Maria Angela Jansen
Angela Jansen is a decolonial researcher, educator, consultant, curator and director of the Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion (www.rcdfashion.com). She is the author of "Moroccan Fashion: Design, Tradition and Modernity" (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) and coeditor with Jennifer Craik of "Modern Fashion Traditions: Negotiating Tradition and Modernity Through Fashion" (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). She is also the guest co-editor with Toby Slade of the special issue of "Fashion Theory" on Decoloniality and Fashion (Vol 24(6) 2020).
Her scholarship grows out of an effort to underwrite an ongoing critique concerning Eurocentric contemporary fashion. She argues that the way fashion as a noun—contemporary fashion—has come to refer to a temporality of contemporaneity, a system of inequality and an industry of capitalism particular to modernity, is intrinsic to its discriminating, exploitive and destructive nature. Whereas fashion as a verb, the act of fashioning the body, is of all temporalities and geographies. Modern aesthetics have played a key role in configuring a canon, a normativity that enables the disdain and rejection of other forms of aesthetic practices, that is, other forms of sensing and perceiving.
With her work, she aims to critique the denial and erasure of a diversity of fashioning systems due to eurocentricity, unequal global power relations based on the modern-colonial order and the Euro-American canon of normativity materialised in modern aesthetics. She advocates to delink fashion from modernity—the very core of its constitution—and to redefine it as a multitude of possibilities—in and outside modernity—rather than a normative framework falsely claiming universality.
In 2012, she initiated the Research Collective for Decolonizing Fashion (RCDF), which has played a strong informative role in her scholarly development. As an experimental space beyond institutions, geographical and disciplinary boundaries, the Collective experiments with decentral and decolonial ways of knowledge-creation and sharing concerning body fashioningaims to experiment with decentral and decolonial ways of knowledge-creation and sharing concerning fashion— through the relational, communal and coalitional and through the radical act of listening across multiple differences.
In addition to teaching, publishing, consulting, curating and running the RCDF, she has worked as strategic cultural policy advisor for the Municipality of Maastricht (2020-21) and cultural policy officer for the Dutch Embassy in Rabat (2006-2012).
Her scholarship grows out of an effort to underwrite an ongoing critique concerning Eurocentric contemporary fashion. She argues that the way fashion as a noun—contemporary fashion—has come to refer to a temporality of contemporaneity, a system of inequality and an industry of capitalism particular to modernity, is intrinsic to its discriminating, exploitive and destructive nature. Whereas fashion as a verb, the act of fashioning the body, is of all temporalities and geographies. Modern aesthetics have played a key role in configuring a canon, a normativity that enables the disdain and rejection of other forms of aesthetic practices, that is, other forms of sensing and perceiving.
With her work, she aims to critique the denial and erasure of a diversity of fashioning systems due to eurocentricity, unequal global power relations based on the modern-colonial order and the Euro-American canon of normativity materialised in modern aesthetics. She advocates to delink fashion from modernity—the very core of its constitution—and to redefine it as a multitude of possibilities—in and outside modernity—rather than a normative framework falsely claiming universality.
In 2012, she initiated the Research Collective for Decolonizing Fashion (RCDF), which has played a strong informative role in her scholarly development. As an experimental space beyond institutions, geographical and disciplinary boundaries, the Collective experiments with decentral and decolonial ways of knowledge-creation and sharing concerning body fashioningaims to experiment with decentral and decolonial ways of knowledge-creation and sharing concerning fashion— through the relational, communal and coalitional and through the radical act of listening across multiple differences.
In addition to teaching, publishing, consulting, curating and running the RCDF, she has worked as strategic cultural policy advisor for the Municipality of Maastricht (2020-21) and cultural policy officer for the Dutch Embassy in Rabat (2006-2012).
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Books by Maria Angela Jansen
Moroccan Fashion illustrates how Moroccan fashion transformed from a craft into an industry. Under the influence of three generations of Moroccan fashion designers, a shift occurred from anonymous ‘traditional’ tailors in the old city centres to glamorous star-status designers with fashionable showrooms in the villes nouvelles. These designers successfully ‘modernized’ Moroccan dress at crucial moments in time. Simultaneously, the influential national lifestyle press in the mid-nineties contributed to an important image change of Moroccan fashion by taking it out of its ‘traditional’ context of social and religious gatherings and putting it into a ‘modern’ context of magazine covers and catwalks. Contrary to what may be expected, the volume shows how the introduction of Western fashion brands on a large scale did not threaten the continuity of Moroccan fashion, but on the contrary, boosted its consumption through the introduction of new consumption and commercialization patterns. Moroccan fashion shows how Moroccan fashion is being branded as beldi, the Moroccan-Arabic word for ‘traditional, authentic or handmade,’ while simultaneously being ‘modernized’ by the Moroccan fashion industry.
This monograph is aimed at social researchers focusing on contemporary Moroccan urban society in particular, (non-Western) fashion in general and an overall audience interested in material culture, consumption, the cultural impact of globalisation notions of modernity in non-Western societies. Research on fashion in the so-called non-West has only developed in recent years and it constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of complex on-going processes of negotiation notions of tradition and modernity, global influences and local realities. As the Moroccan case-study illustrates, tradition and modernity are constantly being redefined and renegotiated in a rapidly changing urban context. While local craftsmanship is used to justify its localness, Western fashion trends are incorporated to justify its modernity.
Book chapters by Maria Angela Jansen
In this chapter, Angela Jansen and Erica de Greef are guided by inspiring decolonial thinkers Rolando Vazquez and Walter Mignolo as they reflect on their journey of learning and unlearning through the Conversation. We consider what it means to hold space and host voices; to invite discussion and the development of a decolonial discourse; and to bring a wide range of participants together in dialogue. We acknowledge the teachings of a community, as we think with them, from a shared legacy, guiding us in the mapping of our own understandings (and misunderstandings), as we practice in relation with others a ‘politics of redress’ (Niessen). The work of the Conversations aims to find ways to ‘give back a place in the present, of hosting and emplacing what has been eradicated’ (Vazquez 2018), in an effort to resist and prevent the loss of cultural futures due to coloniality/modernity. Fashion(ing) becomes a ‘key site of interrogation of the modern/colonial order’ as it articulates and demonstrates the colonial difference; ‘it has been colonised to the realm of the image (as representation) rather than being in the realm of relations’ (Vazquez 2021).
Ce point de vue sur le costume marocain dit « traditionnel » est un mythe occidental introduit au Maroc durant le Protectorat et consacré par la société marocaine au fil du temps. L’administration française a défini la société et la culture marocaines comme « traditionnelles, ancestrales et authentiques » pour marquer la différence avec la société et la culture françaises, dites « modernes et cosmopolites », et pour justifier sa politique coloniale. Cette division artificielle perpétue une dichotomie entre des notions de tradition et de modernité dans tous les aspects de la culture et de l’identité marocaines, y compris dans le design et la mode. Non seulement la tradition n’existe ni avant ni par opposition à la modernité, mais la tradition et la modernité sont construites simultanément, et sont mutuellement constitutives.
Ce chapitre explique les diverses raisons pour lesquelles l’histoire de la mode au Maroc fait défaut.
* to disrupt persistent euro- and ethnocentric academic practice in fashion studies by challenging simple, linear, oppositional, and essentialist thinking, resulting in false dichotomies like tradition versus modernity, dress versus fashion, West versus Non-West, local versus global, etc.
* to contest the idea that fashion outside of Europe and North America is a recent phenomenon and/or a result of globalization.
* to acknowledge that different fashion systems have been, and are, located all around the world, and that these have been developing in conjunction, competition, collaboration, and independently from the European fashion system.
* to not only dispute misassumptions concerning non-European fashion as being static, authentic and symbolic, but also concerning European fashion as being arbitrary, innovative, and, most importantly, detached from its cultural context.
* to provide a platform for developing alternative, inclusive theoretical frameworks to analyze fashion from a global perspective, and to establish new terminology that surpasses current Eurocentric discourse in relation to fashion.
Journal Articles by Maria Angela Jansen
Their aim is to bring-together-in-relation different local histories and embodied conceptions and practices of decoloniality that enter into conversations, build understandings across geopolitical locations and colonial differences, and contest the totalizing claims and political-epistemic violence of modernity. It aims to make evident that there is not one way to do and conceive decoloniality, but rather that different local histories have dif- ferent embodied conceptions and practices of decoloniality; that different people experience decoloniality differently, according to different positionalities in regard to the colonial difference.
Each of the Conversations is based on
a reading and comprises a ninety-minute session split into three thirty-minute parts:
a conversation between the conveners and guest(s); a breakout session of five people to enable more intimate exchange, understand- ing and (un)learning with each other; and
a final conversation with the whole group. They offer a rare opportunity to learn with
and from people who experience and enact decoloniality from different geographical and historical experiences.
Decolonial fashion discourse constitutes a framework that enables to redefine fashion as a multitude of possibilities rather than a normative framework falsely claiming universality, to humble modernity’s narrative by recognizing its own epistemic limits, to listen to and acknowledge an episteme plurality outside of modernity and to decenter the production of knowledge in regard to fashion. It aims to critique the denial and erasure of a diversity of ways to fashioning the body due to unequal global power relations based on modern-colonial order, the Euro- American canon of normativity and the exploitation and abuse of cultural heritages, human beings and natural resources.
Keywords: fashion, modernity, eurocentricity, decoloniality, plurality of epistemologies
There was a time when every young Jewish girl in Morocco, at her wedding, would receive such a keswa kebira, literally ‘the grand dress’, from her father. As a married woman she would subsequently wear it on every festive occasion. The keswa kabira is a very special dress, of which the production and decoration techniques represent the traditional craftsmanship of the Jewish Moroccan population, as well as its rich Hispano-Moresque roots.
With the massive emigration of the Jewish population from Morocco at the end of the 1950s and in the 1960s, a large part of their cultural heritage was dispersed and lost forever. My aunt continues to preserve her keswa kebira as part of her cultural heritage, without knowing what will become of it. It is this type of dress and the uncertainty surrounding it that led me to writing an article on this subject, for soon most of these garments will only be seen in museum collections, and there will be no more family stories to tell.
Papers by Maria Angela Jansen
Moroccan Fashion illustrates how Moroccan fashion transformed from a craft into an industry. Under the influence of three generations of Moroccan fashion designers, a shift occurred from anonymous ‘traditional’ tailors in the old city centres to glamorous star-status designers with fashionable showrooms in the villes nouvelles. These designers successfully ‘modernized’ Moroccan dress at crucial moments in time. Simultaneously, the influential national lifestyle press in the mid-nineties contributed to an important image change of Moroccan fashion by taking it out of its ‘traditional’ context of social and religious gatherings and putting it into a ‘modern’ context of magazine covers and catwalks. Contrary to what may be expected, the volume shows how the introduction of Western fashion brands on a large scale did not threaten the continuity of Moroccan fashion, but on the contrary, boosted its consumption through the introduction of new consumption and commercialization patterns. Moroccan fashion shows how Moroccan fashion is being branded as beldi, the Moroccan-Arabic word for ‘traditional, authentic or handmade,’ while simultaneously being ‘modernized’ by the Moroccan fashion industry.
This monograph is aimed at social researchers focusing on contemporary Moroccan urban society in particular, (non-Western) fashion in general and an overall audience interested in material culture, consumption, the cultural impact of globalisation notions of modernity in non-Western societies. Research on fashion in the so-called non-West has only developed in recent years and it constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of complex on-going processes of negotiation notions of tradition and modernity, global influences and local realities. As the Moroccan case-study illustrates, tradition and modernity are constantly being redefined and renegotiated in a rapidly changing urban context. While local craftsmanship is used to justify its localness, Western fashion trends are incorporated to justify its modernity.
In this chapter, Angela Jansen and Erica de Greef are guided by inspiring decolonial thinkers Rolando Vazquez and Walter Mignolo as they reflect on their journey of learning and unlearning through the Conversation. We consider what it means to hold space and host voices; to invite discussion and the development of a decolonial discourse; and to bring a wide range of participants together in dialogue. We acknowledge the teachings of a community, as we think with them, from a shared legacy, guiding us in the mapping of our own understandings (and misunderstandings), as we practice in relation with others a ‘politics of redress’ (Niessen). The work of the Conversations aims to find ways to ‘give back a place in the present, of hosting and emplacing what has been eradicated’ (Vazquez 2018), in an effort to resist and prevent the loss of cultural futures due to coloniality/modernity. Fashion(ing) becomes a ‘key site of interrogation of the modern/colonial order’ as it articulates and demonstrates the colonial difference; ‘it has been colonised to the realm of the image (as representation) rather than being in the realm of relations’ (Vazquez 2021).
Ce point de vue sur le costume marocain dit « traditionnel » est un mythe occidental introduit au Maroc durant le Protectorat et consacré par la société marocaine au fil du temps. L’administration française a défini la société et la culture marocaines comme « traditionnelles, ancestrales et authentiques » pour marquer la différence avec la société et la culture françaises, dites « modernes et cosmopolites », et pour justifier sa politique coloniale. Cette division artificielle perpétue une dichotomie entre des notions de tradition et de modernité dans tous les aspects de la culture et de l’identité marocaines, y compris dans le design et la mode. Non seulement la tradition n’existe ni avant ni par opposition à la modernité, mais la tradition et la modernité sont construites simultanément, et sont mutuellement constitutives.
Ce chapitre explique les diverses raisons pour lesquelles l’histoire de la mode au Maroc fait défaut.
* to disrupt persistent euro- and ethnocentric academic practice in fashion studies by challenging simple, linear, oppositional, and essentialist thinking, resulting in false dichotomies like tradition versus modernity, dress versus fashion, West versus Non-West, local versus global, etc.
* to contest the idea that fashion outside of Europe and North America is a recent phenomenon and/or a result of globalization.
* to acknowledge that different fashion systems have been, and are, located all around the world, and that these have been developing in conjunction, competition, collaboration, and independently from the European fashion system.
* to not only dispute misassumptions concerning non-European fashion as being static, authentic and symbolic, but also concerning European fashion as being arbitrary, innovative, and, most importantly, detached from its cultural context.
* to provide a platform for developing alternative, inclusive theoretical frameworks to analyze fashion from a global perspective, and to establish new terminology that surpasses current Eurocentric discourse in relation to fashion.
Their aim is to bring-together-in-relation different local histories and embodied conceptions and practices of decoloniality that enter into conversations, build understandings across geopolitical locations and colonial differences, and contest the totalizing claims and political-epistemic violence of modernity. It aims to make evident that there is not one way to do and conceive decoloniality, but rather that different local histories have dif- ferent embodied conceptions and practices of decoloniality; that different people experience decoloniality differently, according to different positionalities in regard to the colonial difference.
Each of the Conversations is based on
a reading and comprises a ninety-minute session split into three thirty-minute parts:
a conversation between the conveners and guest(s); a breakout session of five people to enable more intimate exchange, understand- ing and (un)learning with each other; and
a final conversation with the whole group. They offer a rare opportunity to learn with
and from people who experience and enact decoloniality from different geographical and historical experiences.
Decolonial fashion discourse constitutes a framework that enables to redefine fashion as a multitude of possibilities rather than a normative framework falsely claiming universality, to humble modernity’s narrative by recognizing its own epistemic limits, to listen to and acknowledge an episteme plurality outside of modernity and to decenter the production of knowledge in regard to fashion. It aims to critique the denial and erasure of a diversity of ways to fashioning the body due to unequal global power relations based on modern-colonial order, the Euro- American canon of normativity and the exploitation and abuse of cultural heritages, human beings and natural resources.
Keywords: fashion, modernity, eurocentricity, decoloniality, plurality of epistemologies
There was a time when every young Jewish girl in Morocco, at her wedding, would receive such a keswa kebira, literally ‘the grand dress’, from her father. As a married woman she would subsequently wear it on every festive occasion. The keswa kabira is a very special dress, of which the production and decoration techniques represent the traditional craftsmanship of the Jewish Moroccan population, as well as its rich Hispano-Moresque roots.
With the massive emigration of the Jewish population from Morocco at the end of the 1950s and in the 1960s, a large part of their cultural heritage was dispersed and lost forever. My aunt continues to preserve her keswa kebira as part of her cultural heritage, without knowing what will become of it. It is this type of dress and the uncertainty surrounding it that led me to writing an article on this subject, for soon most of these garments will only be seen in museum collections, and there will be no more family stories to tell.
However, the cultural heritages on which these foundational cultural identities are based, were largely shaped and defined by former (Western) colonizers. Colonized cultures were characterised as traditional, as opposed to the modern colonizers, to justify oppressive colonial politics. Cultural heritages were reduced to static snapshots in time and as such, robbed of their long, often global and dynamic histories. After independence, new nations used these reductionist colonial writings to identify ‘traditional, ancestral and authentic’ cultural heritages to shape national identities.
Fashion globalization, which generally refers to the global spread of Western fashion and with it, Eurocentric hegemonic fashion discourse, often falsely suggests equality and inclusivity by including ‘other’ fashion systems, but through their relations and interactions with Western fashion rather than in their own right, sustaining marginalisation and inequality. It usually implies the rise of ‘new’ fashion capitals following the introduction of Western fashion, denying and erasing long, often global and dynamic fashion histories outside the geographical boundaries of Europe and North America.
This paper argues that the erasure of fashion histories outside the West have been feeding into fundamentalist cultural and consequently national identities. While cultural homogenization in the context of globalization is mainly argued as a worldwide spread of Western culture, this paper discusses cultural homogenization within postcolonial nations in response to (fashion) globalization.
This paper aims to analyse the role of the imaginary Other in the process of cultural self definition by focussing on three transnational bodies, being Joste (1934-2008), Tamy Tazi (1974-2015) and Yves Saint Laurent (1957- 2002). It aims to explore the idea that the fantasies of modernity projected on Europe are equivalent to the fantasies of exotism projected on the Orient in the construction of an exotic other for self-defining purposes.
Because fashion anthropology is a developing sub-discipline, little is know about it and therefore the principal aim of this paper is to identify the core aspects of fashion anthropology, its principal methodology as well as the high potentials it entails for both dress and fashion studies.
However, this generation finds itself widely accused of ‘not being Moroccan’ and their annual platform, the Casablanca Fashion Week, has a hard time securing public funding. As part of an Orientalist heritage, Moroccan artists have been incorporating components of their cultural heritage into their work in order to justify its ‘Moroccanness’ towards a western audience. But over time, these ‘stereotypes’ of Moroccan cultural identity have been internalized, resulting in processes of self-Orientalism in the construction of national identity. Contrary to Orientalism, self-Orientalism exploits the Orientalist gaze to turn oneself into the Other and to create, maintain and strengthen an own national cultural identity. Morocco’s political powers, in their turn, have been actively using so-called traditional Moroccan fashion to stimulate the consumption of a culturally marketed self to create a sense of belonging, further national interests, stimulate international tourism, influence foreign investments and as a tool for public diplomacy. Therefore, the artistic produce of this new generation is considered a thread to national identity and therefore to national unity.
This paper explores the tensions Moroccan fashion designers are dealing with between their avant-gardist artistic ambitions to challenge ideas of Moroccanness and political power based on (national) traditionalism, between artistic aspirations to transcend national borders and the public’s longing for cultural anchorage and (national) authenticity in a rapidly globalizing and industrializing postmodern world.
Title : The Power of Fashion: Negotiating Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Moroccan Society
Subtheme : The Cultural Aspects of Fashion
Keywords : Morocco, fashion, globalization, tradition, modernity
Note : This paper was awarded the Junior Faculty IFFTI Initiatives Award
Although there have been fears that globalization would lead to global cultural homogeneity based on especially a Western model, social scientists have contested this, insisting that receivers of cultural flows are not passive agents but that cultural materials always entail local interpretation, translation and customization on the part of the receiving subject. A good example is the introduction of Western fashion on a large scale in Morocco, which did not threaten the continuity of Moroccan fashion, but on the contrary, accelerated its development mainly by introducing new consumption and commercialization patterns that are applied to Moroccan fashion. Because Moroccan and Western fashion have different values, meet different needs and therefore represent different markets, they do not compete with one other. The power of fashion lays in the fact that it allows people to negotiate concepts of continuity and change, tradition and modernity and local and global.
Western fashion brands have, first of all, contributed to an important extent to the democratization of fashion in Morocco by making fashion trends accessible to a wider range of social classes through fashion boutiques and advertisement. Secondly, they have contributed to the commodification of Moroccan fashion, resulting in a switch from a craft to an industry, consumption based on demand to consumption based on offer, the commercialization of traditional occasions like Ramadan and the wedding season and the development of new markets for Moroccan fashion. Thirdly, by introducing strategies of branding, marketing, customer services, seasonal fashion, etc., a shift occurred in Morocco from anonymous workshops of ‘traditional’ tailors to ‘modern’ designers’ boutiques associated with luxury and glamour and insinuating services that Moroccan consumers have grown accustomed to through their shopping for Western fashion. But most of all, under the influence of Western fashion, ‘traditional’ Moroccan fashion is believed to have ‘modernized.’
This paper argues that concepts of tradition and modernity are not static nor mutually exclusive and it uses the case study of the Moroccan fashion industry to illustrate this. While Moroccan fashion is the materialization of important social, cultural, political and religious changes in contemporary Moroccan urban society, the other way around, fashion offers a powerful tool to negotiate between local realities and foreign influences. Where tradition provides people with cultural anchorage, modernity represents an alternative to some repressive mechanisms of these very same traditions. As this case-study shows, the growing impact of foreign cultural influences as a result of globalization do not threaten local culture, but on the contrary, lead to a re-evaluation of national identity based on local cultural heritage.
Through a comparison of contemporary Dutch and Moroccan avant-garde and high-street fashion, we contest the fact that the use of traditional/national iconography, techniques, textiles and clothing elements within a Dutch context is regarded as fashion, whereas in a Moroccan context it is labelled as traditional. We show that fashion designers and brands both in the West and the non-West are similarly branding their national heritages as a successful marketing tool, while simultaneously reinventing/modernizing it. On the one hand, in a globalized world, we argue, it allows them to differentiate themselves on a highly competitive international fashion market, while on the other hand, on a national level, it makes them successful as a result of a general revaluation of national culture as a counter reaction to increasing foreign cultural influences.
In the same way that countries have become commodities and cities have become logos, we argue that national fashion identities have become brands that are first and foremost driven by ideologies, e.g. conscious or unconscious beliefs, attitudes, habits, feelings and assumptions (Kawamura 2004). Just as much as nations are fictitious constructs, we show that national fashion identities are not authentic representations of historical facts, but rather collectively adopted ‘myths’ that are constantly invented and reinvented. Simultaneously, while fashion/modernity represent symbols of change, progress and movement through time, tradition/al dress represent continuity and cultural anchorage (Procter and Polhemus 1978); people do not want either/or, but rather both/and (Kaiser 2012). Therefore cultural anxiety, as a fuel for an endless and repetitive cycle of fashion change (Davis 1992), is the most important common factor of so-called traditional and fashionable dress."
Casablanca as international fashion capital of ‘the Arab World’ has an enormous potential due to its exceptional positioning between ‘The East and The West,’ its rich cultural heritage including skilled artisans, its openness to the world but also its rapid economic and political developments. After providing inspiration to some of the most influential international designers, like Yves Saint Laurent, Morocco continues to fascinate, as is proven by the growing presence of international fashion bloggers each year during the Casablanca Fashion Week. However, it still has a long way to go, mostly due to a lack of quality education, capacity building and governmental support."
The history of the Moroccan fashion industry is a schoolbook example of how local clothing styles have developed and adjusted to meet new lifestyles due to important socio-historical changes in society. A first generation of Moroccan fashion designers, which flourished in the sixties, was confronted with the consequences of the French Protectorate, a nationalist independence movement and a free Morocco facing the West. With the nineties came the democratization of fashion with the introduction of local lifestyle magazines, fashion schools and confection, creating a second generation of designers that thrived on a general longing for ‘a Moroccan type of modernity’ translated through dress. The introduction of western brands on a large scale did not threaten the existence of local clothing styles but on the contrary boosted its development through the introduction of new consumption patterns.
The turn of the century has not only been met by an increasing impact of globalization on Moroccan society, but also by important local developments such as increasing urbanization, economic growth and therefore a growing middle class as well as increasing political freedom. A new generation of Moroccan designers finds itself analyzing its cultural heritage against a global background and reinventing Moroccan identity far from ‘folkloric stereotypes.’"
It aims to move beyond institutional, disciplinary and geographical boundaries to decentralise knowledge creation and sharing about fashion through self-determination, activation and representation. It wants to disrupt conventional colonial power relations often at play in global projects with guests becoming hosts and hosts becoming guests. Its goal is support a re-existing of a diversity of fashion histories, practices and craftsmanship.
Each local programme was self-governed and self-represented, and welcomed local stakeholders, communities and audiences in a combination of local languages and English. They included talks, films, workshops, discussions and crafts, both online and offline, and moved from museum collections to artisan knowledges, and from decolonial creative practices to critical research.
With this 4 th edition of the NWFC, we want to focus on alternatives for this western-dominant framework and bridge the gap between cultural studies and fashion management, and between studies of European and non-European fashion systems. Different themes will be discussed such as 'how to build a distinct local fashion identity', 'how to keep manufacturing and distribution local and/or sustainable' and 'how to offer an alternative to the international fashion powerhouses'. How can independent high-end designers compete with international power houses and establish a distinct fashion identity in a commodity market? How can they keep fashion production, skills and knowledge close to home? These are pressing topics, both in Europe and beyond. Translated to a macro fashion community level, these matters add up to the key topic of this fourth edition. How can local fashion communities contribute to sustainable development and the evolution of cultural identities?
This conference focuses on the construction of national identity in fashion. Fashion designers are increasingly branding their national heritage/tradition as a successful marketing tool, while simultaneously reinventing/modernizing it. On the one hand, in a globalizing world, it allows them to differentiate themselves on a highly competitive international fashion market, while on the other hand, on a national level, it seems to make them successful as a result of a general revaluation of national culture as a counter reaction to increasing foreign cultural influences.
This conference not only wishes to be interdisciplinary but also cross-regional, assembling researchers who are engaged in creative and critical rethinking of (non-Western) fashion systems in a wide scope of geographical areas. Keynote speakers for this edition are:
* Jennifer Craik (RMIT University, Melbourne),
* Yuniya Kawamura (Fashion Institute of Technology, New York),
* Leslie Rabine (University of California),
* Emma Tarlo (Goldsmiths, University of London),
* Sarah Cheang (Royal College of Art, London) and
* Reina Lewis (London College of Fashion).