Skip to content
1981
Fashioning Culture: Transforming Perspectives from Oceania
  • ISSN: 2040-4417
  • E-ISSN: 2040-4425

Abstract

In this article I consider fashion as a key modality through which young Fiji citizens experience modernity and construct contemporary self-identities in dialogue with global popular culture. A multi-dimensional tool, fashion is effectively used as self-performance; a way of carrying the body in public spaces, including dress and style as well as mannerisms, demeanour, body shape and comportment. It follows that fashion also intersects with other social categories such as gender, sexual identity and race in order to inform local social scripts in which people judge their own and others’ appearance and define the nature of a desirable, modern body.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/csfb_00022_1
2021-06-01
2024-10-09
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Barry, Ben. ( 2018;), ‘ Re(fashioning) masculinity: Social identity and context in men’s hybrid masculinities through dress. ’, Gender & Society, 32:5, pp. 63862.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Barthes, Roland. ( 1967), The Fashion System, Berkeley, CA:: University of California Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Becker, Anne E.. ( 1990;), ‘ Body image in Fiji: The self in the body and in community. ’, Ph.D. thesis, Boston, MA:: Massachusetts General Hospital;.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Becker, Anne E.. ( 2004;), ‘ Television, disordered eating, and young women in Fiji: Negotiating body image and identity during rapid social change. ’, Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 28:4, pp. 53359.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bruzzi, Stella, and Church Gibson, Pamela. (eds) ( 2000), Fashion Cultures: Theories, Explorations and Analysis, Abingdon and New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Buckley, Cheryl, and Fawcett, Hilary. ( 2002), Fashioning the Feminine: Representation and Women’s Fashion from the Fin de Siecle to the Present, London:: Berg;.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Colchester, Chloë. ( 2003a;), ‘ Introduction. ’, in C. Colchester. (ed.), Clothing the Pacific, Oxford and New York:: Berg;, pp. 124.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Colchester, Chloë. ( 2003b;), ‘ T-shirts, translation and humour: On the nature of wearer–perceiver relationships in South Auckland. ’, in C. Colchester. (ed.), Clothing the Pacific, Oxford and New York:: Berg;, pp. 16791.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Crawley, Ernest. ( 1931), Dress, Drinks, and Drums: Further Studies of Savages and Sex, London:: Methuen and Co., Ltd;.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Crowe, Donald W., and Nagy, Dénes. ( 1992;), ‘ Cakaudrove-style Masi Kesa of Fiji. ’, Ars Textrina, 18, pp. 11955.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Dalby, Liza C.. ( 1993), Kimono: Fashioning Culture, New Haven, CT:: Yale University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Eicher, Joanne B.. ( 2000;), ‘ The anthropology of dress. ’, Dress, 27:1, pp. 5970.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Elias, Norbert. ( 1994 [1939]), The Civilizing Process, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA:: Blackwell;.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Entwistle, Joanne. ( 2015), The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress & Modern Social Theory, , 2nd ed.., Cambridge and Malden, MA:: Polity Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Entwistle, Joanne, and Wilson, Elizabeth. (eds) ( 2001), Body Dressing, London and New York:: Bloomsbury;.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Fletcher, Alice, and La Flesche, Francis. ( [1911] 1992), The Omaha Tribe, vol. 1, Lincoln, NE:: University of Nebraska Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Hansen, Karen T.. ( 1994;), ‘ Dealing with clothing: Salaula and the construction of identity in Zambia’s Third Republic. ’, Public Culture, 6:3, pp. 50323.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Hansen, Karen T.. ( 2004;), ‘ The world in dress: Anthropological perspectives on clothing, fashion and culture. ’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, pp. 36992.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Kaiser, Susan B.. ( 2012), Fashion and Cultural Studies, Oxford:: Berg;.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Knauft, Bruce. ( 2002), Exchanging the Past: A Rainforest World of Before and After, Chicago, IL:: University of Chicago Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Knight, Aimee. ( 2017;), ‘ Have a nice day: A pop-culture history of the t-shirt. ’, Kill Your Darlings, 10, July to December, pp. 1720.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Kuper, Hilda. ( 1973;), ‘Costume and identity. ’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 15:3, pp. 34867.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Lipovetsky, Gilles. ( 1994), The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy, Princeton, NJ:: Princeton University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Luvaas, Brent. ( 2010;), ‘ Designer vandalism: Indonesian indie fashion and the cultural practice of cut ‘n paste. ’, Visual Anthropology Review, 26:1, pp. 116.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Luvaas, Brent. ( 2013;), ‘ Material interventions: Indonesian DIY fashion and the regime of the global brand. ’, Cultural Anthropology, 18:1, pp. 12743.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Moon, Christine H.. ( 2020), Labor and Creativity in New York’s Global Fashion Industry, London and New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Mosko, Mark S.. ( 2007;), ‘ Fashion as fetish: The agency of modern clothing and traditional body decoration among North Mekeo of Papua New Guinea. ’, The Contemporary Pacific, 19:1, pp. 3983.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Niessen, Sandra A.. ( 1993), Batak Cloth and Clothing: A Dynamic Indonesian Tradition, Kuala Lumpur:: Oxford University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Nakassis, Constantine V.. ( 2013;), ‘ Youth masculinity, “style” and the peer group in Tamil Nadu, India. ’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 47:2, pp. 24569.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Palmer, Amanda, and Clark, Hazel. (eds) ( 2004), Old Clothes, New Looks: Second-Hand Fashion, London and New York:: Bloomsbury;.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Polhemus, Ted, and Procter, Lynn. ( 1978), Fashion & Anti-Fashion: An Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment, London:: Thames & Hudson;.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Presterudstuen, Geir Henning. ( 2014;), ‘ Men trapped in women’s clothing: Homosexuality, cross-dressing and manhood in Fiji. ’, in N. Besnier, and K. Alexeyeff. (eds), Gender on the Edge: Transgender, Gay and Other Pacific Islanders, Honolulu, HI:: University of Hawaii Press;, pp. 16283.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Presterudstuen, Geir Henning. ( 2020), Performing Masculinity: Body, Self and Identity in Modern Fiji, London and New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R.. ( 1922), The Andaman Islander: A Study in Anthropology, Cambridge, MA:: The Harvard University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Ravuvu, Asesela D.. ( 1987), The Fijian Ethos, Suva:: Institute of Pacific Studies;.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Sahlins, Marshall. ( 1976), Culture and Practical Reason, Chicago, IL and London:: University of Chicago Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Steele, Valerie. ( 2013), A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk, New Haven, CT:: Yale University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. TarIo, Emma. ( 1996), Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India, Chicago, IL:: Chicago University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Thomson, Basil. ( [1908] 2011), The Fijians: A study of the Decay of Custom, London:: William Heinemann;, via the Gutenberg Project: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38432/38432-h/38432-h.htm. Accessed 20 February 2021.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Toren, Christina. ( 1990), Making Sense of Hierarchy: Cognition as Social Process in Fiji, London:: Athlone Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Williksen-Bakker, Solrun. ( 1995;), ‘ Ceremony and embodied memory in urbanized Fijian culture. ’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 151:2, pp. 21834.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Wilson, Elizabeth. ( 2007), Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London:: I.B. Taurus;.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Presterudstuen, Geir Henning. ( 2021;), ‘ T-Shirts, style and the social construction of modern masculinities in urban Fiji. ’, Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 12:1, pp. 91110, https://doi.org/10.1386/csfb_00022_1
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/csfb_00022_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/csfb_00022_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): anthropology; fashion; Fiji; masculinities; modern bodies; style; T-shirts
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error