Wessie Ling

An issue on Global Fashion is very much needed given the crucial transition facing the disciplines of
fashion in recent times, in the attempt to give an account of the increasing complexity of the material
and symbolic flows of fashion. No other form of commerce, arguably, can claim to be more pervasive
throughout the globe than the textile and apparel business,1 and no other visual culture is more pervasive
than fashion. But global fashion is not simply about the global dissemination of dress and fashion. For
most fashion theorists, global fashion should not be defined merely as brand circulation or the international
expansion of Western fashion. What is more, the interchanges of fashion imply an understanding
of the circulation of technologies, objects, and ideas around fashion

How does global fashion factor into a reconfiguration of the dress and textile collection in the ethno-graphic museum, and vice versa? What role do global histories play in reshuffling museum collections at this moment of cultural change? In what ways can global fashion be considered part of the grand global narrative? And to what extent can it be used as a tool in the grand scheme of museum collection, narration, curation and presentation in the ethnographic setting? This article scrutinizes these questions by analyzing the operations of ethnographic museums in diverse and multicultural societies. It uses global fashion as a tool in the conceptual and everyday handling of ethnographic artifacts. Here, global fashion does not point to a stylistic form of dress in a given locality. Indeed, our study expands on the work of Ling and Segre Reinach, who determined that fashion-making allows for multiple layers of world encounters involving intriguing cultural dynamics, and applies it to museum operations. The National Museum of World Cultures, the Netherlands, is taken as a case in point, through which archival research findings are analyzed to underpin global histories and explore global fashion as a conceptual framework for museum practice. We conducted qualitative research via an internal workshop on Global Fashion/Narrative in the Ethnographic Museum (Jan 2019) in which sixteen museum cu-ratorial professionals assessed global fashion as a tool for museum practice in an ethnographic setting. The aim of this study is to propose global fashion as an interdisciplinary conceptual framework for museum practice in, but not exclusive to, the dress and textile venues.

The 'making' of fashion cannot merely refer to garment production and manufacturing. It is the prerequisite for a nation to actively participate on the global stage. To establish a 'recognisable' fashion image, a country must go far beyond the competition of a specialised garment and textile industry. Being recognised as the 'author countries' for fashion creation is part of a process in which the (re)negotiation of national hierarchies and roles are constantly at play. For a country or a city, expressing an instantly recognis-able aesthetic has become an important corollary of the communication of political and economic strength. More than in the past centuries, fashion has been tasked with not only reflecting and representing social or individual needs, but also constructing ex novo territories in which old stereotypes and imaginary are creatively set free. This is because, unlike most production and commercial activities, fashion expresses an elaborate culture whose composition of symbols, ideologies and lifestyles (Crane 2004) can be drawn on. On the other hand, the accelerated production relocation in past decades has irrevocably changed the geography of fashion, as well as the rhetoric of the origin of national creativity. In particular, it leads one to wonder what happens when two or more players are engaged in the making of fashion. Specifically, what happens when Italy and China collaborate in transglobal fashion-making? How does one account for the national creativity that has sprung from the Sino-Italian co-creation? Drawing on accounts of Italian fashion and Chinese fashion, this article discusses the intricacy of Sino-Italian collaboration and the implications of such a fashion co-creation; it then reflects on transglobal fashion-making and proposes a framework for its examination.

This special issue offers, for the first time, the innovative and original perspective of Italianerie in the quest for transculturality and co-creation. It examines the Asian reception, fascination with and reinvention of Italy in fields such as architecture, cinema, literature, fashion, digital media and geography, as well the Italian reception, fascination with and reinvention in the same fields of inquiry, through an in-depth analysis which underlines transcultural adaptation and interrelated processes of power between Italy and Asia.