject to the multiple meanings of the homemade. This research shows that homemade items can be seen romantically, as garments made with love, associated with positive self-sufficiency and hip ‘indie’ culture. Conversely, we can observe the stigma of the homemade, of ill-fitting and badlymade items associated with poverty and old-fashioned values. Given these conflicting meanings, it is unsurprising to find that many amateur makers have ambivalent feelings about wearing their homemade garments. Key Words: Fashion, identity, amateur, making, meaning, homemade, knitting, romance, stigma, ambivalence. ***** 1. Introduction This chapter is concerned with the experience of wearing homemade clothes in contemporary British culture, and the way in which such items interact with the process of identity construction. This issue has emerged during a qualitative design research project investigating amateur making as a potential strategy for sustainable fashion. My particular interest is in homemade knitted garments; hence,

296 Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes __________________________________________________________________ I am using knitting as a focus while discussing amateur fashion making more generally. The research is firmly situated in my practice as a designer and maker, specialised in knitwear. I agree with White and Griffiths that practitioners’ perspectives are essential for the development of fashion as an area of academic study. 1 While running knitting workshops and projects as part of my practice, I have met many people who make their own clothes and find this to be an empowering, positive experience. However, other conversations I have had have shown that amateur fashion making is riddled with ambivalences, idiosyncrasies and disappointments. These fascinating conversations led me to embark on this project. Before starting my own primary research, I carried out a review of literature on fashion, making and identity. In order to understand the complex cultural arrangements which structure individuals’ experiences of wearing homemade clothes, I needed to establish an underpinning understanding of fashion theory. I am taking an inclusive approach; I agree with Wilson that ‘in modern western societies no clothes are outside fashion,’ 2 and take a particular interest in what Craik describes as ‘clothing behaviour in general.’ 3 During the review, I realised that making is absent from the vast majority of fashion theory literature, which assumes that the items being worn are shop-bought. Similarly, use is missing from craft theory literature, which is primarily concerned with process. There are valuable examples of research into the wearing of homemade clothes between 1890 and the 1980s. 4 However, there is very little to help us understand the experience of wearing homemade clothes in contemporary British culture, beyond short journalistic accounts. 5 Myzelev discusses the display of homemade objects in the home environment – an area which is clearly related to the wearing of homemade garments – and agrees that this area is ripe for investigation: What is the role of objects, handmade objects in creating a house, a home? How does making it change its relevance? These issues via-à-vis knitting and handicrafts in general are yet to be explored. 6 The research involved a series of knitting workshops with a group of seven female amateur knitters, aged between 43 and 66, which took place at my knitwear studio in Hereford. At the start of the project, I conducted individual interviews and a group ‘knitting circle’ discussion; these sessions provided the data explored in this chapter. The semi-structured life world interviews 7 were structured around items from the participants’ wardrobes. The conversation moved naturally from the specifics of the individual garments, to broader questions about fashion, shopping, mending and discarding clothes. At the ‘knitting circle,’ I captured the group’s experiences

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__________________________________________________________________ of knitting and their feelings about wearing homemade clothes. The group introduced themselves by sharing projects they had made, and we knitted together as we talked; thus, we got to know each other as fellow knitters with similar interests, experiences and concerns. The sessions were transcribed and analysed using thematic coding analysis and a constant comparative method. 8 I have included three quotes from this data in the chapter, highlighted in italics. These accounts are supported by over fifty comments about wearing homemade clothes, gathered at a drop-in knitting activity that I ran at three music festivals. The comments provide a materialised version of the snippets of stories, anecdotes and comments that I hear during my practice. Images of three of these tags have been included, and should be thought of as visual quotes. 2. Identity Construction As Rogers and Smith-Lovin explain, ‘sociologists use the term “identity” to refer to the many meanings attached to a person, both by the self and others.’ 9 According to Burke and Stets, we gain these meanings from our roles in society, the groups we belong to, and our personal characteristics. 10 In traditional cultures, identities are stable; for example, Crane tells us that ‘in nineteenth-century industrializing societies, social class affiliation was one of the most salient aspects of a person’s identity.’ 11 We now live in a post-traditional world, and identities are less stable; Burke and Stets argue that in this context we have multiple identities and the self becomes an evolving, reflexive project. 12 As Giddens says: The reflexive project of the self, which consists in the sustaining of coherent, yet continuously revised, biographical narratives, takes places in the context of multiple choice as filtered through abstract systems. 13 Belk explains that one way in which we construct our identity is through our possessions. 14 According to Crane, because leisure and lifestyle, as opposed to work, religion and class, have become more important in constructing identity, ‘…the consumption of cultural goods, such as fashionable clothing, performs an increasingly important role.’ 15 Many writers argue that our clothes are a particularly significant type of possession, because of the intimate relationship they have with our bodies. For example, Dant identifies clothes as the objects which play the most intimate and constant role in our individual and social lives. 16 According to Calefato, this unique relationship can be identified across a wide range of geographical, historical and social contexts. 17 Attfield explains that clothes link the internal world of the self with the social realm of identity. 18 Woodward describes the act of choosing what to wear as a practice of identity construction, and dressing as an act of ‘surfacing’ particular aspects of the self. 19 This is an ongoing process, as she states:

298 Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes __________________________________________________________________ It is apparent that clothing does not simply reflect the self or identity. Instead … clothing gives women a sense that they have a self and indeed that they can change it. 20 Gregson, Metcalfe and Crewe remind us that this process of identity construction does not just take place at the point of purchase (a focus for much consumption literature) and what Guy, Green and Banim describe as ‘wardrobe moments,’ 21 but throughout ownership, and disposal, of clothing. 22 The process of identity construction relies on the meanings associated with our clothes. These meanings might relate to the style of the garment, as manifested through silhouette, detail or material, or to the manufacturer, as communicated via (more or less visible) branding. McCracken explains that such meanings are not universal or fixed. 23 As Miller describes, the symbolic meanings of objects are highly variable, ‘…dependent upon the social positioning of the interpreter and the context of interpretation.’ 24 This is particularly true within a postmodern fashion system; a garment or outfit may be read in different ways by different viewers and in different contexts. Because of this ambiguity, clothes are a potent way of constructing our multiple, postmodern selves. Davis suggests that tensions such as ‘youth versus age, masculinity versus femininity … inclusiveness versus exclusiveness … domesticity versus worldliness, revelation versus concealment … and conformity versus rebellion’ 25 can be expressed and resolved through dress. According to Kaiser, clothing is ‘good to think with,’ and can bring ‘complex contradictions to the surface.’ 26 As well as the meanings that we share with others, it should be noted that we also attach personal meanings to our clothes, often based on memorable experiences associated with the items. Such meanings may be deeply significant to the wearer, yet invisible to others. Making provides another means of constructing and expressing identity. Identities are based on positions in social structures; Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton explain that these positions are increasingly based on our personal interests and chosen leisure pursuits. 27 As Giddens says, ‘the more posttraditional the settings in which an individual moves, the more lifestyle concerns the very core of self-identity, its making and remaking.’ 28 Taking up knitting as a hobby allows recognition as ‘a maker.’ Johnson and Wilson say that the adoption of this identity connects knitters with wider networks, and creates a recognisable role within the circle of family and friends. 29 However, recognition as ‘a knitter’ might have different meanings in different contexts. Within the knitting community, this identity is shared and therefore seen in a positive light. However, in the wider world, it may not be so positive. Knitting has multiple, sometimes conflicting images: hip, anarchic and youthful on one hand, old-fashioned and uncreative on the other. I asked my research participants what they felt other people thought about knitting, and knitters. Their answers were

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__________________________________________________________________ mixed; some were positive, mentioning the current fashionability of the activity. However, several felt that others see knitting as old-fashioned: They think it’s boring. I think people think it’s almost sad, you know? Thus, an identity as a knitter is rather ambivalent. It can be a source of pride and status when amongst like-minded people, at the same time as a potential source of embarrassment, to be concealed from those outside the knitting community. 3. Homemade Clothes and Identity While the activity of making establishes an identity as ‘a maker,’ the items produced materialise that identity; wearing them creates a resonance between the two. As Johnson and Wilson explain, homemade objects are manifestations of all the meaning which has gone into their making. 30 They describe how handcrafted textiles, displayed in the homes of the women who took part in their research, ‘…confirmed Belk’s assertion that items which convey creativity and the mastery of skills, and which mark time, are particularly effective in defining the self.’ 31 Similarly, Turney argues that the display of homemade objects in the home is ‘…highly significant in demonstrating the identity of the maker and the ideology of the household.’ 32 In the last section, I described the many meanings that could be associated with clothes, and distinguished between personal and shared meanings. It is likely that homemade items would carry deeper personal meanings than purchased garments, because of the time and effort involved in their creation. Johnson and Wilson describe how the extensive handling which occurs during craft making creates a strong attachment between wearer and garment. 33 Stalp describes homemade items as ‘bookmarks’ of the period during which they were made. 34 Writing about people who have built their own houses, Brown argues that the activity ‘brings meaning to everyday life by the simple fact that the presence of the home prompts the retelling of this, most compelling, creative experience.’ 35 Similarly, knitters enjoy telling others about the items they have made, as the tag in Image 1 and quote from one of the research participants indicate: I like wearing the gloves, I feel very pleased, I show everybody (laughs). You’d think I was twelve years old, look, I knitted these!

300 Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes __________________________________________________________________

Image 1: ‘When knitting: anxious but excited to see the results. Wearing: prefer if I made it myself. Story to tell.’ © 2012. Courtesy of the author. It should be noted that the making experience can create negative personal meanings, as well as positive ones. A knitter once told me about her current project: a cardigan, which had come out disastrously wrong on the first attempt and which she was subsequently re-knitting. Looking ahead to the time when it would finally be finished, she said that she did not know whether she would wear it, as she may still harbour feelings of resentment towards the project. Along with personal meanings, we also use the shared meanings associated with clothes to surface aspects of our identity. Earlier, I described these meanings as multiple, movable and potentially ambiguous; I argue that this ambiguity is heightened in the case of homemade clothes. When a garment is given an economic value, we are able to make sense of it. Homemade items confound the logic of economic value and therefore challenge usual ways of understanding the objects around us, as Ditum explains: When brands and prices are markers of identity and value, anything that’s been made for the sake of love and craftsmanship is infuriatingly tricky to place – that, I think, is the logic behind the snotty jibes at “nana sweaters.” It doesn’t matter how beautiful a homemade object is: for most of us, what we buy is an extension of who we are, and wearing something without a price tag comes off like a shifty refusal to state your business. 36 Just as people choose ready-made clothes that have meaning for them, knitters can do the same when selecting a pattern to knit. Some styles of homemade knitwear can be clearly associated with particular cultural meanings. For example, the ‘Starsky cardigan’ – as seen in 1970s cop show Starsky and Hutch – has become a fashion archetype, as has the traditional Nordic jumper worn by the star

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__________________________________________________________________ of recent crime drama ‘The Killing.’ However, as Ditum argues, in the main homemade clothes do not have the markers, such as logos and brand names, which help us to quickly associate meanings with garments. The meanings associated with commerce are replaced by the meanings of homemade; and these are, indeed, difficult to place. I believe that the cultural meanings of homemade knitted clothing are related to the cultural meanings of the activity of knitting. As I have explained, knitting can be seen in a positive, vibrant sense, or denigrated as oldfashioned. At the drop-in knitting activity, I asked participants to share their feelings about wearing homemade clothes. Within this context – where knitting was generally viewed as a desirable, creative activity – the majority of the responses revealed a romantic view. The comments paint a picture of homemade garments as indiscriminately better than mass-produced alternatives, with words such as made with love, unique, quality, individual, happy, comfortable, cosy, proud, original, flamboyant, satisfying, and last longer occurring. The comment in Image 2 summarises this positive view:

Image 2: ‘anything made with love is better.’ © 2012. Courtesy of the author. The idea that homemade items are inherently ‘better’ conflicts with the many accounts I have gathered of homemade items not turning out well, and never passing into use. Of course, knitters are not a homogenous group and will have a range of experiences; however, it is important to note that many of the knitting activity comments have an aspirational tone which suggests that the respondents may not have personal experience of trying to make wearable items for themselves. Whatever the personal experiences of the respondents, these comments indicate that homemade items are often seen in a romantic positive way. This view connects with an emergent movement which values localism, thrift and self-sufficiency as elements of a desirable lifestyle.

302 Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes __________________________________________________________________ However, this romantic view is countered by a stigma that, for some, is associated with the homemade and relates to the marginality of these items in a culture dominated by mass-produced garments. On a collective level, there is an association between homemade garments and poverty which endures, despite the cheapness of today’s ready-made clothes. Homemade items are often the butt of jokes; negative comments about itchy, uncomfortable, ill-fitting jumpers are overwhelmingly familiar. These collective attitudes reflect countless individual stories; many people have anecdotes about the embarrassment of wearing homemade items in childhood. The comments in Image 3 provide snippets of two such stories:

Image 3: ‘I wore a hat I made in textiles once, and was socially shunned from thereon after.’ © 2012. Courtesy of the author. You might think that I would be grateful for this lovely handcrafted pair of gloves, uniquely made just for me. You would be wrong. I remember whingeing that they were the wrong colour, they didn’t fit right and they were just not cool! Being eleven, I wanted to have something the same as all my school friends, namely machine-knit ones from Marks and Spencer; not embarrassing ones knit by my Mum and Nan. 37 Further conflicts can be identified in the meanings of the homemade, such as cool versus authentic. Russell explains that ‘coolness’ is highly valued in fashion, and is associated with actual or apparent effortlessness. 38 The time and effort involved in producing a homemade item would seem to be the opposite of this effortless cool. However, authenticity is also highly valued; a homemade traditional garment, such as an Aran jumper, can be seen as highly authentic and therefore highly desirable.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Conclusion Wearing clothes made at home can be a potent way of constructing identity, which links the physical creation of a garment with the slippery process of ‘surfacing’ particular aspects of the self. My research suggests that makers are aware of the ambiguous and often conflicting meanings associated with their homemade clothes, and thus may have ambivalent feelings about wearing them. It could be possible to wear homemade items in a way that highlights their positive, rather than negative, associations. This idea is sometimes discussed in relation to second-hand clothes, which have a similar mix of meanings: poverty and lack of sophistication versus post-consumerist and stylish thrift. For example, Gregson and Crewe describe people wearing second-hand items in combination with new items, in order to present them in a positive sense: ‘The certainties of one unlock the potentials of the other, safely, in a framed, controlled juxtaposition of meaning.’ 39 In this situation, the wearers are recognising the conflicting meanings of their garments, and taking control of them. It is interesting to think that homemade clothes could be approached in a similar way. In my research project, I supported the knitters in the group to design their own items of knitwear. A series of workshops at my studio gave them space to experiment and try out ideas for their projects, and the opportunity to reflect and select their preferred option. Crucially, they did so with the aid of feedback from their peers, as one participant noted: I think it’s really exciting to design. But it’s something I couldn’t do on my own. I need to feed off other people, I think, to get ideas, and then to gain confidence in my ideas, I suppose. When dressing, we anticipate the gaze of others; Kaiser explains that our selfimage is largely informed by external appraisals. 40 During this project, the knitters tested out their ideas under that gaze and thus developed confidence in their work. It seems that taking the making out of the private space of the home into a more social, yet supportive, environment is one way of helping amateur makers to see the items they have made in a more consistently positive light.

Notes 1

Nicola White and Ian Griffiths, Introduction to The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, Image, eds. Nicola White and Ian Griffiths (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 3. 2 Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 3.

304 Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes __________________________________________________________________ 3

Jennifer Craik, The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion (London: Routledge, 1994), ix. 4 For example: Sarah A. Gordon, ‘“Boundless Possibilities:” Home Sewing and the Meanings of Women’s Domestic Work in the United States, 1890-1930’, Journal of Women’s History 16, No. 2 (2004): 68-91; Cheryl Buckley, ‘On the Margins: Theorizing the History and Significance of Making and Designing Clothes at Home’, Journal of Design History 11, No. 2 (1998): 157-171; Carol Tulloch, ‘There’s No Place like Home: Home Dressmaking and Creativity in the Jamaican Community of the 1940s to the 1960s’, in The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption and Home Dressmaking, ed. Barbara Burman (Oxford: Berg, 1999), 111-125; Catherine Cerny, ‘Quilted Apparel and Gender Identity: An American Case Study’, in Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning in Cultural Contexts, eds. Ruth Barnes and Joanne B. Eicher (Oxford: Berg, 1992), 106-120. 5 Sarah Ditum, ‘Knitting Offers Welcome Relief from Fashion Lust’, The Guardian, 22 February 2012, accessed 20 June 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/2012/feb/22/knitting-fashion-lust; Germaine Greer, ‘Who Says Knitting Is Easy? One of My Bedsocks Is Bigger Than the Other’, The Guardian, 13 December 2009, accessed 20 June 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/dec/13/germaine-greer-knitting-cult ural-olympiad. 6 Alla Myzelev, ‘Whip Your Hobby into Shape: Knitting, Feminism and Construction of Gender’, Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture 7, No. 2 (2009): 157. 7 Steinar Kvale and Svend Brinkmann, InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing, 2nd Edition (London: SAGE Publications, 2009), 27. 8 Colin Robson, Real World Research: A Resource for Users of Social Research Methods in Applied Settings, 3rd Edition (Chichester: Wiley, 2011), 474. 9 Kimberly B. Rogers and Lynn Smith-Lovin, ‘Action, Interaction, and Groups’, in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology, ed. George Ritzer (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), 121. 10 Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets, Identity Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3. 11 Diana Crane, Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender and Identity in Clothing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 4. 12 Burke and Stets, Identity Theory, 3. 13 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 5. 14 Russell Belk, ‘Possessions and the Extended Self’, The Journal of Consumer Research 15, No. 2 (1988): 139.

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Crane, Fashion and Its Social Agendas, 11. Tim Dant, Material Culture in the Social World: Values, Activities, Lifestyles (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 85. 17 Patrizia Calefato, ‘Fashion and Worldliness: Language and Imagery of the Clothed Body’, Fashion Theory 1, No. 1 (1997): 69-70. 18 Judy Attfield, Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 121. 19 Sophie Woodward, Why Women Wear What They Wear (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 157. 20 Ibid. 21 Maura Banim, Eileen Green and Ali Guy, Introduction to Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationships with Their Clothes, eds. Ali Guy, Eileen Green and Maura Banim (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 3. 22 Nicky Gregson, Alan Metcalfe and Louise Crewe, ‘Moving Things Along: The Conduits and Practices of Divestment in Consumption’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32, No. 2 (April 2007): 187. 23 Grant D. McCracken, Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 71-72. 24 Daniel Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 106. 25 Fred Davis, Fashion, Culture, and Identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 18. 26 Susan B. Kaiser, ‘Minding Appearances’, in Body Dressing, eds. Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wilson (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 84. 27 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 118. 28 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 81. 29 Joyce S. Johnson and Laurel E. Wilson, ‘“It Says You Really Care:” Motivational Factors of Contemporary Female Handcrafters’, Clothing & Textiles Research Journal 23, No. 2 (2005): 118. 30 Ibid., 121-126. 31 Ibid., 124. 32 Jo Turney, ‘Here’s One I Made Earlier: Making and Living with Home Craft in Contemporary Britain’, Journal of Design History 17, No. 3 (September 2004): 275. 33 Johnson and Wilson, ‘“It Says You Really Care”’, 121. 34 Marybeth C. Stalp, Quilting: The Fabric of Everyday Life (Oxford: Berg, 2008), 111. 16

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Roni Brown, ‘Designing Differently: The Self-Build Home’, Journal of Design History 21, No. 4 (November 2008): 368. 36 Sarah Ditum, ‘Knitting Offers Welcome Relief from Fashion Lust’. 37 Ingrid Murnane, ‘Just an Instruction Leaflet?’, Knit on the Net 9 (2008), accessed 20 June 2013, http://www.knitonthenet.com/issue9/features/justaninstructionleaflet/. 38 Luke Russell, ‘Tryhards, Fashion Victims, and Effortless Cool’, in Fashion: Philosophy for Everyone, eds. Jessica Wolfendale and Jeanette Kennett (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), 43. 39 Nicky Gregson and Louise Crewe, Second-Hand Cultures (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 8. 40 Susan B. Kaiser, The Social Psychology of Clothing: Symbolic Appearances in Context, Revised 2nd Edition (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1997), 173.

Bibliography Attfield, Judy. Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg, 2000. Banim, Maura, Eileen Green and Ali Guy. Introduction to Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationships with Their Clothes, edited by Ali Guy, Eileen Green, and Maura Banim, 1–17. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Belk, Russell. ‘Possessions and the Extended Self’. The Journal of Consumer Research 15, No. 2 (1988): 139–168. Brown, Roni. ‘Designing Differently: The Self-Build Home’. Journal of Design History 21, No. 4 (November 2008): 359–370. Buckley, Cheryl. ‘On the Margins: Theorizing the History and Significance of Making and Designing Clothes at Home’. Journal of Design History 11, No. 2 (1998): 157–171. Burke, Peter J., and Jan E. Stets. Identity Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Calefato, Patrizia. ‘Fashion and Worldliness: Language and Imagery of the Clothed Body’. Fashion Theory 1, No. 1 (1997): 69–90.

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__________________________________________________________________ Cerny, Catherine. ‘Quilted Apparel and Gender Identity: An American Case Study’. In Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning in Cultural Contexts, edited by Ruth Barnes, and Joanne B. Eicher, 106–120. Oxford: Berg, 1992. Craik, Jennifer. The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion. London: Routledge, 1994. Crane, Diana. Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender and Identity in Clothing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Eugene Rochberg-Halton. The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Dant, Tim. Material Culture in the Social World: Values, Activities, Lifestyles. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999. Davis, Fred. Fashion, Culture, and Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Ditum, Sarah. ‘Knitting Offers Welcome Relief from Fashion Lust’. The Guardian. 22 February 2012. Accessed 20 June 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/22/knitting-fashion-lust. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. Gordon, Sarah A. ‘“Boundless Possibilities:” Home Sewing and the Meanings of Women’s Domestic Work in the United States, 1890-1930’. Journal of Women’s History 16, No. 2 (2004): 68–91. Greer, Germaine. ‘Who Says Knitting Is Easy? One of My Bedsocks Is Bigger than the Other’. The Guardian, 13 December 2009. Accessed 20 June 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/dec/13/germaine-greer-knitting-cult ural-olympiad. Gregson, Nicky, and Louise Crewe. Second-Hand Cultures. Oxford: Berg, 2003. Gregson, Nicky, Alan Metcalfe, and Louise Crewe. ‘Moving Things Along: The Conduits and Practices of Divestment in Consumption’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 322 (April 2007): 187–200.

308 Identity Construction and the Multiple Meanings of Homemade Clothes __________________________________________________________________ Johnson, Joyce S., and Laurel E. Wilson. ‘“It Says You Really Care:” Motivational Factors of Contemporary Female Handcrafters’. Clothing & Textiles Research Journal 23, No. 2 (2005): 115–130. Kaiser, Susan B. The Social Psychology of Clothing: Symbolic Appearances in Context. Revised 2nd Edition. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1997. —––. ‘Minding Appearances’. In Body Dressing, edited by Joanne Entwistle, and Elizabeth Wilson, 79–102. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Kvale, Steinar, and Svend Brinkmann. InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing. 2nd Edition. London: SAGE Publications, 2009. McCracken, Grant D. Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Miller, Daniel. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. Murnane, Ingrid. ‘Just an Instruction Leaflet?’ Knit on the Net 9 (2008). Accessed 20 June 2013. http://www.knitonthenet.com/issue9/features/justaninstructionleaflet/. Myzelev, Alla. ‘Whip Your Hobby into Shape: Knitting, Feminism and Construction of Gender’. Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture 7, No. 2 (2009): 148–163. Robson, Colin. Real World Research: A Resource for Users of Social Research Methods in Applied Settings. 3rd Edition. Chichester: Wiley, 2011. Rogers, Kimberly B., and Lynn Smith-Lovin. ‘Action, Interaction, and Groups’. In The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 121–138. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011. Russell, Luke. ‘Tryhards, Fashion Victims, and Effortless Cool’. Fashion: Philosophy for Everyone, edited by Jessica Wolfendale, and Jeanette Kennett, 37– 50. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011. Stalp, Marybeth C. Quilting: The Fabric of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg, 2008.

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__________________________________________________________________ Tulloch, Carol. ‘There’s No Place like Home: Home Dressmaking and Creativity in the Jamaican Community of the 1940s to the 1960s’. In The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption and Home Dressmaking, edited by Barbara Burman, 111– 125. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Turney, Jo. ‘Here’s One I Made Earlier: Making and Living with Home Craft in Contemporary Britain’. Journal of Design History 17, No. 3 (September 2004): 267–282. White, Nicola, and Ian Griffiths. Introduction to The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, Image, edited by Nicola White, and Ian Griffiths, 1–4. Oxford: Berg, 2000. Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Woodward, Sophie. Why Women Wear What They Wear. Oxford: Berg, 2007. Amy Twigger Holroyd completed her PhD at Birmingham City University in 2013, and is now Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. She is also a designer-maker of knitwear working under the banner of her label, Keep & Share.

Supporting Local Craftsmanship through Fashion Sabrina Ramsamy-Iranah and Naraindra Kistamah Abstract The Arts and Crafts sector in Mauritius is largely managed by people with little knowledge and experience in adapting their art and craft skills to high fashion apparel wear. A project was, therefore, designed to bring the rich and unique heritage of the local ‘Arts and Crafts’ sector into the forefront of international fashion for the benefit of the sector. The aim was to revive the craft works in Mauritius by associating innovative, creative and value-addition ideas to the development of products. It would help the artisans to improve the benefits which they may derive from their crafts. The project team consisted of a textile and fashion designer, a fabric technologist, local artisans and people from SMEs with experience in traditional printing, sewing, embroidery and accessories. A collection of ladies apparel and fashion accessories was designed and manufactured under the theme ‘Flora of Mauritius.’ The process started with fabric design and manufacture using materials, technologies, techniques and skills available locally. The traditional crafts and techniques were used to embellish the fabrics and make the garments. The overall concept of the collection was based on the use of sustainable materials such as silk and cotton for the apparel and accessories, and treated seeds, shells and fish scales for surface embellishments of the designed products. The collection was presented at an exhibition under the appellation of ‘Labo Ethnik’ in Paris, as part of the Paris Fashion Week. It provided a platform for showcasing the products to potential European buyers. The experience brought about by the project proved to be very beneficial for the local artisans as it brought a new outlook to the future development and marketing of their crafts. The project also highlighted that contemporary creative designs and traditional practices could produce synergistic results for the benefit of the fashion entrepreneur, market and craft industry. Key Words: Local craftsmanship, SME’s, fashion and sustainable materials. ***** 1. Introduction Every society has constructed its history of craftsmanship through the passionate works of artisans who would make high-quality and distinctive product in limited quantities. With globalisation and fast mass-fashion, the works of artisans have been relegated to the fringes of the factory floor. However, some fashion houses have rediscovered the shine which artisans’ creations can give to the fashion industry. The highly sophisticated skills and traditional techniques of craftsmen are more and more being celebrated on shop floors with new vigor and this has become the marketing strategy of choice for major fashion houses. In this

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__________________________________________________________________ new dawn, one of the greatest challenges is to find the human resource with the passion and potential to develop their craft and skills and be up to the creative challenges of the prêt-à-porter market. It is vital to develop education and training programme and capacity-building workshops to restore the status of artisanal works and encourage the young people to becoming empowered artisan with knowledge and craft skill for the high-end markets. 2. Cultural and Folkloric Influences of Crafts in Mauritius The arts and crafts tradition in Mauritius stretches back to the colonial times, when ship carpenters worked out the stylish ‘creole’ house as well as its beautiful furniture. 1 Mauritius was initially a French colony and later the British took over the island. During the French occupation, slaves were brought from Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique and under British rule, slavery was abolished. Mauritius was thrown open to other ethnic groups from Asia where the British Empire was thriving, thus giving her a wider multilingual and multicultural dimension. 2 The abolition of slavery also led to the release of black creative energy, African style craft crept in and was expressed in the making of baskets, masques and statuettes. The Indian and Chinese immigrants, riding hard on the abolition of slavery, injected their inland Asian craftsmanship of finely wrought gold and lacy silver jewellery into the local handicraft heritage. 3 A happy cohabitation thereby ensued between the Afro-Asian craftsmanship and the then French-inspired handicrafts which centered mainly on utility items for domestic uses such as carvings, rugs and mat making and lacework. 4 The door of the colony was wide open to commerce and trade with the outside world right to the furthest shores of the Indian Ocean, to the Middle East, India and Australia. 5 The religious/cultural activities of the times were ‘jealously’ preserved by the Mauritian people and these activities had a strong influence on traditional crafts. 6 For instance the Hindu and Chinese used a variety of artifacts to pay respect to their gods. The statues were made of stones and clay and many objects such as lamps and incense burners were handcrafted. Naturally-dyed, embroidered fabrics and heavy gold jewellery were major components of the decoration of deities. They were also worn as part of traditional costumes for cultural and/or religious festivities. Colourful and richly embroidered saris 7 , kimonos 8 and salwar kameez 9 were highly present at weddings and other traditional activities. The folkloric dance and song influenced lots of local artisans in their work. The ‘Sega’ 10 dance of African origin pulsates to the beat of the drum called the ‘Ravanne.’ 11 It is a teasing folklore dance which is very much on show on all social occasions. The female dancers wear large circular patterned skirts with colourful print design of tropical flowers and a small matching top with ruffles, and the male dancers wear coloured large-striped trousers and a large straw hat. The songs depict Mauritian life and tell old stories. The authentic ‘Sega’ is still traditionally danced on some ‘creole’ festivals, on the beaches of remote fishing

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__________________________________________________________________ villages around an improvised log fire. According to Lee, 12 this dance has a special significance and appeal to the Mauritian people; it is a unifying element which brings people of all communities together through a folkloric culture. It is a common theme used by artisans, either in carvings or in paintings. 3. The Evolution of Crafts in Mauritius Crafts are works of art that reflect the culture and values of a society. 13 They are also symbolic mirrors of the soul of a nation and portray a way of life and the enduring characteristics of a people. Mauritius, a multicultural society, has a rich and varied craft tradition inspired by the cultural and ancestral traditions. 14 The crafts of Mauritius present both a wide range of creative activity and a broad spectrum of development over several decades. The rise of the manufacturing industry affected the status and work of the local artisan and many were forced into agriculture or domestic service sector. 15 Some artisans, however, managed to resist the onslaught of the dehumanising of culture that came with machines. A mix of human sentiment and religious conviction provided the required impetus for the preservation of traditional art and craft forms. In these conditions, crafts were developed for trade. 16 The evolution of modern commerce of crafts along with the development of village crafts sustained the work of groups of artisans working in shed-like conditions all over Mauritius. The craftsmanship was further cultivated by the tourist industry which helped raise the quality and brought about immense value-addition to craft products. 17 Mauritian crafts are not products of individual artists searching for a means of intense self-expression but an art of the people. Skills are not in hands of individuals but have seeped and taken root through time, through generations, through music and dance, rituals and prayers. Today, the artisans and craft people of Mauritius are no longer tucked away in remote villages, they have moved to the city, in shopping malls and hotels. Industrialization, the growing tourist industry and information technology influenced the development of crafts in more ways than one. Techniques, materials and designs changed to adapt to new markets and their demands. The accelerating pace of development and the rise in living standards triggered new ideas. In the textile craft area, hand painting and batik techniques are widely applied to T-shirt; ‘pareo’ 18 and dresses made of fine silk fabrics are delicately hand-painted to create technically attractive and serviceable quality products. The influence of the western world on contemporary crafts is visible in modern items on display in craft markets and stores. The blend of local traditions and outside world produces an array of living crafts. However, the inspiration of craft makers has not evolved too much; scenes of everyday life, landscape, flora and fauna of Mauritius are overwhelmingly dominant. In recent years, tourists used to the global brand explosion after World Trade Organisation’s reforms of the mid-1990’s, are no longer attracted to these types of

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__________________________________________________________________ crafts. 19 In addition, sectors like crafts, design and fashion are all suffering from the global competition from China. 20 4. Craftsmanship and Fashion The art of Haute Couture is closely related to traditional manufacturing techniques and craftsmanship. Ethical designer Jas Sehmbi stated that a craftsman is someone who has broken his hands to learn to put together a product. 21 Designers such as Christian Dior brought craftsmanship to another level and it allowed him to turn his visions into reality. 22 It also enabled him to create a cachet and develop a niche market. More recently, some London-based designers combine craftsmanship with fair-trade; they have their own brand of artisan dressmaking for creating a niche between high street and high fashion. 23 Saviolo reported on Italian fashion companies that exploit traditional values and skills to upgrade high end fashion products, where the customer expects quality, creativity and uniqueness. 24 In Gucci’s 2010 ‘Forever now’ advertising campaign, the emphasis was laid on the role of artisans in product development and manufacture. 25 They proudly showcased them in action to their clients. The Gucci’s ‘artisan corner’ can be seen in all Gucci’s boutiques around the world. This concept is now adopted by Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana who bring their artisans into retail stores. 26 Koma, in an interview for Business of Fashion, stated the significance of handwork and craftsmanship in commercial brands. 27 The Luxury Institute reinforced this sentiment in a report of a survey that the top lists of attributes defining luxury brands around the world were superior quality (73%), craftsmanship (65%) and design (54%). 28 Craftsmanship remained an incredibly important marketing message for luxury brands. According to Patel, 29 brands can combine craftsmanship with technology to reproduce the intricacies of hand-stitched leather, couture embroidery and have iconic products made from start to finish. Hujic, 30 however, highlighted the slow erosion of craftsmanship and reported that insiders in the fashion world lament the demise of ‘les petites mains.’ 31 The Mauritian textile industry is more geared towards the production of massfashion for export. Technology driven, it has neglected the basic traditional skills that are elementary in adding value to high-end fashionable product. It has followed the mass-market route of most companies of the textile and apparel world. However, with the customer’s never ending demand for changes and newness, branded products have derived certain staleness in appeal. There is, therefore, an opportunity and a need to integrate craftsmanship into the manufacture of high-end apparel wear and accessories for the benefit of the marketplace. 5. Merging Crafts with Fashion The initiative of merging local craft with ready-to-wear fashion was based on the strategy of several famous fashion houses in Europe which utilise the values of

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__________________________________________________________________ quality craftsmanship to brand their products. This also helps to also bring about a revival of the traditional skills of craftsmanship. The project regrouped a number of dedicated and experienced artisans who worked for small to medium enterprises. They were prepared to a change of mind set and eager to embark on a new venture. ‘Labo Ethnik’ 32 exhibition which formed part of the Paris Fashion week provided the platform for showcasing the products. The integration of craft techniques to fashionable items was conceptualised around a theme which was ‘Floral of Mauritius.’ It portrayed local flowers in soft and bold prints with splashes of colour, ideal for summer trends. The fascinating things about flowers are their variety both in colour and form. Flower representations have fascinated artists for centuries. 33 There are many examples from both eastern and western culture where the richness of flower form has decorated every conceivable surface. 34 As a designer who enjoys experimenting with numerous techniques and materials, attention was paid to simple but highly versatile techniques of applying pattern to textiles. 35 In lieu of controlled and plain designs, innovative and abstract depictions of tropical flowers such as the hibiscus were transposed onto fabrics. The spontaneous effects achieved were through silk painting. First, there was free-hand painting on the cloth’s surface. The uniqueness of free style silk painting lies in the ‘gutta’ implement used to draw patterns on the cloth’s surface. Dyes were applied to motifs according to the maker’s creative inclination. The artisans make use of chance effects to bring life to the fabric design. Under the designer’s guidance, the fabric development took another dimension in terms of colour, pattern and innovation. Rich tonal effects were achieved and they were similar to water colour approach; the use of line drawing in monochrome, colour and tinted gave the flowers an original identity. Given that the concept was based on flowers, it was only natural to consider the use of sustainable materials such as silk, cotton, natural seeds, local fish scales and shells to embellish the dresses and produce the collection of accessories. A textile technologist provided technical support during the colouration process for improved dye fixation and fastness properties of the hand-painted fabrics thus broadening their scope for commercialisation. Combining design elements and creative juices, 36 the designer was ready to take up the challenge of designing a collection that would captivate the minds and hearts of potential buyers. With the colourful fabrics in minds the designer sketched out and finalised a collection of dresses for summer evening wear. Every features of the garment design concept was realised with the fine skill and touch of an artisan dressmaker. Embellishment such as embroidery and beading with seeds and fish scales added value to the dresses. Local artisans specialising in the making of accessories complemented the collection with matching bags, belts and jewelleries. The treated seeds, polished shells and sea urchins adorning the accessories were carefully selected from nature to produce quality and trendy necklaces, earrings, chokers and rings of authentic and fashionable appeal. The amalgamation of unorthodox natural materials, thrown together haphazardly created striking and

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__________________________________________________________________ original combinations. The dedication and passion of the artisans, working as a team towards the same goal, generated a buzzing atmosphere during the project. It also showed the resilience and drive of the artisans to keep their craftsmanship skills alive. Embarking on a fashion trip to Paris to showcase, market and sell the products was the real test and there were apprehensions about how the public and critics would respond. Will the fashionable products be attractive to a cosmopolitan public? Given the presence of other African countries in ‘Labo Ethnik,’ will the collection stands out as being different and original? 6. Future of Crafts One of the outcomes of the exhibition of the Mauritian’s-craft-inspired fashion collection at ‘Labo Ethnik’ was the positive feedback and encouragement received from European and American customers and fashion buyers. Being part of the Paris fashion week, ‘Labo Ethnik’ provided a platform and forum for the exploration and promotion of Mauritian’s crafts and fashion. The mutual consolidation of fashion and craftsmanship could widen the scope of development of high fashion ready-to-wear apparel and accessories for greater synergy. This may prove to be very beneficial for the economy. In a UNESCO report on the ‘Cultural Economy of Mauritius,’ one of the suggestions for economic growth is the creation of a synergy between creativity and making, with artistic and local craft traditions opening up to new global, cultural and commercial possibilities. 37 This report clearly specifies that design inputs are crucial to compete in the global market. The way forward is to apply high craft skills to quality local products, reflecting local cultures and materials, in combination with global design trends. The key messages of the report are to invest extensively in the development of skills and training, bringing a stronger link between art education and design. 38 The government, with the help of cultural development agencies, should encourage manufacturers and retailers to reinforce the links between craft, design and fashion and promote value added quality products. Another possible avenue is to re-adapt textile manufacture to be more design intensive and to make best use of local sustainable materials. 39 With growing interest in sustainable development, the revival of traditional crafts may also depend on new national and international policies on sustainability. Small to medium enterprises would be encouraged to adopt business practices aimed at maximising economic, social and environmental performance. 40 There is a growing feeling, as the nation advanced economically, that its craft heritage should be preserved as a cottage industry. The government’s effort to improve the local craft and fashion industry culminated in the foundation of organisations such as CraftAid, SMEDA (incubators), Enterprise Mauritius and in the formulation of a long term national vision called ‘Mauritius Vision 2020.’ 41 The future lies in the sustained development of such organisations to empower,

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__________________________________________________________________ assist and support small enterprises whose tasks would be similar to those of the ‘Full Circle Exchange;’ 42 that is, integrating companies in the international market place.

Notes 1

Rosebelle Boswell, Le Malaise Créole: Ethnic Identity in Mauritius (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 30. 2 Regis Franchette, Le Destin des Iles est de Chanter (Mauritius: Mauritius Broadcasting, 1967), 44. 3 Regis Franchette, Mauritius: Stepping into the Future (Mauritius: Edition de L’Ocean Indien, 1988), 104. 4 Michel Falco and Pierre Renaud, Mauritius (Mauritius: Times Edition, 1990), 4045. 5 Camerapix, ed., Spectrum Guide For Mauritius (Camerapix Publishers, 1997), 120. 6 Franchette, Mauritius, 15. 7 A sari or saree is a strip of unstitched cloth, worn by women, ranging from four to nine yards in length that is draped over the body in various styles which is native to the Indian Subcontinent. The word sari is derived from Sanskrit śāṭī which means ‘strip of cloth’ and was corrupted to sāṛī in Hindi. Simmi Jain, The Encyclopedia of Indian Women through Ages (India: Gyan Publishing House, 2003), 274. 8 The kimono is a Japanese traditional garment worn by men, women and children. The word ‘kimono,’ which literally means a ‘thing to wear’ (ki ‘wear’ and mono ‘thing’), has come to denote these full-length robes. Kimono are T-shaped, straight-lined robes worn so that the hem falls to the ankle, with attached collars and long, wide sleeves. Accessed 20 February 2013, http://www.dictionary.reference.com. 9 Shalwar kameez is a traditional dress worn by both women and men in Pakistan and India. Shalwar or salwar are loose pajama-like trousers. The legs are wide at the top, and narrow at the ankle. The kameez is a long shirt or tunic. Stephanie Koerner and Ian Russell, Unquiet Pasts: Risk Society, Lived Cultural Heritage, ReDesigning Reflexivity (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010), 44. 10 Sega is a music originated among the slave populations of Mauritius. It has AfroMalagasy roots and a fusion of African or Malagasy music with European music. Jacques K. Lee, Sega: The Mauritian Folk Dance (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1990), 30. 11 The ravanne is a large tambourine-like instrument used in sega music of Mauritius. It is made out of goat skin and before playing, it needs to be heated up. Accessed 18 March 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravanne. 12 Lee, Sega: The Mauritian Folk Dance, 55.

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Dan Callikan, Mauritius Light and Space (Mauritius: Edition de L’Ocean Indien, 2002),15. 14 Falco and Renaud, Mauritius, 62. 15 Callikan, Mauritius Light and Space, 40. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., 55. 18 A sarong like piece of cloth, wrapped around the body on top of the swimsuit after a dip in the sea. It is mostly worn by Mauritians along the beaches. 19 Avril Joffe and Justin O’Connor, Cultural Economy in Mauritius: Strategy and Action Plans (UNESCO/EU Convention report, 2005), 26. 20 Ibid., 27. 21 Lida Huji, ‘Craftmanship: A Dying Art?, The Ecologist, 15 September 2011, 2, accessed 15 January 2013, http://www.theecologist.org. 22 Ibid., 1. 23 Ibid., 2. 24 Stephania Saviolo, ‘Bringing Craftsmanship Back into Fashion’, Sarfatti 25 Unibocconi, 30 June 2010, 1, accessed 9 March 2013, http://www.viasarfatti25.unibocconi.eu. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 David Koma, a London based designer tells the Business of fashion that ‘there’s a huge market for commercial brands so I feel if customers are buying something expensive and special, there should be lot of handwork and craftsmanship involved to make them feel that their money is well spent.’ Sophie Doran, ‘Luxury Fashion Brands Using Craftmanship’, January 2012, 1, accessed 12 March 2013, http://www.luxurysociety.com. 28 Ibid., 2. 29 Shwetal Patel, ‘Florence Reasserts Craftsmanship’, JC Report inside Global Fashion Trends, 9 December 2010, 2, accessed 20 April 2013, http://www.jcreport.com. 30 Huji, ‘Craftmanship: A Dying Art?’, 1. 31 Les petits mains means literally little hands. Huji, The Ecologist, 1. 32 Labo Ethnik is an event that grouped African Designers annually in Paris to showcase their Collections through fashion shows and exhibitions. It forms part of the Paris Fashion Week. 33 Paul Riley, Flower Painting (New York: Porteous Editions, 1992), 15. 34 Ibid., 20. 35 John Hinchcliffe and Wendy Barber, Print Style (United Kingdom:Cassell Wellington House,1995), 6.

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Jay Diamond and Ellen Diamond, ‘The Design Element’, in Fashion Apparel, Accessories and Home Furnishings (New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007), 123-124. 37 Joffe and O’Connor, Cultural Economy in Mauritius: Strategy and Action Plans, 28-32. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 27. 40 Marsha Dickson et al., Social Responsibility in the Global Apparel Industry (New York: Fairchild Book, 2009), 37. 41 ‘Mauritius Vision 2020’ is a national long term perspective study of the Government of Mauritius. It highlights the need to invest in innovative equipment and to foster a research and development culture among companies, and upgrading small business facilitation. ‘Shaping Future Perspectives’, Mauritius Chamber of Commerce Magazine 53 (MCCI, 2013), 16. 42 John Priddy, Full Circle Exchange, International Trade Forum Issue on Growth, Innovation and Inclusiveness 4 (ITFI, 2012), 27.

Bibliography Boswell, Rosebelle. Le Malaise Créole: Ethnic Identity in Mauritius. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Callikan, Dan. Mauritius Light and Space. Mauritius: Edition de L’Ocean Indien, 2002. Camerapix. Spectrum Guide for Mauritius. Nairobi: Camerapix Publishers Ltd., 1997. Diamond, Jay, and Diamond Ellen. Fashion Apparel, Accessories and Home Furnishings. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Dickson, Marsha, Suzanne Loker, and Eckman Molly. Social Responsibility in the Global Apparel Industry. New York: Fairchild Book, 2009. Doran, Sophie. ‘Luxury Fashion Brands Using Craftmanship’. Luxury Society, 2012. Accessed 12 March 2013. http://www.luxurysociety.com. Falco, Michel, and Renaud Pierre. Mauritius. Mauritius: Times Edition, 1990.

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__________________________________________________________________ Franchette, Regis. Le Destin des Iles est de Chanter. Mauritius: Mauritius Broadcasting, 1967. —––. Mauritius: Stepping into the Future. Mauritius: Edition de L’ocean Indien, 1988. Hinchcliffe, John, and Barber Wendy. Print Style. New Jersey: Cassell Wellington House, 1995. Huji, Lida. ‘Craftmanship: A Dying Art?’. The Ecologist. 15 September 2011. Accessed 15 January 2013. http://www.theecologist.org. Jain, Simmi. The Encyclopedia of Indian Women through Ages. India: Gyan Publishing House, 2003. Joffe, Avril, and Justin O’Connor. Cultural Economy in Mauritius: Strategy and Action Plans. UNESCO/EU Convention report 2005. Koerner, Stephanie, and Ian Russell. Unquiet Pasts: Risk Society, Lived Cultural Heritage, Re-Designing Reflexivity. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2010. Lee, K. Jacques. Sega: The Mauritian Folk Dance. Bloomington: Indiana University,1990. MCCI. ‘Shaping Future Perspectives’. Mauritius Chamber of Commerce Magazine 53 (2013): 16. Patel, Shweta. ‘Florence Reasserts Craftsmanship’. JC Report inside Global Fashion Trends. 9 December 2010. Accessed 20 April 2013. http://www.jcreport.com. Priddy, John. ‘Full Circle Exchange’. International Trade Forum Issue on Growth, Innovation and Inclusiveness 4 (2012): 27. Riley, Paul. Flower Painting. New York: Porteous Editions, 1992. Saviolo, Stephania. ‘Bringing Craftsmanship Back into Fashion’. Sarfatti 25 Unibocconi, 30 June 2010. Accessed 9 March 2013. http://www.viasarfatti25.unibocconi.eu.

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘The Kimono’. Accessed 20 February 2013. http://www.dictionary.reference.com. ‘The Ravanne’. Accessed 18 March 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravanne. Sabrina Ramsamy-Iranah is a Fashion / Textile lecturer and Consultant in the Department of Applied Sustainability and Enterprise Development at the University of Mauritius. She is involved in teaching design theory, historical fashion, garment construction, fabric design and fashion illustration. She has published in several international journals and presented research papers across the globe. Her research topics cover tactile fabrics, environmental clothing, bio-fashion and recycling materials, assistive clothing for specific and niche market, design crafts and sustainable fashion products and materials.