Class code PRACT-UG9250 Instructor Details Nathalie Khan Class Details The Global Fashion Industry: British Fashion and Style Prerequisites There are no prerequisites for the class Class Description The Global Fashion Industry and British Fashion aims to introduce fashion history and theory in its contemporary social and cultural context. The course will examine various aspects of the fashion industry and offer an understanding of critical concepts such as social identity, consumer culture and globalization. Students will explore aspects of the British fashion industry, including fashion media, retail environments, fashion exhibitions and the impact of sub and counter culture. The majority of classes will take place in Bedford Square and be formed of illustrated lectures, class activities and discussion of set readings, as well as student presentations. Desired Outcomes Assessment Components The students will be able to reference key themes, debates and concepts covered in the unit. A critical analysis of examples relevant to the field of fashion history and theory. Students will have a working understanding of many aspects of the fashion industry and the symbolic production of fashion. - Research Project 1500 x 2000-word written essay, due Week 7 (40%). - 5 10 minute oral class presentation, accompanied by 500 700 word outline (representing 10% of the total assessment) - 2 Hour Seen Exam (30%). - Attentiveness to, and engagement with, the presentations of visiting lecturers, company representatives welcoming the group in to businesses and studios, as well as fellow students will represent 20% of each student's total assessment. This mark includes preparatory work undertaken in advance of study sessions and participation in the discussion of readings in class. Page 1 of 10
Failure to submit or fulfill any required course component results in failure of the class. Assessment Expectations Grade A: Students demonstrate an excellent understanding of the interrelated sectors of the fashion industry, can proactively source primary data, and combine it with a thorough critical engagement with secondary sources, to generate an independent approach to the assessments set during the programme. Grade B: Students demonstrate a very good understanding of the interrelated sectors of the fashion industry, can proactively source primary data, and combine it with secondary sources, to deliver clear and articulate responses to the assessments set during the programme. Grade C: Students demonstrate an acceptable understanding of the interrelated sectors of the fashion industry, and can demonstrate through their assessments an awareness of key concepts. Grade D: A very low pass. Grade F: A fail grade. Required Text(s) Rocamora, A, Black, S. De La Haye, A. (2013) The Handbook of Fashion Studies, London: Bloomsbury. Joblin, P. (2016) Advertising Menswear, London: Bloomsbury Lipovetsky, G. (1992) The Empire of Fashion, London: Routledge, (Chapter 4: The Seduction of Things) Additional Key Text(s) O Neil, A. (2007) London: After A Fashion, London: Reaktions Books Barnard, M. (2007) Fashion Theory: A Reader, London: Routledge English, B. (2013) A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Sidewalk, 2nd Edition, London: Bloomsbury (Chapter on Postmodernism and fa contextualisation) White, N. and Griffiths, I (2005) The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, Image, Oxford: Berg. Supplemental Texts(s) (not required to purchase as copies are in Wilson, E (1985) Adorned in Dreams: Fashion & Modernity, London: Virago. Bordieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge. Page 2 of 10
NYU-L Library) Djurdja Bartlett, Shaun Cole, Agnès Rocamora (2013) Fashion Media: Past & Present London: Bloomsbury Academic Wilcox, C. The Golden Age of Couture. 1947 1957 London: V&A Publishing (Introduction) Tungate, Mark Fashion Brands: Building Style from Armami to Zara Kogan Page; 3 edition (3 Oct 2012) Students will be required to give short presentations to their peers on their reading of one allocated text during the course. These will be indicated at Wk2 and the books made available in the NYUL Library, if not already there. Additional readings may be posted on NYU Classes and students are expected to keep up to date with any additional readings the course leader may provide in this manner. Usefull Fashion sites www.businessoffashion.com http://showstudio.com http://www.dazeddigital.com (all students will be expected to have signed up for the daily newsletter from this website) Additional Required Equipment Computer, camera & access to DVD & internet facilities; where workshop sessions require specific materials, advance notice will be given Session 1 INTRODUCTION: FASHION, MODERNITY AND THE CITY Key text for this session will be Gilles Lipovetsky: The Empire of Fashion. We will discuss the following questions: What is Modern Fashion? Page 3 of 10
Why do we think of modern fashion to be feminine in essence? What according to Lipovetsky, was revolutionary in creating, as well as innovative in selling fashion? Session 2 LONDON AND FASHIONABLE SHOPPING This session will introduce the link between fashion and consumer culture in Britain. We will look at the history of the department store and shopping as a fashionable past time. Key focus will be on innovation in retail and critical aspects of consumer culture. Rappaport, Erika (2001) Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London s West End, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Simmel, Georg (1903) The Metropolis and mental life in The Sociology of Georg Simmel, London and New York: The Free Press. pp. 409 417. Students will be expected to present a short presentation on their field trips reflecting on innovation in retail environment, location and branding. Session 3 FASHION AND SOCIAL IDENTITY: MASCULINITY, YOUTH AND COUNTER CULTURE In this session we will focus on key concepts and ideas concerning social identity with a particular focus on gender and fashion as a form of cultural production. Entwistle, J. (2015) The Fashioned Body, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hall, S. (1992) The Question of Cultural Identity, in S. Hall et al (eds.) Modernity and its Futures Cambridge: Polity. Kaiser, S. B. (2012) Gendering Fashion, Fashioning Gender: Beyond Binaries, in Fashion and Cultural Studies. Oxford: Berg. Joblin, P. (2016) Advertising Menswear, London: Bloomsbury Page 4 of 10
Negrin, L. (1999) The Self as Image: A critical Appraisal of Postmodern Theories of Fashion, in Theory, Culture and Society. Nottingham. Nottingham Trent University. Hebdige, D. (1975) Subculture: The Social Meaning of Style. London: Routledge Mort, Frank Cultures of Consumption, Routledge, London, 1996 Steele, Valerie (1997) Anti fashion: The 1970 in Fashion Theory, Vol 3, Issue 1. Thornton, S. (2001) Club Cultures, Cambridge: Polity Press. Independent Study and Field Trip Briefing: You will visit the following locations in your individual groups: Mount Street, Mayfair in W1: Christopher Kane, Hussein Chalayan, Simone Rocha Dover Street W1: Victoria Beckham For additional research you my also visit Liberties on Regent Street, Dover Street Market at Haymarket. Session 4 Field Trip: Savile Row and Menswear with Russell We will be meeting Rusell Nash an expert in menswear and tailoring. Russell will introduce us to tailors on Savile Row and Jermyn Street and present the history of menswear, tailoring excellence, and the craft of bespoke tailoring in London. Page 5 of 10
http://britainsbestguides.org/guides/russell-nash/ Session 5 Student Presentations and Essay Briefing Students will present on their independent retail field trip in groups. Session 6 Counter Culture, London Club Culture, Queer Fashion and Identity In this session we will look at the history of London Club Culture and its influence on fashion. We will address various movements, designers, events and performers from the 1980s to the present day and discuss the complex and contested relationship between fashion, gender and sexuality with a focus on performativity, queer theory and subcultural style. O Neil, A. (2007) London: After A Fashion, London: Reaktions Books Barker, C. (2012) Youth, style and resistance Cole, S. (2008) Gay Men, Dress, and Subcultural Idenity Gauntlett, D. (2002) Queer Theory and Fluid Identities Kaiser, S. (2012) Sexuality and Style-Fashion-Dress Steele, V. (1998) Anti Fashion in Fashion Theory, Oxford Berg. Session 7 FIRST WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT DUE GUEST TALK: EDEN LOWETH AND TOM BARRATT: ART SCHOOL http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/34226/1/meet-art-school-londonsgender-queer-fashion-collective ART SCHOOL focuses on redefining the limitations of ready-to-wear fashion blurring the lines of men s and women s wear to create a modern representation of unisex clothes. Directed by the creative partnership of Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt the label is informed by the designers' backgrounds as menswear and art criticism graduates respectively. They have worked with some of the most prominent emerging designers of the time including LVMH Prize winner Grace Wales Bonner. Eden Loweth graduated from BA Fashion at Ravensbourne in June 2016 specialising in menswear - his graduate collection received widespread praise for its portrayal of the evolving trans body. Page 6 of 10
Session 8 LECTURE: CONSUMPTION AND TASTE This session will focus on consumption and consumerism and the process of distinction and differentiation as well as the fragmentation of taste. Class and distinction are important aspects of British fashion and style. Key concepts will include: (Sub)cultural capital, habitus, taste, class and fashion vicitms. Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. (1996) The World of Goods: Towards and Anthropology of Consumption, London: Routledge Baudrillard, J. (1998) The Consumer Society, Myths and Structures. London: Sage. Braham, P. (2007) Fashion: Unpacking a cultural Production in Fashion Theory: A Reader. Barnard, M. (ed) London: Routledge. McCracken, G. (1990) Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Session 9 THE IMPACT OF CELEBRITY CULTURE: BRANDING AND POPULAR CULTURE The celebrity culture and fashion play an increasingly important role within mainstream and popular culture. This session will focus on how celebrities serve to promote both brands and images. Church-Gibson, Pamela (2012) Fashion and Celebrity Culture, London: Bloomsbury. Gundle, Stephen (2008) Glamour: A History, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Session 10 FIELD TRIP Fashion and Textile Museum: T-SHIRT: CULT CULTURE AND SUBVERSION Page 7 of 10
The exhibition explores the T-shirt in the 20th Century through this inspirational exhibition; charting the history, culture and subversion of the most affordable and popular item of clothing on the planet. T-SHIRT: CULT CULTURE SUBVERSION highlights the multi-faceted role of this humble garment. From men s underclothes to symbol of rock and roll rebellion, through punk and politics to luxury fashion item, T-shirts broadcast who we are and who we want to be. The exhibition will feature a private collection of Vivienne Westwood t-shirts from the early days of Let it Rock, Sex, and Seditionaries, through to the designers most recent collections, Active Resistance to Propaganda and Climate Revolution. This group of rare objects will form a central installation of the exhibition, accompanied by an introduction to the historical biography of the T-shirt and an insight into its technological advances, mapped through sections focusing on contemporary design. https://www.ftmlondon.org/ftm-exhibitions/t-shirt-cult-culturesubversion/ Session 11 Guest Talk and T-shirt Workshop: Dr NOKI on Sustainability and mash up culture NOKI is a subversive fashion designer and customiser, based in Brighton. Famously anonymous, recognisable only for the masks he wears, NOKI (an anagram of and pun on IKON) believes customisation - the act of altering a garment through cutting, stitching or embellishing it - to be an assault on the homogeneity of mass-produced, globalised fashion design and an act of bringing it closer to Haute Couture. NOKI's playfully aggressive rhetoric is much owed to the writer and founder of Adbusters Kalle Lasn, whom NOKI cites as a major influence on his world view and work. Session 12 LONDON FASHION AND GLOBALISATION and Exam Briefing The global luxury market is likely to see 5% annual growth in 2014/15, giving it a market value of 223bn. This session will focus on new trends in the luxury industry and concepts such as globalization and sustainability within the Page 8 of 10
fashion industry. Appardurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large, University Minnesota press. (Chapter 2: Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy pp27-47) Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. (1996) The World of Goods: Towards and Anthropology of Consumption, London: Routledge Craik, J. Exotic impulses in techniques of fashion.in The Face of Fashion. London: Routledge. Crewe, L. Lowe, M. (1996) United Colours? Globalisation and localisation tendencies in fashion retailing. Eicher, J. E. and Sumberg, E. (1995) World Fashion, Ethnic and National Dress in J. B. Eicher (ed). Dress and Ethnicity Oxford: Berg. Harvey, D (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity, London: Wiley (Chapter 9: From Fordism to flexible accumulation pp141-172) Session 13 Guest Speaker: Jeff Horseley on Fashion Exhibitions and Fashion Curation Originally trained in theatre design, Jeffrey Horsley is an award-winning exhibition maker. As Head of Exhibitions at Manchester Art Gallery and Manchester University Museum, Horsley created exhibitions primarily of work by contemporary artists and designers. In 2012, Horsley completed a practice-based PhD at London College of Fashion examining innovative presentation techniques in fashion exhibitions and since then has focussed his practice and academic work on fashion exhibitions. Recently, Horsley created a series of experimental fashion exhibitions for a private archive based in London which included RED: Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto: SHOWSPACE and The Circle Arcane Glamour. Horsley is currently Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London. Future projects include an exhibition of perished garments (Fashion Space Gallery, May 2017). Session 14 Field Trip: V&A Fashioned From Nature Page 9 of 10
We will visit the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington and view the first UK exhibition to explore the complex relationship between fashion and nature from the 1600 to the present day. https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/fashioned-from-nature Session 15 2 HOUR SEEN EXAM Classroom Etiquette No mobile phones allowed in the classroom. Students are expected to contribute to class discussions and engage with the opinions of their colleagues. Laptops are not required as the course is based predominantly around discussion and live action research. Your Instructor Nathalie Khan teaches fashion history and theory at Central Saint Martins and London College Sotheby s Institute of Art in New York, the University of Bologna and The Conde Nast School o a leading theorist and writer on contemporary fashion media and the impact of new technology fashion photography. Recent publications include The Fashion Show and Liminal Time (Vesto Fashion as Mythology Considerations on the legacy of Alexander McQueen (Fashion Cultur Fashion Body: Why the fashion image is no longer still, (Fashion Theory, Bloomsbury 2011) as narrative fashion films of Ruth Hogben and Gareth Pugh (Fashion, Film and Consumption, Inte includes a project titled I know simply that the sky will last longer than I, with the Belgian visual International Festival of Fashion and Photography (Hyeres, 2013). Nathalie is currently co-editi theory for Bloomsbury. Page 10 of 10