90986 - Global Fashion

Learning outcomes

Global Fashion course investigates the material and immaterial dimensions of fashion as a major cultural industry that influence the individual and social identity on a global scale. Although controversial and much debated as a concept, the globalization of dress and fashion indicates an inseparable link between sartorial practice and cultural significance, as demonstrated in colonial and post-colonial practices, in the definition of “traditional” costumes as opposed to “modern” fashion, in the emerging aesthetics codes of young global designers, and in the fluid choices of consumers worldwide.

Course contents

Clothing is among the most visible and meaningful ways in which we express our identities. At the same time, our clothes are material items produced and consumed through an ever-expanding global fashion industry. This course will explore the various social, cultural, economic, political, and visual meanings associated with the representation of fashion , combining anthropological and historical methods.

The 2023 workshop Costume Meets Fashion will engage students with individual projects on the matter.

Readings/Bibliography

1. L. Welters and A. Lillethun Fashion History. A Global View 'Introduction: Europe and the People without Fashion' Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2018, pp. 1-10.

2. D.N. Green and S. Kaiser "Fashion and appropriation" in Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, 4, 3, 2017

3. Wessie Ling, Mariella Lorusso, Simona Segre Reinach "Critical Studies in Global Fashion" https://zmj.unibo.it/issue/view/823

 

Weekly readings will be assigned.

Teaching methods

Lectures

Workshop

Student Presentations

Assessment methods

The examination will ensure the achievement of the following objectives:

- critical awareness of the complexity of the representation of fashion

- survey and analysis of the main conceptual contents examined;

- ability to establish well-founded relations between the different aspects of the program.

FINAL EXAMS

A. Attending Students only: COSTUME MEETS FASHION PROJECT.

Students will elaborate a personal interpretation of an item in global fashion

a.1 Individual Portfolio

a.2

Essay Test during the course on the readings indicated in class.

 

The final grade is based on the average of the two tests, essay and portfolio

B. All other students written EXAM (Test)

Written Multiple Choice Test (31 questions) based on the following readings:

1. Bruzzi and Church-Gibson (eds) Fashion Culture Revisited: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. Introduction

2. Lise Skov and Marie Riegels Melchior: Research Approaches to the Study of Dress and Fashion

3. E. Wilson Adorned in Dreams: Introduction + chapter 4

4. D. Gilbert A new world order? Fashion and Its Capitals in the twenty-first century in Fashion Culture Revisited: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. Bruzzi and Church-Gibson. Routledge.

Links to further information

https://zmj.unibo.it

Office hours

See the website of Simona Maria Segre Reinach