Fashion and Cultural Studies

Fashion and Cultural Studiesaddresses the growing interaction between the two fields. Bridging theory and practice, it draws on cultural diversity in fashion, dress and style in the context of globalization and its varied cultural-historical underpinnings. The premise is that cultural studies relies on fashion to visualize and materialize change as well as continuity, in addition to negotiations between time and space, identity and difference, agency and structure, and production and consumption. At the same time, fashion benefits from the interpretative lens of cultural studies: its key concepts, its contextual flexibility, and its attention to bridging 'high' and 'popular' culture, contemporary and historical perspectives, and diverse identity issues and methodologies. While the book is organized around specific subjects, such as ethnicity, class, gender and nation, the overall goal is to highlight the ways in which these interact and overlap. Intersections are a key theme: drawing on intersectionality theory in feminist theory and cultural studies, Fashion and Cultural Studiesexplores how fashion makes meaning in everyday life through the production, distribution, and consumption of materials. A wide range of cross-cultural case studies analyze fashion as a multi-ethnic, transnational, and multiply gendered, classed, and sexualized phenomenon.

Susan B. Kaiser is Professor of Textiles and Clothing, as well as Women and Gender Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Davis.

Fashion and Culture: Cultural Studies, Fashion Studies Intersectional, Transnational Fashion Subjects Fashioning the National SubjectEthnicity and 'Race'Social ClassGenderSexualityFashioning Cultural Theory: Flexibility and its LimitsBibliographyIndex