Fashion Talks

Description

Fashion Talks is a vibrant look at the politics of everyday style. Shira Tarrant and Marjorie Jolles bring together essays that cover topics such as lifestyle Lolitas, Hollywood baby bumps, haute couture hijab, gender fluidity, steampunk, and stripper shoes, and engage readers with accessible and thoughtful analyses of real-world issues. This collection explores whether style can shift the limiting boundaries of race, class, gender, and sexuality, while avoiding the traps with which it attempts to rein us in. Fashion Talks will appeal to cultural critics, industry insiders, mainstream readers, and academic experts who are curious about the role fashion plays in the struggles over identity, power, and the status quo.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Feminism Confronts Fashion by Majorie Jolles and Shira Tarrant

Part I. Dressing the Body: The Politics of Gender and Sexuality

1. Fashioning a Feminist Style, Or, How I Learned to Dress from Reading Feminist Theory by Astrid Henry

2. Dressing Left: Conforming, Transforming, and Shifting Masculine Style by Shira Tarrant

3. The Baby Bump is the New Birkin by Renèe Ann Cramer

4. Fashion as Adaptation: The Case of American Idol by Leslie Heywood and Justin R. Garcia

5. My Mannequin, Myself: Embodiment in Fashion’s Mirror by Denise Witzig

6. Life’s Too Short to Wear Comfortable Shoes: Femme-ininity and Sex Work by Jayne Swift

7. Japanese Lolita: Challenging Sexualized Style and the Little-Girl Look by Kathryn A. Hardy Bernal

II. Fashion Choices: The Ethics of Consumption, Production, and Style

8. Glam Abaya: Contemporary Emirati Couture by Jan C. Kreidler

9. Ado(red), Abhor(red), Disappea(red): Fashioning Race, Poverty, and Morality under Product (Red)™ by Evangeline M. Heiliger

10. The Lady Is a Vamp: Cruella de Vil and the Cultural Politics of Fur by Catherine Spooner

11. Something Borrowed, Something Blue: What’s an Indie Bride to Do by Elline Lipkin

12. Steampunk: Stylish Subversion and Colonial Chic by Diana M. Pho and Jaymee Goh

13. DIY Fashion and Going Bust: Wearing Feminist Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Jo Reger

14. Stylish Contradiction: Mix-and-Match as the Fashion of Feminist Ambivalence by Marjorie Jolles

About the Authors
Index

Sujets

• Popular culture

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 29 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781438443218
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Fashion TALKS
Undressing the Power of Style
Edited by
Shira Tarrant and Marjorie Jolles

Cover photo: © Roman Rozenblyum, www.romanroze.com .
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2012 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Eileen Meehan
Marketing by Kate McDonnell
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fashion talks : undressing the power of style / edited by Shira Tarrant and Marjorie Jolles.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4320-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-4319-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Women's clothing—Social aspects. 2. Clothing and dress—Social aspects. 3. Fashion—Social aspects. 4. Feminism—Social aspects. I. Tarrant, Shira, 1963–II. Jolles, Marjorie.
GT1720.F37 2012
391'.2—dc23
2011036641
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Emilie Tarrant I give all my love. Gratitude goes to the rest of my family, as well. For Marjorie Jolles—your conscientious, engaged, enthusiastic, and smart co-editing means this book is a far better collection than it could have been otherwise. Plus, it's been a lot of fun. My former students, Jennifer Sheik and Audrey Silvestre, provided valuable feedback on early essay drafts. You two will certainly recognize improvements on these pages that have a lot to do with your insights. High five to Roman Rozenblyum for serendipity and a vibrant cover image. Roll call: Cathie Roberts, Rebekah Spicuglia, Jennifer Pozner, Nancy Schwartzman, Micky Hohl, Andrew Lopas, Shawna Kenney, and Judith Grant—thank you in so many ways. I'm sure you each know why. Finally, big thanks to my dog Pickle for taking me on walks in the park that cleared my head and nourished my soul.
—Shira Tarrant
Love and thanks go to Matthew Pearson, whose furious styles in so many domains of life are my constant inspiration. I'm especially grateful to Shira Tarrant for the idea of this book, her friendship, and the inimitable snap, crackle, and pop of her writing. I thank the students in my Fashion: The Politics of Style courses at Roosevelt University for their sharp questions and close readings, and Michelle-Marie Gilkeson for proofing assistance. Warmest thanks go out to the many members of my family, local and far-flung, for their enthusiastic interest in this project (Fiona Jolles, you were the most enthusiastic of all!). And for transformative conversations about style, ideology, and the pleasures and labors of writing, I'm forever indebted to my invaluable mentors Chuck Dyke and Laura Levitt, and my brilliant friends Katherine Mack, Audrey Nezer, Allison Page, and Bryan Sacks.
—Marjorie Jolles
Illustrations Image 1.1 Andrea Dworkin Image 1.2 Simone de Beauvoir Image 1.3 Turban by Prada, Spring/Summer 2007 Image 2.1 Brüno Image 2.2 New York Dolls album cover, 1973 Image 2.3 Jerkin’ in skinny jeans Image 2.4 Rapper 50 Cent Image 2.5 XXL Magazine, May 2009 Image 2.6 Vogue Men International Paris , Spring–Summer 2009 Image 2.7 Esquire , May 2009 Image 2.8 Tank Girl Image 4.1 Adam Lambert, “costly novelty” on American Idol Image 7.1 Hinako (age 19), Sweet Lolita, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, 2007 Image 7.2 Vivien (age 22), Auckland Lolita with Japanese Pullip Moon doll, both wearing Gothic Lolita designs by Angie Finn, AUT University, New Zealand, 2009 Image 7.3 Yuki (age 19), Gothic Lolita, Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan, 2007 Image 7.4 Bomi and Ashleigh (both age 17), Auckland Lolita wearing their own designs, Wintergarden, Auckland Domain, New Zealand, 2007 Image 8.1 Abaya haute couture from the “Arabesque” Fall/Winter 2008–2009 collection by designer Judith Duriez of Abu Dhabi, UAE Image 10.1 Cruella de Vil of Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956), original illustration by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone Image 10.2 Cruella de Vil, poised fashionista. Dodie Smith, The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956), original illustration by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone Image 10.3 Cruella de Vil, harridan—as interpreted for film, 1961 Image 10.4 Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil, 1996 Image 12.1 Steampunk safari Image 12.2 Finn Von Claret, former member of Abney Park Image 12.3 Ay-leen the Peacemaker in Asian steampunk dress Image 12.4 Monique Poirer in native steampunk dress, by Jessica Coen Image 13.1 Looks feature, Bust , Fall 2004 Image 13.2 Looks feature, Bust , Dec. 2004/Jan. 2005 Image 14.1 April 2009, Michelle Obama wearing her much-editorialized Moschino oversized bow blouse and Azzedine Alaïa metal-studded leather belt—equal parts girlish frill and edgy punk
Acknowledgments
This collection grew out of presentations at the 2008 National Women's Studies Association conference and the 2009 meeting of the Cultural Studies Association. We are grateful to the panelists and audiences at both events who provided valuable, spirited feedback and affirmation of fashion's significance for feminism.
We also thank the contributors to this volume for their creativity, enthusiasm, and insightful scholarship on such diverse, pressing matters in fashion and feminism. We are grateful to Andrew Kenyon and Larin McLaughlin, our editors at SUNY Press, for their early and steady support for this project. We thank Kathryn Adèle Hardy Bernal for permission to reprint Image 7.1 and Image 7.3 ; James George Stratton Percy for permission to reprint Image 7.2 ; Bevan Ka Yan Chuang for permission to reprint Image 7.4 ; Arabesque Sheilas and Abayas for permission to reprint Image 8.1 ; and Diana M. Pho for permission to reprint Image 12.4 .
Our colleagues and students at California State University, Long Beach and Roosevelt University have inspired us with their tireless and passionate engagements with feminism. We thank them for their contributions to our own feminist theorizing, for challenging us so productively, and for doing it all with such style.
Introduction
Feminism Confronts Fashion
Marjorie Jolles and Shira Tarrant
Fashion. We love it. We hate it. We debate it.
But why does fashion matter?
Beyond the clothes that line our closets or the photo layouts we flip past in glossy magazines, fashion is also the site of specific philosophical tensions. Fashion is symbolic, expressive, creative, and coercive. It is a powerful way to convey politics, personalities, and preferences for whom and how we love. Fashion encourages profound rebellion and defiant self-definition. Yet fashion can simultaneously repress freedom by controlling or disciplining the body, and by encouraging a problematic consumer culture. 1
Fashion creates collective identity, but also restricts individual voice. Fashion provides ways to resist hegemony and communicate identity in the face of cultural and political pressure. At the same time, though, fashion is an integral part of this very conformist culture itself. In other words, fashion contains the potential for pleasure and subjugation, expression and convention. This book neither defends nor condemns fashion. Instead, these essays grapple with how fashion both enables and constrains expression in ways that are uniquely raced, gendered, classed, sexed, and bound to national and cultural histories.
Taking up this tension from a feminist perspective reveals how fashion—like power—is neither inherently good nor bad. What matters is how it is used . Consider sociologist Fred Davis's point that black lace at a funeral means something quite different than black lace on a negligee. 2 Or that wearing a pair of overalls in Manhattan evokes quite a different response than wearing overalls on a farm. What fashion means depends on context, but also on whose interests it serves, what its audiences and practitioners bring to their engagement with it, and how it protects and transforms social divisions.
The problem is that fashion's liberatory possibilities are easily co-opted. Clothing manufacturer American Apparel pilfers support for sexual expression by turning a political ideal into exploitative billboards of its own. Or take the popularity of “green” style. 3 The belief that sociopolitical or ecological improvement can be achieved through alternative channels of fashion and style invites a potentially empty promise of empowerment-through-consumerism that is more emblematic of backlash than progress. We can try going DIY, but that comes with a set of problems, too.
Etsy.com , the hugely popular online emporium of handcrafted goods, provides a space for independent producers to sell their one-of-a-kind, hand-made wares to consumers. Etsy's mission is to “enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers” in order to “build a new economy.” 4 In promoting a DIY aesthetic, Etsy also advocates a certain feminist ethics in reconfiguring the relationship between production and consumption, emphasizing—rather than erasing—the humanity of labor. 5 Not-withstanding the big chance to make hand-embroidere