Fashion Theory Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Sewing Reality: Fashion in Non-fiction Media University of Bedfordshire, Luton Campus, UK 9th June 2018 As two distinct art forms, fashion and film have flirted with each other in symbiotic relationships since the dawn of the medium:... more

Sewing Reality: Fashion in Non-fiction Media
University of Bedfordshire, Luton Campus, UK
9th June 2018

As two distinct art forms, fashion and film have flirted with each other in symbiotic relationships since the dawn of the medium: from British and American actualities showing current high-street fashion, to French newsreels capturing fashion shows. The synergy has been mutually influential also as far as other media are concerned, with pop stars and television dramas inspiring catwalks and collections. While the literature on film and fashion is quickly growing, this interest has primarily focused on fiction and includes, among others, works on the construction of femininity and masculinity through costumes, the definition of national identities through cinematic clothing, and the haptic pleasure of fashion in film. Non-fiction material remains an understudied source, with only a few scholarly works shedding some light on early cinema’s attention to the fashion world, still and moving images in fashion archives, celebrity and fashion, but also make-up culture and TV entertainment, the relationship between austerity and sewing/knitting programs, and the political potential of fashion documentaries.

This interdisciplinary symposium wants to fill this vacuum and excavate and reassess the role of non-fiction media in shaping our understanding of fashion across multiple platforms and different national contexts. The event aims to create an open space for dialogue between fashion and documentary studies, drawing from different methodologies and approaches: media and cultural studies, ethnography, audience research, marketing and public relations.
Sewing Reality aims to discuss the interconnection between fashion and media industries, the audiences of factual moving images about fashion, as well as the past, the present and the future of fashion documentaries.

Curated by: Dr Elena Caoduro, University of Bedfordshire, UK

Keynote Speaker: Pamela Church-Gibson, Reader in Cultural and Historical Studies at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK

PANELS

1a: Fashion Documentaries

• Rona Murray - Have Fun: Fashion Matriarchies
• Daisy Richards - Muses, Mythology and The First Monday in May
• Karen Ritzenhoff - A maverick on the streets: Bill Cunningham, photography and New York fashion

1b: The Pleasure of Sewing

• Laurel Forster - Bringing up the Subject of Sewing
• Joanne Knowles - ‘I should have stayed at home and finished the hem on my skirt’: Sewing, domesticity and distinction in teenage girls’ magazines of the 1970s and 1980s
• Nickianne Moody - Bunty’s Cut-Out Wardrobe Goes to Art College
• + Rosie Steele’s poster

2: Fiction/Factual fashion exchanges

• Rachel Velody - Stitching authority
• Mariaemanuela Messina - Fashion Cinema and Representations

3: Capturing the Fashion Real

• Mark Pickering - HUMAN SEE, HUMAN DO: A case study exploration of the para-social interaction between celebrity blogger and fashion consumer
• Boel Ulfsdotter - Shooting fashion: the double-bind of a non-fiction approach to Paris Fashion Week

4: Fashioning the Archive

• Silvia Vacirca - Call to fashion reality: a closer look at Istituto Luce Archive fashion cinejournals (1939-1941)
• Jihane Dyer - Documenting Fashion Histories on the BBC, 1989-2014: Temporality and Cultural
• Sigrun Lehnert - The Fashion of East and West in German Cinema Newsreels
• Giulia Caffaro - The Italian Ready-to-wear Fashion through Carousels