Afrofuturism draws on Black history, mythology, and science fiction to liberate and imagine possible futures for people of the African diaspora. As this week’s readings explain, Afrofuturism offers opportunities to explore design solutions that are empathic,...
The qipao (or cheongsam) is one of the most symbolic garments of Chinese fashion. Although some earlier examples survive, the qipao denotes the glamorous style of “Old Shanghai” in the 1910s–30s. During the Republican era, it became a tool of resistance that...
This week’s reading list focuses on Latin American and Latinx designers, whose work has become widely known in the global fashion industry with their fresh looks, inspired by the aesthetic wealth of Latin America. From abroad, the work of Latin American fashion...
The word "luxury" is often mentioned in relation to fashion. But, what, exactly, is luxury? While there might be a number of dictionary definitions for the term, the reality is that the meanings of luxury are constituted socially and vary depending on the context....
Fashion is an essential tool in the construction of ideas about the 'Other.' By questioning concepts of 'ethnic dress' and 'world fashion', researching the clothing worn by enslaved servants and analyzing nineteenth-century discourses of Otherness, studying the...
The lack of diversity and representation is one of fashion’s most widely discussed issues nowadays. The modeling industry, in particular, has been criticized for offering limited, sanitized visions of beauty and the fashionable body. This reading list explores the...
The necessity to create a more sustainable fashion industry has become increasingly eminent in the past decade or so.
The expansion of fashion is often understood as the result of the violent colonial enterprises of European countries around the globe. However, fashion in colonial contexts extended beyond the simple adoption — or imposition — of the styles of dress preferred by European elites.
A ch’uspa (in Quechua) or huallqepo (in Aymara) is a bag used in the Andes to carry dried coca leaves since at least the beginning of the first millennium CE.
Esta lista de lectura reúne algunos ejemplos del trabajo de estudios de moda que se ha gestado desde latinoamérica, creado originalmente en español y portugués. // This reading list features the work of Latin American fashion scholars in both Spanish and Portuguese, from the study of Black fashion as cultural heritage in Brazil, to an examination of the relationship between fashion and modernity in the Americas.
