WARDROBE MALFUNCTIONS
Linda, Austin, TX I was dressed in a gorgeous short leather-suede skirt and top having a birthday dinner at the...
Prose
THE SELF ON DISPLAY
Vivienne Westwood's ability to provoke public discussion – both through her fashion and her media appearances – has characterised her...
‘A society of ugly people is an immoral society’
In 1920, a group of youth leaders walked out of the Boy Scout movement in Britain, disillusioned with the increasing...
The Self On Display
Yohji Yamamoto’s autobiography, 'My Dear Bomb' (2010) creates a complex conceptual persona of a designer, that of the ‘insider/outsider.’ A...
Late to Bloom
‘To create a being out of oneself is very serious,’ wrote the late Clarice Lispector in her 1973 work, Água...
The Self on Display
The title 'Shocking Life' alone suggests multiple readings. ‘Shocking’ refers to her life, one of excitement, privilege and excess; it...
Notes on Fashion as Fetish
Designers and artists have occasionally hinted at the mystery of clothes, at what it is that makes a garment powerful,...
The Self on Display
While fashion designers today reach the heights of celebrity status, the roots of the phenomenon lie in fin de siècle...
Shameless Trespassing
On Cultural Transits, Immodest Exposure and the Grotesque Body
Orientalism, and the related appellation orientalist, opens up to a wide debate on Western visions of the East, and has...
Fashioning Change
Some thirty years ago on July 22, 1985, Pierre Cardin sent nine young Chinese girls down the runway of his...
Beyond the Iron Curtain
For individuals in East Berlin, using fashion for self-expression risked being seen as subversive. As such, attire was purely practical:...
The Green Shades of Shame
Or: How shame procrastinates engagement with the sustainability imperative in fashion
In order to transcend shame and to take action in the realm of sustainability, we need support and a collective...