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Fashion, Style & Popular Culture - Online First
Online First articles will be assigned issues in due course.
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Indonesian metrosexuals on Instagram: A phenomenological approach of male fashion style experiences in communicating the identity
Available online: 15 March 2024More LessThis study analyses the self-representation of the Indonesian metrosexual community on Instagram, focusing on how they use the platform to showcase their fashion style and express their identity as consumers and members of society. Metrosexuality is a relatively new phenomenon in Indonesia, but it has quickly gained popularity, particularly among urban men. Metrosexual men are typically highly interested in fashion, beauty and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. They are also more brand-conscious than traditional consumers and are willing to invest in high-quality products. Social media has become an essential platform for the metrosexual community to express themselves and connect with others. Instagram, in particular, has become a popular platform for metrosexual men to share photos and videos of their outfits. This study examines how metrosexual consumers use Instagram to showcase their fashion style through their posts. The study employs a qualitative approach within the constructivist paradigm, using phenomenological research methods, including interviews, observations and a literature review. The informants comprised ten Indonesian male Instagram users with the highest followers and engagement. The study’s findings suggest that metrosexual consumers prioritize comfort and suitability over brand and product prestige for day-to-day activities and social media engagement. Also, the study reveals that metrosexual consumers use Instagram to express themselves and share their activities with others. Their commitment to their appearance extends beyond the online realm to offline settings. The study’s managerial implications underscore the importance of attending to male consumers for products such as clothing.
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Camouflage in popular culture, fashion and accessory design in India
Authors: Nitin Hadap and Charuta PalsodkarAvailable online: 15 March 2024More LessThis article postulates that recent generations in India, particularly the middle and upper-middle classes, have experienced increased wealth due to the government’s open market policy, introduced after 1991. As a result of this improved financial situation, these consumers are now able to purchase affordable luxury goods. One notable trend emerging from this development is the rise in popularity of camouflage patterns in fashion and accessories. These patterns evoke emotions of military association, rebellion, strength, durability, ruggedness and a sense of distinctiveness from the rest of society. Surprisingly, even though camouflage is intended to conceal and blend in with surroundings, it has become a prominent aspect of popular culture in India. The younger generation aspires to stand out and possess larger-than-life personalities, perhaps influenced by the impact of globalization. Various audio-visual media, such as sci-fi literature and superheroes depicted on over-the-top (OTT) platforms contribute significantly to this trend, with fashion statements playing a crucial role in shaping these perceptions. In response to such demand, even international brands have started producing products featuring camouflage patterns for the Indian market. The widespread popularity of camo fashion and accessories can be observed in almost all public spaces across India.
The primary focus of this article is on exploring the popularity of camouflage in fashion accessories, design and trends by studying consumers’ preferences for leading global and local brands. Through a comprehensive literature review, a research gap in this area has been identified. The study concentrates on fashion accessories in India and takes a perspective of percolation of camouflage in the fashion market. The methodology involves the study of primary and secondary sources for documentation, and a survey was conducted to gain insights into consumers’ perspectives. By conducting a literature review and a thorough data analysis, the article reaches its conclusions.
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Hanfu catwalk shows: A performance of Chinese femininities
Authors: Yan Jia and Anneke SmelikAvailable online: 15 March 2024More LessThis article analyses the complex relationship between the construction of gender identities among young Chinese females and the practice of dressing up in Hanfu attire. The study employs the perspectives of dress as a situated embodied practice, the performativity of gender and the catwalk as a form of performance art. By drawing on an ethnography of self-defined Hanfu fans in Beijing, China, the authors investigate how the female participants construct femininities through performing on Hanfu catwalks. The ethnographic findings are that, first, the Hanfu catwalk mediates the intricate interplay of Chinese aesthetic norms and gender expression between performers and the audience. Second, wearing Hanfu is an embodied practice unifying the Hanfu costume style, gender construction and corporeal acts, situated in China’s sociopolitical context. Third, Chinese femininity is complex, with both flexibility and internal conflicts, reflecting China’s paradoxical modernization.
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The dress and commercial image of the American ‘Fat Lady’, 1850–1920
By Kenna LibesAvailable online: 15 March 2024More LessIn this article, I analyse the genre of ‘Fat Lady’ photographs popular between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. I assert that there is an archetypal appearance that developed in the 1860s and was standardized by the 1880s, consisting of certain dress, grooming and posing practices that emphasized their subjects’ sizes and presumed social status. Fatness was a performance that these women were employed to embody – one that straddled the lines between corporeal deviance and normality. Freak shows reveal cultural anxieties about bodies. The way Fat Lady performers were costumed reflected concerns about fatness taking up too much space and visibility as well as fatness rendering people immature and androgynous, thereby challenging established sex-role differences; it also revealed the potential erotic allure of extreme body size. Over a century of popularity, Fat Lady performers came to rely on costumes inspired by evening dress, childrenswear and then lingerie, all of which grew scantier as time progressed. Existing cartes de visite, cabinet cards, posters, advertisements, reports from journalists and side show insiders, and rare interviews with the performers themselves provide material for close analysis.
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Fashioning Frankenstein: Deathliness, technology and the body in contemporary fashion photography
Available online: 15 March 2024More LessThe deathly aesthetic of Heroin Chic caused a moral panic in the late 1990s for its aestheticization of cadaverously pale and skeletally thin models. Subsequent photographers have experimented with the female body as a prop, staging high-fashion crime scenes and mimicking the passivity of corpses in prone posture. Fashion photography offers an arena to explore daily life and the national imagination by materializing concepts through a focus on corporeality and compelling stylized visuals. These images therefore represent a commercialized articulation of broader cultural concerns surrounding mortality. Steven Klein’s 2015 fashion editorial ‘Love machine’, published in W magazine, will be analysed to argue that this represents a cultural response to the shifting relationship between the human body and technology. The discourse of human–machine coexistence presents the transhumanist stance as idealized with the fashion field’s agenda of body modification, wellness and leisure assisted and instigated by technology. However, the tone of this shoot presents a less optimistic vision of a posthuman future. Whilst posthuman ideology is decisive and assured in its deference to technology, Klein’s use of Frankensteinian and cyborg motifs evidence the uncertainty and unease with which biological and technical forms begin to blur. The styling of the model as cyborg and the invocation of Frankenstein’s monster are a logical vehicle for personifying the ontological anxieties coming to the fore of public conscience as debates on digital immortality and artificial intelligence become more prevalent.
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Wholesale Couture: London and Beyond, 1930–1970, Liz Tregenza (2023)
By Jennie CookAvailable online: 15 March 2024More LessReview of: Wholesale Couture: London and Beyond, 1930–1970, Liz Tregenza (2023)
London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 236 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-35024-586-0, h/bk, $115.00
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Canadian Critical Luxury Studies: Decentring Luxury, Jessica P. Clark and Nigel Lezama (eds) (2022)
Available online: 15 March 2024More LessReview of: Canadian Critical Luxury Studies: Decentring Luxury, Jessica P. Clark and Nigel Lezama (eds) (2022)
Bristol: Intellect Ltd, 248 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-78938-515-1, h/bk, $93.84
ISBN 978-1-78938-517-5, e-book, $80.00
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Authentic or fake fashion-branded items? Narratives exploring consumers’ perceptions towards copycat brands among Middle Eastern individuals
Authors: Nadine Khair, Nadine Hussam Khair and Tala MuradAvailable online: 15 March 2024More LessThis study explores the motives behind preferring luxury fashion-branded items and consumers’ perceptions towards copycat brands. A qualitative approach has been adopted in this research as narratives were obtained from 22 participants. Participants share their thoughts on the reasons for preferring luxury fashion-branded items and the meanings they associate with copycat brands. The results and conclusion of the current study indicate that the key reason for purchasing luxury fashion-branded items is status elevation and the urge to conform to and be associated with specific social norms and classes. Therefore, they tend to consume copycat brands because of their inability to purchase authentic brands and of the elevation of status and conformity associated with luxury fashion-branded items. This research also provides insights into understanding the different motivations resulting in the consumption of copycat brands. Precisely, this research underlines the importance of country of consumption in reflecting positive perceptions towards copycat brands. As a result, this research is the first to consider the relationship between the country of consumption and the acceptance of consuming copycat brands among individuals who are affected by status elevation motives and social norms.
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‘Con poporos y guacamayas’: Representaciones indígenas y el traje típico colombiano en el Miss Universo
Available online: 16 February 2024More LessThis article addresses in five examples, the participation of Miss Colombia and her Indigenous-themed costumes at the Miss Universe pageant. First, the methodology used for this research is approached, from the use of images as a historical document and visual culture. Then, we approach a definition of the typical or national costume and its different denominations, to finally analyse a set of costumes representing Colombia and alluding to the Indigenous at the Miss Universe pageant. It is concluded that the typical Indigenous costumes presented in this international beauty contest are invented costumes that recreate stereotypes and establish identities that can be related to the idea of creating imaginaries that can present a good image of Colombia both nationally and internationally. The research was also based on a dialogue with authors who have addressed issues related to the creation of national identities and their construction from the history, culture, and heritage of a country, related to popular contemporary culture and media.
ResumenEste artículo aborda, en cinco ejemplos, la participación de la Señorita Colombia en el concurso de Miss Universo y sus trajes típicos de temática indígena. En primer lugar, se aborda la metodología empleada para esta investigación, a partir del uso de las imágenes como documento histórico y la cultura visual. Seguidamente, nos aproximamos a una definición del traje típico o nacional, sus diferentes denominaciones, para finalmente analizar un conjunto de trajes colombianos que han concursado en el Miss Universo, por el ‘Premio al mejor Traje Típico’, haciendo alusión a lo indígena. Se concluye que los trajes típicos de referencia indígena, desfilados en este concurso internacional de belleza, acaban siendo trajes inventados que recrean estereotipos y establecen identidades que se relacionan con imaginarios que pueden dar una buena imagen de lo colombiano, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional. La investigación también se fundamentó en el diálogo con autores que han abordado temáticas relacionadas con la creación de identidades nacionales y su construcción a partir de la historia, la cultura y el patrimonio de un país, relacionado con la cultura popular contemporánea y los medios de comunicación.
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Nothing to wear: The fashion behind Rebelde, Mexico’s most popular teen telenovela
Available online: 16 February 2024More LessReleased in 2004, Rebelde represented a turning point for telenovelas in Mexico, partly due to its subversion of conventions considered intrinsic to the genre. The series achieved this by relying heavily on fashion, not only to challenge traditional gender roles but also to address changing perceptions of class and wealth within the country. Clothing was used to explore identities new to Mexican entertainment media at the time and was central to many of the show’s narratives and to the ways characters related to one another. As such, Rebelde was not only a reflection of a new globalized media landscape that had been arriving to Mexico in the previous decade but was also indicative of the ways in which teenagers all over the world were embracing these changes under the guise of freedom, rebellion and independence.
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Santa Muerte: The most fashionable saint of the year
Available online: 16 February 2024More LessThis article presents and analyses the relation between the cult of a Mexican folk saint, Santa Muerte (Saint Death), and fashion. The article describes the unique phenomenon and its complex history as an amalgamation of Christian and pre-Hispanic elements. Even with the cult’s growing recognition, Santa Muerte is still surrounded by controversies – lack of academic research and stereotypes presented by media and popular culture lead to numerous discrepancies such as erroneous image of the followers of Santa Muerte who are often depicted as criminals related to drug smuggling. The main part of the article focuses on the practices of building and decorating the altars, shrines and chapels for Santa Muerte. The text also highlights a spreading custom of designing various types of dresses and robes for the figures of the patron and the practice of modifying the figures themselves (adding ornaments, artefacts and various items). Some of these items and ornaments express the intentions of the prayers, holidays and individual preferences of the worshippers. Following sections present the impact of the cult of Santa Muerte (especially its aesthetical dimension) on the fashion industry, which is visible in the example of jewellery and clothing. The article concludes with an exploration of trends among the followers of Santa Muerte and their impact on the esoteric industry that is wide and rapidly developing in Mexico.
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Renová tu Vestidor: Second-hand online clothing retail as an extension of domestic labour and as resistance practices in Argentina between 2016 and 2018
Available online: 16 February 2024More LessThe aim of this article is to look into some fashion consumption practices that manifest resistance at the micro social level and which occur through one specific virtual platform from Argentina, Renová Tu Vestidor (renovatuvestidor.com). The resistance mentioned here seeks to overcome market prices during the period concerning 2016 and 2018, as well as to find brand items and other affordable stylish garments and simultaneously generate extra income. Therefore, resistant practices through online shopping are linked to the need of managing the household economy in a time of national (and global) crisis, without neglecting the pleasure that fashion consumption provides (visiting virtual stores and shopping online), as well as avoiding the loss of class status and, last but not least, evincing an unconscious extension of domestic labour. This article will specifically address the relationships some women maintain between fashion consumption as resistant practices in virtual platforms that trade with second-hand clothes, and formal occupations, leisure, pleasure and an extension of domestic labour.
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Time and space in Brechó de Troca: Reflections on the method of a clothing exchange group in Brazil
Authors: Helena de Barros Soares and Inês HennigenAvailable online: 16 February 2024More LessThis article analyses the creation of a group time-space and its effects based on a master’s thesis research that analysed some processes in a second-hand exchange group called Brechó de Troca. This group is a space for interaction, whose meetings promote the exchange of clothes and accessories. It was founded in Porto Alegre (south of Brazil) in 2009, with a distinct method aiming to produce subjectivity by exchanging clothes in a way that considers their stories. For this research, we assembled materials that paved the way to such results, analysing the mode of production of subjectivity through the dressing practices in the group. We could observe that the invention of another time, which suspends the eagerness for consumption, potentiates modes of subjectivation through the practices of dressing. This article also highlights the fact that access to consumption is not equalitarian in Global South capitalism. This can be seen in a social phenomenon called ‘rolezinhos’, which took place in Brazil in 2014 and illustrated the contrast between the purchasing power of the lower and upper classes. We believe that the invention of the limbo, name given to the time-space created in the group, works as a trigger of processes, which suspends and enables exercises of the self through clothing in the group meetings. The exchanges gain potency and various stories after going through the Brechó de Troca.
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Artisanal collaborations in the Mexican fashion industry: The case of Otomí embroiderers and Carla Fernández
Available online: 16 February 2024More LessThe present article aims to demonstrate the intersected relations between Indigenous communities and designers in the fashion industry. These interrelations are explained through a case study between Dotnit, an Otomí embroidery cooperative, and the Mexican designer Carla Fernández. An extensive multi-sited ethnography was carried out between 2013 and 2017 in Tenango de Doria, Hidalgo, and Mexico City. Both places were explored with the purpose of understanding the complex relationships between the local and the global through the introduction of tenango embroidery into the fashion world. This research aims to understand the consumption of Indigenous textiles in a glocalized world by following the paths of diversion that tenango embroidery navigates through artisans, designers and consumers. Through the article, interrelationships among different agents will be examined in an effort to understand the complexities within artisan–designer dynamics.
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Más es más: Cómo el éxito del Carnaval de Barranquilla se mide a través del ajuar de su reina en la era digital
Authors: Jeniffer Varela Rodríguez-Licata and Melissa Zuleta BanderaAvailable online: 16 February 2024More LessDeclared by UNESCO as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, Barranquilla’s Carnival gathers thousands of dancers, performers, artists and carnival doers for months leading to the four official days of the festivity, and it is all traditionally led by a Queen. Her commitment to the city of Barranquilla and its most important event is tested from the moment of her election until Ash Wednesday, when the Carnival ends. Her performance is scrutinized now more than ever thanks to the immediacy of social media: her dancing abilities, enthusiasm, charisma and, in great detail, her wardrobe. Traditionally chosen among the wealthiest and deepest-rooted families in the city, her reign is often measured by the purchasing power of her clan, represented in the variety and quality of her dresses and costumes. This article examines the social perception of the Queen through the lens of her wardrobe, using as case studies the Carnivals of three young women in the years 2014, 2016 and 2020. We look to determine how the quality, quantity and luxury of a queen’s festive outfits throughout her reign shape the public opinion of the queen herself and the opinion of her Carnival overall.
ResumenDeclarado por la UNESCO como una de las Obras Maestras del Patrimonio Oral e Inmaterial de la Humanidad, el Carnaval de Barranquilla reúne a miles de bailarines, intérpretes, artistas y hacedores del carnaval durante meses en preparación para los cuatro días oficiales de la festividad. Y todo ello es tradicionalmente presidido por un Reina. Su compromiso con la ciudad de Barranquilla y con su evento más importante es puesto a prueba desde el momento de su elección hasta el Miércoles de Ceniza, cuando finaliza el Carnaval. Su desempeño es examinado ahora más que nunca gracias a la inmediatez de las redes sociales: sus dotes para el baile, su entusiasmo, su carisma y, en gran medida, su vestuario. Tradicionalmente elegida entre las familias más ricas y arraigadas de la ciudad, su reinado suele medirse por el poder adquisitivo de su clan, representado en la variedad y calidad de sus vestidos y disfraces. Este trabajo examina la percepción social de la Reina del Carnaval a través del lente de su ajuar, utilizando como estudios de caso los carnavales de tres jóvenes mujeres en los años 2014, 2016 y 2020. Buscamos determinar cómo la calidad, cantidad y nivel de lujo de los atuendos de una soberana a lo largo de su reinado alimentan la opinión pública sobre la reina misma y sobre su Carnaval en general.
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¡Moda Hoy! Latin American and Latinx Fashion Design Today: An interview with Tanya Melendez-Escalante and Melissa Marra-Alvarez
Available online: 16 February 2024More LessThe Museum at FIT (MFIT) in New York City hosted the fashion exhibit ¡Moda Hoy! Latin American and Latinx Fashion Design Today from 31 May to 5 November 2023. The exhibit included over sixty objects from the museum’s permanent collection representing designers from several Latin American countries and the diaspora including Brenda Equihua (United States), Bárbara Sánchez-Kane (Mexico) and Willy Chavarria (United States). An edited volume published by Bloomsbury complemented the show and expands on topics such as identity, popular culture, sustainability and gender. In this interview co-curators Tanya Melendez-Escalante and Melissa Marra-Alvarez share details of the exhibit planning process.
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Selling Europe to the World: The Rise of the Luxury Industry, 1980–2020, Pierre Yves Donze (2023)
Available online: 25 November 2023More LessReview of: Selling Europe to the World: The Rise of the Luxury Industry, 1980–2020, Pierre Yves Donze (2023)
London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 166 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-35033-578-3, p/bk, $29.95
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Westernwear: Postwar American Fashion and Culture, Sonya Abrego (2022)
Available online: 25 November 2023More LessReview of: Westernwear: Postwar American Fashion and Culture, Sonya Abrego (2022)
London and New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 310 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-35014-767-6, p/bk, $37.95
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Dressed in Time, Margaret Maynard (2022)
Available online: 25 November 2023More LessReview of: Dressed in Time, Margaret Maynard (2022)
London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 206 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-35003-275-0, p/bk, $31.39
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The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, Joanne Entwistle (2023), 3rd ed.
Available online: 25 November 2023More LessReview of: The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, Joanne Entwistle (2023), 3rd ed.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 281 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-50954-789-0, p/bk, $28.95
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Fashion and Appropriation
Authors: Denise Nicole Green and Susan B. Kaiser
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