Teaching

Who Are You Wearing?: Fashion, Politics, and Power

One of the first decisions we all make in the morning is what to wear, whether it’s a conscious decision or not. As a cultural phenomenon, fashion shapes our everyday experiences: it is one of the most immediate ways that we express ourselves to the external world. At the same time, fashion is also a global industry that relies on the labor of disconnected people in opposite ends of the world coming together to produce the clothes we wear every day. This course asks how fashion operates in the world: what is fashion? How does fashion impact society? Does fashion have politics?

This course is divided into two units. In the first unit, students will read ethnographic studies of the fashion industry, focusing on issues of production and labor, media and consumption, and fast fashion and globalization. In the second unit, students will engage in critical conversations about the cultural politics of fashion, such as how subcultures use fashion to establish group styles, how race and gender difference are produced by fashion, and how fashion can be used as a political tool of resistance. During this unit, students will look at a fashion designer case study each week, using course texts to analyze that designer’s work.

Course materials center work by scholars of color and queer and trans scholars and include media texts such as documentaries, videos, and music. Students will produce a 15-20 page final paper with alternating class sessions and assignments designed to train students how to write a paper and scaffold the writing process.

 

Weekly Schedule

Week 1: What is fashion?

  • Fred Davis. 1992. “Do Clothes Speak? What Makes Them Fashion?”

  • Roland Barthes. 1990. “Written Clothing.”

UNIT 1: The Fashion Industry

Week 2: Production and labor

  • Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu. 2010. “Crossing the Assembly Line: Skills, Knowledge, and the Borders of Fashion.”

  • Ashley Mears. 2011. “Economics of the Catwalk.”

  • The September Issue (2009)

Week 3: Media and consumption

  • Brooke Erin Duffy. 2017. “Branding the Authentic Self: The Commercial Appeal of ‘Being Real.’”

  • Crystal Abidin. 2016. “Visibility Labour: Engaging with Influencers’ Fashion Brands and #OOTD Advertorial Campaigns on Instagram.”

  • Essena O’Neill, “Why I Really Am Quitting Social Media” (2015)

Week 4: Fast fashion and globalization

  • Nellie Chu. 2019. “Cartographic Imaginaries of Fast Fashion in Guangzhou, China.”

  • Christina H. Moon. 2019. “Times, Tempos, and the Rhythm of Fast Fashion in Los Angeles and Seoul.”

  • Bernadette Banner, “Buying a Knockoff of My Own Dress: An Educated Roast” (2019)

UNIT 2: The Cultural Politics of Fashion

Week 5: Fashioning cultures

  • Tanisha C. Ford. 2015. “Harlem’s ‘Natural Soul’: Selling Black Beauty to the Diaspora in the Early 1960s.”

  • Isabel Flower and Marcel Rosa-Salas. 2017. “Say My Name: Nameplate Jewelry and the Politics of Taste.”

  • Paris Is Burning (1990)

  • Designer: Dapper Dan

Week 6: Fashioning difference

  • Tressie McMillan Cottom. 2019. “In the Name of Beauty.”

    Rikki Byrd. 2016. “On the ‘Black Designer.’”

  • Pyer Moss, “Pyer Moss Couture 1 – Take 2” (2021)

  • Designer: Pyer Moss

Week 7: Fashioning intellectual property

  • Minh-Ha T. Pham. 2017. “Racial Plagiarism and Fashion.”

  • Denise Nicole Green and Susan B. Kaiser. 2020. “Taking Offense: A Discussion of Fashion, Appropriation, and Cultural Insensitivity.”

  • Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, “Jamie Okuma” (2014)

  • Designer: Jamie OkumaWeek 9: Globalization and exploitation

Week 8: Fashioning politics

  • Roberto Filippello. 2022. “Fashion Statements in a Site of Conflict.”

  • Mimi Thi Nguyen. 2015. “The Hoodie as Sign, Screen, Expectation, and Force.”

  • Chromat x Tourmaline SS22, “Collective Opulence Celebrating Kindred” (2021)

  • Designer: Chromat

Week 9: Fashioning resistance

  • Ben Barry and Daniel Drak. 2019. “Intersectional Interventions into Queer and Trans Liberation: Youth Resistance Against Right-Wing Populism Through Fashion Hacking.”

  • Sky Cubacub 2015. “Radical Visibility: A QueerCrip Dress Reform Movement Manifesto.”

  • Sky Cubacub, Compton Q, and Vogds. 2018. “Radical Visibility: Collective Issue.”

  • Sky Cubacub. 2018. “Radical Visibility: Coloring Book Issue.”

  • Designer: Rebirth Garments