Stefan Zaric
University of Massachusetts Amherst, Renaissance Center, Faculty Member
- University of Minnesota, Art History, UndergraduateUniversity of Tartu, Department of Semiotics, Graduate Student, and 2 moreadd
- Fashion History, Shakespeare, Fashion, Art History, English Literature, Fashion Curating, and 19 moreAmerican Literature, Fashion design, History of Costume, Costume and Identity, Fashion Theory, Queer Theory, Film History, Decorative Arts, Cultural Studies, Semiotics Of Culture, American Studies, American Popular Culture, American art/ Art of the United States, American Culture, Comparative Literature, Design History, History of clothing and fashion, Material Culture Studies, and Social and Cultural Anthropologyedit
- Serbia based fashion historian and a PhD candidate in English Studies at the University of Novi Sad, researching fash... moreSerbia based fashion historian and a PhD candidate in English Studies at the University of Novi Sad, researching fashion in Shakespeare's Great Tragedies and their representations in haute couture.edit
- Vladislava Gordić Petkovićedit
Esej napisan za martovski broj srpskog izdanja modnog časopisa ELLE o Cottagecore i Regency estetikama u visokoj modi u odnosu na angloameričku kulturnu istoriju 19. veka.
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As Japonisme in Serbian fashion of the first half of the 20th century was the result of Western fashion influences, its inception in the national fashion system can be traced in Milena Pavlović Barilli’s 1920s works as pioneering... more
As Japonisme in Serbian fashion of the first half of the 20th century was the result of Western fashion influences, its inception in the national fashion system can be traced in Milena Pavlović Barilli’s 1920s works as pioneering representations of westernized Japanese modern girls – Modan garu. With the restoration of bilateral relations between Serbia and Japan after the Second World War, Kenzo Takada’s global impact in the 1970s is revealed in Anđelka Slijepčević’s writings. At the same time, Aleksandar Joksimović resorted to ‘self-orientalization’ by turning Romanian folk costumes in kimono-resembling forms as a response to Dior and Saint Laurent’s appropriations of Japan, whereas in the 1980s Ljiljana Žegarac designed actual kimonos. After Tokyo’s positioning as a global fashion capital in the 1980s and the foundation of Belgrade Fashion Week in 1996, the influence of Japanese avant-garde designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo can be identified at the end of the 20 th and the beginning of the 21 st century Serbian fashion. By analyzing the collections of contemporary Serbian fashion designers, it is noticeable how the Japanese avant-garde has encoded itself in their expression as a denouncement of tradition. The Japonisme discourse in Serbian fashion is thus completed through an insight into the most recent fashion practices. While not a dominant aesthetic and stylistic tendency in Serbian fashion, Japonisme marked it to an extent, allowing both its contextualization within Serbian fashion history and the strengthening of Serbian fashion within global fashion, welcoming further studies on the subject.
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Drawing from academic studies emerging in the last three decades in the West regarding fashion and costume history and theory applied to William Shakespeare’s plays, the paper aims to introduce fashion studies within the frameworks of... more
Drawing from academic studies emerging in the last three decades in the West regarding fashion and costume history and theory applied to William Shakespeare’s plays, the paper aims to introduce fashion studies within the frameworks of Serbian Shakespearology. Through reviewing those studies, clothing, whether fashionable or costumed, plays an important role in how Shakespeare conceived his plays, structured their narratives and constructed characters in them. By studying elements of fashion history and conventions of Elizabethan costume, the paper demonstrates the application of fashion and costume studies on the example of Hamlet and its contemporary stage production by Lindsay Turner, focusing on female characters: Ophelia and Gertrude. Moreover, by analyzing the system and the language of fashion within Hamlet and its costume transformation on the stage, the idea of ‘fashion mirroring’ of female character emerges, enabling more nuanced perception of Ophelia and Gertrude outside of their traditional iconographic conventions.
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The proposed paper concerns with fashion and clothing as visual and semiotic signifiers of both the individual and society in William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth and its representations in other media: film (costume design) and... more
The proposed paper concerns with fashion and clothing as visual and semiotic signifiers of both the individual and society in William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth and its representations in other media: film (costume design) and haute couture (fashion design). As such, the language of fashion and the vestimentary frame of Shakespeare's tragedy are used as tools for visual and semiotic reading of sociocultural anxieties between the individual and the society as expressed through art. Given rich symbolic and metaphoric value of the language of fashion in Macbeth through which Shakespeare conceptualises his characters and their relationships with the societal framework they inhabit, the paper will thus demonstrate how such a relationship can be conveyed through film costume and fashion design. Analysed representations will consider costume design by Jacqueline Durran for Justin Kurzel's film Macbeth (2015) and fashion design by Alexander McQueen and his collection The Widows of Culloden (2006). In such analysis, fashion is, as fashion theorist Elizabeth Wilson defines it, seen as a cultural metaphor for the body and the material with which we write or draw a representation of the body into our cultural context.
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Esej napisan za novembarski broj srpskog izdanja modnog časopisa ELLE o uticaju gotske i viktorijanske književnosti na visoku modu.
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An article in Serbian on semiotics of nature and fashion in Bjork's albums for the Elementi magazine for the promotion of science.
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The paper was written in 2016 and published in 2022. With the emergence of new disciplines, and moreover, new socio-cultural phenomena, it is of great importance to rethink classically conceptualized art historical discipline. Being... more
The paper was written in 2016 and published in 2022.
With the emergence of new disciplines, and moreover, new socio-cultural phenomena, it is of great importance to rethink classically conceptualized art historical discipline. Being an increasing trend both in museum and academic sphere, fashion studies can serve as a fertile ground for interdisciplinarity in art history. As an integral aspect of visual culture, fashion can be studied by means of art historical analyses, while art history can benefit from contemporary perspectives fashion demands. One phenomenon will serve as an example of how fashion studies and art history can contribute to understanding of both historical and contemporary cultural productions. Adidas Tracksuits grew from mostly Russian material (sub)culture to global media and fashion phenomena. The paper aims to dive deeper into art history in order to provide a potential interpretation of Adidas tracksuits and formative aspects of its visual identity in the context of Russian avant-garde, most notably Constructivist textile design. While Western haute couture served elitism and aestheticism, the designs of Rodchenko, Stepanova, Popova, Tatlin, and Mukhina served utility and the notion of creating functional, athletic, industrially reproducible fashions for the sake of genderless working class. These designs now considered art historical heritage alongside with the popularization of Adidas tracksuits at 1980 Moscow Olympics where many western countries boycotted participation, fashion designs of Gosha Rubchinskiy, and Squatting Slavs in Tracksuits serve as the interpretation base for the subject matter.
With the emergence of new disciplines, and moreover, new socio-cultural phenomena, it is of great importance to rethink classically conceptualized art historical discipline. Being an increasing trend both in museum and academic sphere, fashion studies can serve as a fertile ground for interdisciplinarity in art history. As an integral aspect of visual culture, fashion can be studied by means of art historical analyses, while art history can benefit from contemporary perspectives fashion demands. One phenomenon will serve as an example of how fashion studies and art history can contribute to understanding of both historical and contemporary cultural productions. Adidas Tracksuits grew from mostly Russian material (sub)culture to global media and fashion phenomena. The paper aims to dive deeper into art history in order to provide a potential interpretation of Adidas tracksuits and formative aspects of its visual identity in the context of Russian avant-garde, most notably Constructivist textile design. While Western haute couture served elitism and aestheticism, the designs of Rodchenko, Stepanova, Popova, Tatlin, and Mukhina served utility and the notion of creating functional, athletic, industrially reproducible fashions for the sake of genderless working class. These designs now considered art historical heritage alongside with the popularization of Adidas tracksuits at 1980 Moscow Olympics where many western countries boycotted participation, fashion designs of Gosha Rubchinskiy, and Squatting Slavs in Tracksuits serve as the interpretation base for the subject matter.
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An article in Serbian on Miss Dior perfume for the Elementi magazine for the promotion of science.
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The paper covers the history of 20th century Serbian fashion from the 1920s through the 1980s, focusing on the problem of its historization. Based on established readings submitting 20th century Serbian fashion to politics thus distancing... more
The paper covers the history of 20th century Serbian fashion from the 1920s through the 1980s, focusing on the problem of its historization. Based on established readings submitting 20th century Serbian fashion to politics thus distancing it from global fashion history, I aim to structure a possible historical narrative of fashion by identifying the elements of haute couture in 20th century Serbian fashion industry. Rather than contrasting Serbian fashion figures with their Western counterparts and deepening the West / East Europe fashion divide, the paper traces similarities between them, demonstrating that 20th century Serbian fashion responded to haute couture trends simultaneously with their emergence in the West.
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An article in Serbian about fashion, cottagecore and landscapes focusing on Serbian fashion designers Bernat Klein and Aleksandra Lalic for Elementi magazine for science promotion.
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An article in Serbian about birds in fashion design of Alexander McQueen for Elementi magazine for science promotion.
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Esej o istoriji srpske mode u 20. veku, napisan posebno za majski broj srpskog izdanja modnog časopisa ELLE 2021. godine.
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An article in Serbian about technology and science in Iris van Herpen's couture for Elementi magazine for science promotion.
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The paper accompanying the presentation at the annual meeting of ICOM Costume Committee in Kyoto, Japan, in 2019.
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The paper, presented at Museoeurope 2019 conference - Textiles, The Culture of Clothing, and Fashion - examines the lack of fashion studies in Serbia and the Balkans, and the lack of visibility of regional fashion in western-centrist... more
The paper, presented at Museoeurope 2019 conference - Textiles, The Culture of Clothing, and Fashion - examines the lack of fashion studies in Serbia and the Balkans, and the lack of visibility of regional fashion in western-centrist fashion studies, thus proposing strategies for establishing fashion museology in Serbia.
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Some remarks on fashion museology for the special issue of ICOM Serbia's magazine presented at ICOM Kyoto General Conference 2019.
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Review of the exhibit Sots Art and Fashion: Conceptual Clothes from Eastern Europe, curated by Liisa Kaljula and held at KUMU Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia.
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The paper exploring relations between the works of Serbian fashion illustrator Milena Pavlović Barilli and fashion photography of the 30s and 40s.
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Comparative approach to Estonian and Serbian designs within Soviet/Yugoslav context, based on internship at the exhibit "Encounter Estonian Design: Introduction", Tartu Art Museum, Estonia.
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The first paper in Serbian academia to deal with the concepts of contemporary fashion museology in national museums.
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Introductory text for the catalogue of the exhibition of Jelena Rodić's bags, held at Forma Gallery of The Association of Artists of Applied Arts and Designers of Vojvodina. Novi Sad, March / April 2022.
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Award-winning book on fashion illustrations of Serbian artist Milena Pavlovic Barilli.
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Full catalog of the fashion exhibit held at The City Museum of Novi Sad, Serbia from September to November of 2015. The exhibit dealt with Western European and American influences on clothing, fashion magazines and women in Serbia during... more
Full catalog of the fashion exhibit held at The City Museum of Novi Sad, Serbia from September to November of 2015. The exhibit dealt with Western European and American influences on clothing, fashion magazines and women in Serbia during the Interwar period. As an assistant curator, I wrote an introductory text on fashion museology and its commercial and aesthetics aspects.
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A paper accompanying the presentation of Ukranian folk costumes from Kula in Serbia, delivered at the ICOM General Conference in Prague in August 2022.
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The abstract of the paper presented at the international scientific conference Philosophy of Ksenija Atanasijević (Belgrade, May 2022) about Ksenija Atanasijević's influence on Serbian fashion designer Aleksandra Lalić.
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Review of New Research in Dress History conference (London, April 2018) and related events for ICOM Serbia's magazine.