Abstracts and Keywords
Romana Andò
Fashion fandom and TV quality drama: From poaching to everyday
identity performance through Pinterest
Abstract: The aim of this chapter is to discuss fandom practices through social media,
with respect to the representation of fashion provided by the most popular TV quality
drama. More specifically, the chapter investigates how audiences and fans appropriate
fashion content and how commodities—such as clothes and accessories—are used as
identity tools within online interactions.
In so doing, it will be possible to draw together sociological concerns about the role
of fashion in identity-building processes and the role of media in providing fans and
audiences with symbolic materials to negotiate their identity representations.
However, these fashion appropriation processes are now changing as a consequence of
the so-called ‘fandom normalisation’. Fashion poaching activities, which are widespread
among fandom communities and often result in cosplaying and roleplaying practices,
are progressively turning into a more individualised and ordinary experience.
In a visual social media environment like Pinterest, more fluid and dynamic activities connected to fashion and TV content are visible. In fact, audiences tend to share their interests
and tastes and discuss TV quality drama and characters’ style as a routine strategy to define
their identity and search for social confirmation. The rise of increasingly pervasive media
and the narcissistic essence of the contemporary media-scape and performative society
contribute to producing a form of audience engagement and participation that is based on
the consumption of media content and fashion brands shown in the media.
Keywords: Fashion, Fandom, TV series, Social media, Audience, Pinterest, Audience
engagement, Product placement, Quality TV
Luisa Valeriani
Dressed in politics: The use of costumes in Game of Thrones
Abstract: This chapter discusses research in progress on how power is analysed and
exhibited in TV series. In particular, it examines an outstanding HBO success, the
drama-fantasy series Game of Thrones (GoT), and demonstrates how the choice of
costumes – usually relegated to a technical area—is in fact instrumental in throwing
light on the fiction’s narrative strategies and its relations with the audience.
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Abstracts and Keywords
The analysis unfolds within the theoretical framework of Walter Benjamin’s distinction
between an aestheticization of politics and a politicization of aesthetics. The open relationship that this TV series entertains with its literary source (George R.R. Martin’s
fantasy novels) greatly influences its relation with the audience: it allows dialectical
elements such as the use of open-ended plots to infiltrate power relationships, and supports a new kind of spectatorship both in the modes of fruition and the fluid networking
practices it encourages.
Another theoretical framework, the classic political distinction between potestas and
auctoritas, is used to clarify the conflictual context of the events presented. Complex
connections emerge, both with Shakespearean drama and the present global lack of
sovereignty and erosion of authority.
Keywords: Game of Thrones, Fashion and politics, Networking practices, Fashion studies, Costume design, Self-fashioning, Binge watching, Post-seriality, Fandom, TV series,
Fashionable identity, Michele Clapton
Phylis Johnson
Second life community and global citizenship: A fashion tale of a virtual
empire
Abstract: This chapter centres on the rise of the fashion industry within the virtual world
of Second Life (SL), a prototype for emerging participatory massive multiplayer roleplaying platforms. It is a tale on how fashion and technology helped to define a sense of
community among the virtual world participants. What began in the early 2000s as an
experiment quickly developed into a creative global economy with fashion at the epicentre.
At the heart of this new world would be a burgeoning community of idealism and service:
what happened in SL positively impacted on the real world. This discussion reviews the SL
fashion history, as a case study on the development of the fashion economy, and it follows
its first major fashion entrepreneur Frolic Mills, who inspired many to blur the boundaries
between real and virtual couture and community. Numerous community service events and
fund-raisers, with real-life consequences, were organised by SL fashionista, who excelled
at marketing and public relations. Virtual world avatars became role models, encouraging
others through their actions to make a diference globally, which was possible through
role play. This study also provides a social and technological context to inspire fashion
entrepreneurs seeking meaningful immersive connections in the near future through virtual
worlds and virtual reality. It also examines Second Life at a time when VR is exploding in
the consumer marketplace, and 3D software applications are making it easier for everyone
to make and market their own designs.
Keywords: Second Life fashion, Virtual fashion, Avatar, Virtual models, Virtual world,
BOSL, Frolic Mills, Linden Lab, 3D Fashion, celebrity, Non-for-profit fashion, Online
fashion
Abstracts and Keywords
445
Marco Pedroni, Teresa Sádaba and Patricia SanMiguel
Is the golden era of fashion blogs over? An analysis of the Italian and
Spanish fields of fashion blogging
Abstract: More than a decade after their first appearance, fashion blogs have established
themselves as a constant feature of the fashion scene. However, in many respects they have
not yet achieved a definitive status within the field of fashion media, at least in terms of
legitimization. This chapter addresses the following question: is the golden era of fashion
blogging over? It does so by comparing two national fields of fashion blogging, those of
Italy and Spain. From a theoretical point of view bloggers are investigated as influentials
and their work is considered as constitutive of the contemporary field of the fashion media,
drawing on a Bourdieusian perspective. The arguments formulated in this chapter are
based on quantitative and qualitative research carried out in Italy and Spain. Through desk
analysis we investigated the features of the bloggers with the highest levels of visibility
and their activity in the social media. A sample of 62 bloggers were interviewed with
qualitative techniques to discuss the experience of common fashion bloggers. We conclude
that blogs have gained a more institutionalized and normalized role in the field of fashion.
Despite the presence of many aspirational bloggers, the field has left its ‘naïve’ stage and
has become more professionalized. Players such as companies and journalists, initially
not always particularly enthusiastic about bloggers (especially in Italy), recognize and
legitimize the role of bloggers as fashion influentials by employing them as marketing tools
and contributors to magazines. The role of semi-professionalised bloggers is highlighted.
Together with celebrities and common bloggers, they are part of the tripartite hierarchy
that characterises the field of fashion blogging.
Keywords: Digital influencers, Influentials, Fashion blogs, Fashion studies, Fashion
field, Fashion media, Pierre Bourdieu, Symbolic capital, Cultural intermediaries, New
fashion professions
Marina Ramos-Serrano and Gema Macías-Muñoz
Lady Dior: Brand values in fashion films
Abstract: The aim of this chapter is to analyse the fashion film as a specific form of advertainment of the fashion sector, and thus as an integrator and transmitter of intangible
brand values. To this end, the semiotic analysis model proposed by Pineda et al. will be
applied. They have developed an analysis grid based on the theories of A.J. Greimas,
taking into account the nature of advertainment as an advertising tool. The study focuses
on six fashion films produced by Dior for the Lady Dior handbag, which is one of its
flagship products, and its results show that the values function as actants of the plot in
the narrative of these short films. This hypothesis is confirmed by the identification of
brand values in the roles of Subject, Object, Sender, Recipient or even Opponent in 5/6
446
Abstracts and Keywords
of the cases. This also confirms that although fashion has always followed very specific
communicative patterns, it has also shown its ability to take advantage of the potential
that new tools such as advertainment provides. In this case the industry has developed
its own format: fashion film.
Keywords: Branded content, Advertainment, Fashion films, Fashion, Luxury, Semiotics,
Content analysis, Dior, Brand values, Entertainment, Digital communication
Eugenie Maria Theuer
Kaleidoscopes of cloth and canvas: A phenomenological approach to
fashion on the cinematic red carpet
Abstract: The crossing-over of film and fashion studies has been widely recognised for
its importance in the analysis of costumes in film. However, when it comes to fashion
that does not form part of a film’s diegetic reality, but appears in other sites of cultural
circulation and consumption related to film, little research has been done to explore the
surplus of meaning that such forms of fashion may unfold to the film spectator. The
chapter proposes phenomenology as a theoretical framework that provides an understanding of fashion on the cinematic red carpet. It seeks to illustrate the relevance of
a phenomenological approach to analysis of fashion in relation to film, and how such
fashion, even if it occurs outside the diegetic reality of a filmic text, is capable of shaping
the reception and interpretation of a film.
The proposed approach will be illustrated by means of two red-carpet appearances, namely
Rooney Mara at the Academy Awards 2012 and Julianne Moore at the Golden Globe Awards
2013. Mara’s Givenchy gown and Moore’ custom-made Tom Ford design are examples
of how it is only when we consider red-carpet fashion in the vein of phenomenology as a
relational experience in which various perceptual and associative-conceptual features are
bound together, rather than as a stable and autonomous artefact, that its potential as a signifying practice endowing films with new meanings from outside their diegesis is revealed.
Keywords: Red carpet, Fashion, Cinema, Phenomenology, Film, Celebrity, A Single
Man, Tom Ford, Metropolis, Fritz Lang, Julianne Moore, Rooney Mara
Nick Rees-Roberts
Behind-the-scenes: Framing fashion and the limits of the documentary
mode
Abstract: The rise of the behind-the-scenes documentary fashion film in the early
twenty-first century has routinely been attributed to a collective desire for access to
the backstage of the prestigious designer-branded fashion shows. However, the widespread public interest in the fashion industry is not restricted to images of celebrity and
Abstracts and Keywords
447
glamour; it has also led to the emergence of films attending to the design methods and
manufacturing processes involved in making fashionable clothing. Beyond coverage
of the feature-length documentaries that tend to profile designers, editors and stylists,
this chapter also zeroes in on three key critical issues in contemporary fashion studies: craftsmanship, sustainability and the human cost involved in garment production.
Research on visual representation tends to privilege strategies of communication and
practices of consumption rather than the less alluring images of production often involving precarious working conditions and contentious employment ethics in emerging
economies. This chapter examines factual representations of fashion through coverage of
films that stage both the production and recycling of Western clothing in Asia: Unravel
(2012), Meghna Guptna’s short film documents the process of ‘upcycling’ in India; and
Useless (2007), directed by contemporary filmmaker Jia Zhangke, tracks the workers
in the factories of Guangdong alongside the career of emerging local designer Ma Ke.
Keywords: Fashion, Documentary, Film, Production, Process, Mediation, Globalisation,
Representation
Cecilia Winterhalter
The re-invention of Made in Italy goods: Italian know-how in product
innovation in the work of three Italian women Crafters
Abstract: The chapter studies the work of three Italian woman crafters, whose recombination of old and new techniques and inventions, transforms simple Made in Italy
products into innovative goods.
Patrizia Fabri’s desire to save the Antica Manifattura Cappelli, a historical hat-making
atelier, turned her into a passionate hat-maker. She produces astonishing hand-formed
hats, adorned with flowers and ribbons. Her collection, which revisits history with modern materials, consists of contemporary items. Monica Coscioni opened her innovative
Spazio Manassei Gioielli, after an apprenticeship with a traditional Florentine goldsmith
master. A pioneer of her trade, she mixes ancient craft with hypermodern techniques,
such as electroforming. The talented textile designer Livia Crispolti produces splendid,
hyper-colourful goods on her traditional looms. Her goal is to revive the weaving tradition and use it for today’s products, thanks to technology and research.
A comparison of all findings will illuminate the reader on the similarities of the processes behind innovation, innovative items and Made in Italy goods, all born from a changing
society. The mix of traditional know-how and innovation gives rise to the new Made in
Italy products. This is a collective evolution of the minds, which innovates society, with
the production of new desires, ideas and global imaginary worlds.
Keywords: Innovation, Innovative item, Italian women crafters, Craftsmanship, Made
in Italy products, Made in Italy concept, Imagined Italian lifestyle, Inventive product
innovation
448
Abstracts and Keywords
Monia Massarini and Rubens Pauluzzo
Emerging Chinese fashion brands: The silent revolution?
Abstract: China exports more textiles and apparel than any other country in the world.
However, Chinese fashion brands have not yet had an impact on the international fashion
scene yet. Aim of this study is to analyse the relationship between country-of-origin
(COO) and the legitimisation process of the international fashion system from the perspective of emerging Chinese fashion brands. We developed a framework to assess the
COO of the brand, identifying those brands featuring Chinese cues, and analysing their
common patterns of access to the fashion system. We compared our findings with the
antecedent case of the ‘Japanese Revolution’ that occurred in the 1980s. A qualitative
approach based upon grounded theory and qualitative cluster analysis was used in this
study. The findings suggest that Chinese fashion brands are increasingly the result of
multi-country contributions. Moreover, we found that Chinese designers do not access
the international fashion system through an exoticization process, as was the case of
the Japanese. Indeed, they grow within the fashion system by applying to the Western
education system: that is, through a naturalisation process.
Keywords: China, Fashion, Fashion system, Country-of-origin, Branding, Fashion
branding, Brand management, Brand identity
Marco Ricchetti and Karan Khurana
Shifting perspectives on sustainable supply chain management in the
fashion business
Abstract: Information about the environmental and social impact of fashion business
has recently found its way from technical reports to a wider audience, while the fashion
industry’s commitment to a more sustainable world has begun to achieve a real impact
on the business. Fashion brands have also become aware that, when embarking on sustainability, sustainable supply chain management issues come to the forefront. In the
two decades since the 1990s, studies on supply chain management in the industry have
focused on the importance of logistic, short time to market and adoption of Electronic
Data Interchange systems. More recently the focus has shifted to supply chain governance issues, an approach more appropriate to the management of sustainability along
the supply chain. Richard Adams’ Sustainable Oriented Innovation model is tested in
this chapter as a tool with which to assess the framework and the progress of fashion
companies’ sustainable commitments. The main principles derived from a review of
two decades of sustainability management in the industry are found to fit well with the
model. The ‘Socio-technical Dimension’ and the ‘System Building Stage’ of company
behaviour and vision described in the model appear to be especially useful for understanding the context and potential of sustainability in the fashion system.
Abstracts and Keywords
449
Keywords: Fashion industry, Sustainability, Supply chain management, Sustainable
supply chain management, CSR, Environment, Innovation, Fashion brands, Sustainable
Oriented Innovation
Valentina Jacometti
Sustainable consciousness and consumer identity: Legal tools and rules
Abstract: This chapter aims to outline in a comparative law perspective the impacts of
legal rules on the development of sustainable practices in the fashion world by stimulating sustainability consciousness among both businesses and consumers. These rules
can be either binding legislative rules or rules contained in voluntary commitments;
either sustainability rules of general application or specific rules for the fashion industry.
Firstly, legislation has a decisive influence upon sustainability practices in the fashion
sector. In fact, legislation produces changes in the behaviour of businesses because noncompliance is expensive and increases business risk. Moreover, in an age where policies of
environmental and social protection are increasingly stringent, the more advanced practices
in the field of sustainability are those that most influence decisions on future rules.
Secondly, in the fashion sector pressure from consumers and environmental and social
movements plays an important role in the promotion of sustainability consciousness in the
fashion world and pushes companies to adopt socially responsible actions. In the fashion
sector, however, sustainability often concerns factors which are by their very nature intangible, since they do not leave traces in the finished product. In this context, codes of conduct,
environmental and sustainability claims and labels have been adopted by businesses to
highlight the impact and qualities of products, enhancing the reputations of businesses and
helping consumers to make informed buying choices. To achieve its purpose, however, such
information must be credible, clearly understood, and reflect a real benefit to the environment or progress towards sustainability. To this end, diferent standards and certification
schemes have been developed to ensure the integrity of the information provided.
Keywords: Sustainable fashion, Comparative law, Corporate social responsibility, Legislative rules, Self-regulation, Voluntary commitments, Codes of conducts, Environmental and sustainability labels and claims, Green marketing regulation
Tereza Kuldova
On fashion and illusions: Designing interpassive Indianness for India’s
rich
Abstract: Elite Indian fashion designers consciously attempt to abstract the essence of
Indianness from India’s numerous and geographically multiply localised crafts, turning
their designs into a montage of exquisite handwork transgressing the local and representing the nation at large. Indian designer garments are pregnant with ideological
450
Abstracts and Keywords
meanings, sentiments and beliefs crafted for the consumption of India’s transnational
elite. However, the elite consumers have a troubled relationship with the nation; they
are both proud of it and despise it, while feeling obliged to stage their love for it. Intimate relations with designer clothing imbued with nationalist sentiment enable the
elite to ‘objectively’ present itself as nationalist and, through ethical consumption, also
as moral. The garments then belong to the nation; the elite customer is relieved from
his/her nationalist or moral obligation and can freely contemplate other loyalties as
much as hatred towards the very same nation. This role of aesthetic consumption and
of artistic nationalism is read through the lens of interpassivity, a theory developed by
Robert Pfaller.
Keywords: Indian fashion, Interpassivity, Robert Pfaller, Nationalism, Ethical business,
Belief, Play-spheres, Afective atmospheres, Indianness, Imagined economy, Philanthropy
Lígia Carvalho Abreu
Human rights in fashion creations, production and branding: A genuine
policy or a marketing strategy?
Abstract: Fashion design, fashion photography and fashion shows are being used as
powerful instruments to spread human rights messages against oppression, manipulation
and discrimination, and to airm gender equality, human dignity and environmental protection. There have been some recent examples of growing commitment to the fashion
world in expressing human rights messages. Here are but a few: the collection ‘Broken
Beauty’ from the Ukrainian Brand LAKE, designed by Olesya Kononova and Natalia
Kamenska, the work of Portuguese designer Filipe Faísca and the clothes designed by
Stella Jean as well as by Vivienne Westwood, in the context of their partnership with
the Ethical Fashion Initiative of the International Trade Centre.
These types of commitments are also related to a social responsibility inherent in the
production of clothes, jewellery and other fashion designs. A considerable number of
designers and other fashion agents are investing more time in promoting their brands
through ethical projects and unique designs that empower women and artisans all around
the world, in particular in developing countries. Others are linking their creativity to
human rights messages. Are those acts part of the genuine policy of the brand or are
they pure marketing strategies to seduce the consumer and increase profits?
Based on my recent project entitled Fashion Law – When Fashion Meets Fundamental
Rights (FL-WFMFR), and by incorporating an artistic and legal point of view, this
chapter analyses how human rights are becoming part of the image of a brand. Therefore
we can ask in what cases, and according to what criteria, can we consider the respect
of human rights in fashion production and branding a genuine and efective policy.
Abstracts and Keywords
451
Keywords: Ethical fashion, Sustainable fashion, LAKE, Filipe Faísca, Stella Jean, Vivienne Westwood, Chanel, Human rights, Fundamental freedoms, Marketing strategy,
Cultural diversity, Cultural appropriation
Barbara Pozzo
Protecting the dignity of women in fashion advertisement: The new legal
initiatives in a comparative law perspective
Abstract: In recent decades, various initiatives have been taken at international level
in order to promote the dignity of women in diferent fields. This chapter focuses on
the protection of the dignity of women and the various normative steps taken against
the stereotyping of women in the fashion field. It is shown that, besides respect for the
basic principle to be found in all codes of advertisement self-regulation, the actual discussion emphasises the impact that some images, especially of very thin models, may
have on the public at large and especially on a very young public of adolescent girls
and boys. Given the enormous impact on the public, an educative function of fashion
advertisement is to be promoted.
Keywords: Fashion advertisement, Comparative law, Advertisement self-regulation,
Dignity of women, Stereotypes, European legislation, Audiovisual commercial communications, Discrimination
Sinah Theres Kloß
Performing authenticity through fashion: Sartorial contestations of
Hindu-Guyanese Indianness and the creation of the Indian ‘other’
Abstract: Specific styles and designs of clothing are defined as ‘Indian’ in contemporary Guyana. They are usually subsumed under the category ‘Indian Wear’ and are
considered as ethnic and religious dress. When worn for Hindu rituals, ‘Indian Wear’ is
considered to (re)create a person’s as well as the ritual’s Indianness, particularly when
these garments are imported and readymade. Only since the 1990s has readymade Indian
Wear become available to larger parts of the Guyanese population, a development linked
to the significant outward migration of Guyanese to North America. This transnational
migration has also accelerated face-to-face encounters with ‘direct migrants’ from South
Asia, resulting in the definition of diferent Indian groups and Indian ‘Others.’ As a result, the authenticity of ‘other Indian’ traditions is often contested, each group claiming
superior and ‘authentic’ knowledge of Hinduism and traditional ‘Indian’ practices. Such
contestations are expressed through and influenced by sartorial practices. This chapter
discusses how Guyanese Hindus contest and negotiate their notion of Indianness through
sartorial performances and fashion practices, and it proposes a performative approach
to the study of fashion and dress.
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Abstracts and Keywords
Keywords: Authenticity, Indianness, Ethnic Dress and Fashion, Guyana, Cultural Performance, Indian Diaspora, Indo-Caribbean, Caribbean Hinduism
Cristiana Katagiri and Virginia Abreu Borges
Brazilian fashion: Dichotomies and perspectives of resistance
Abstract: Based on an interdisciplinary approach, chiefly underpinned by cultural studies, postcolonial theory and fashion history, this chapter considers Brazilian fashion production. It aims to problematize its establishment in the context of a developing country
and the ways in which the reproduction of cultural patterns still resonates throughout
the national fashion production, in the manipulation and circulation of cultural symbols
and in the legitimation of a fashion identity. On the one hand, it reinforces relations of
power, hierarchies and stereotypes; on the other, through rearrangement and assemblage
of references, it can engender hybridisation and resistance. The chapter is based on a
critical analysis of empirical data produced by Brazilian media from 2001 to 2015.
Keywords: Brazilian fashion, Reproduction, Hybridisation, Creative industries in nonwestern societies, Stereotype, Otherness, Exoticism, Subaltern condition, ‘Becoming’
as resistance, Anthropophagy
Maria Catricalà
Fashion, journalism and linguistic design: A case study of the wedding
dresses
Abstract: It is well known that, over time, linguistic studies on Fashion have changed.
Today we can reflect on them by considering the diferences among the three principal
approaches—historical, sociolinguistic and semiotic. In particular, the socio-semiotic
perspective of Roland Barthes and his analysis of clothing of the 1960s represented
a sort of revolution, for many diferent reasons. He studied the language of fashion
magazines, analysed it as a complex code, and defined the rules of the vestems system.
Since then, however, cognitive linguistics has elaborated a new holistic paradigm to
describe many aspects of the lexical construction of objects and activities. The processes
of conceptualisation have become the focus of many studies, and the relationship among
words, perception, context and mind is now considered a necessary topic of the most
innovative analysis. In the field of fashion these kinds of studies have yet to be conducted
systematically, and we know little or nothing about the diferent ways in which our mind
represents garments and accessories.
After a short excursus on some of the principal previous studies, the chapter presents
some topics observed according to the cognitive perspective. In particular, the denominations used to describe wedding dresses are analysed in light of the Spatial Grammar
and the Word Design Theory. The lexical constructions are re-examined as examples of
Abstracts and Keywords
453
the interfaces between the narrative or the descriptive textual shape and the rhetorical
figures. The new taxonomy proposed can ofer additional research perspectives on both
a theoretical and an applied plane.
Keywords: Fashion Language; Italian and English Lexicon; Cognitive Linguistics;
Word Design Theory; Language of the Journals; Rhetoric; Naming of wedding dresses;
Text Linguistics
Manuela Caniato
Is Vogue like Vogue all around the world? A comparison of Facebook
posts of Vogue France, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and United Kingdom
Abstract: This chapter illustrates what happens to fashion when it is communicated
digitally. Examining Vogue Facebook posts in five diferent countries (France, Italy,
Portugal Netherlands, United Kingdom), it analyses the type of communication proposed, the interactivity and readership of the magazine, the themes of the posts and the
pictures, the content and the languages in use.
A corpus of 1506 Facebook posts was collected during two fashion weeks in January
2015.
The findings prove that the five magazines are very active in the social media. They
publish more than 71 posts per day, correlated with pictures. The posts often, but not
always, elicit a response from their readers. The most explored themes, namely fashion,
beauty and celebrities, echo those featured in the chapter editions of the magazines.
One diference between the five editions is the number of posts published daily and the
reactions to them. The other editions of Vogue (FR, IT, NL, PT) may attract a larger number
of posts, but the number of reactions of the British readership, expressed by comments
and share, is always larger. In terms of content, the discourse on fashion difers among the
five countries. While Vogue Facebook posts in France and Italy favour the presentation of
garments, Facebook Vogue in the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom tend to
turn their attention to presentation of the celebrities who wear the garments.
Keywords: Facebook, Vogue, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom,
Fashion, Celebrities
Gevisa La Rocca and Maddalena Fedele
Television clothing commercials for tweens in transition: A comparative
analysis in Italy and Spain
Abstract: Several scholars point out that during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, individuals, and particularly girls, are especially vulnerable to identification with
commercial products. Cook and Kaiser (2004) observe that there is significant social
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Abstracts and Keywords
ambiguity surrounding women’s growing-up process in relation to maturity, sexuality
and gender. In this process, fashion advertising can be particularly influential. Younger
children, and especially younger girls, are increasingly exposed to advertising contents
containing body images as they become consumers at an ever earlier stage of their lives.
Precisely because of the important implications that fashion advertising consumption
can have for the future adulthood of tween girls, this study focuses on the television
fashion commercials consumed by female ‘tweens in transition’. The chapter presents a
comparative analysis, carried out in Italy and Spain, of fashion advertising commercials
consumed by female tweens in transition.
Keywords: Tween, Advertising, Fashion, Dress line, Feminine beauty, Consumer socialisation, Sales techniques, Semiotic of advertising
Alessandra Castellani
Tattooing, body and beauty
Abstract: Contemporary tattooing in the West can be traced to the period beginning
in the 1970s when members of punk subculture began to wear tattoos as a sign of resistance to straight, white, middle-class values. At the time tattooing began to change
from a mark of stigma used by biker gangs, military and mob members to a symbol of
individualism practised in counter-cultural terms. Indeed, tattoo culture also developed
from discourses that emerged from body art, feminism and gay liberation. In ways
similar to performance artists, punks manipulated their bodies to communicate them as
a new territory to be explored and redefined. These practices were received with both
repugnance and fascination by mainstream culture, but in the following decade they
spread out from subcultural niches and art staging. Since the 1980s tattooing has become
more related to fashion system and to non-stereotyped modes of self-representation.
Tattooing has been partially transformed into fine art by a process of redefinition and
framing based on formal qualities, sophisticated devices and a discourse surrounding
body and beauty. Indeed, tattoos call into question the ideal of beauty. In Western civilisation the Hellenistic nude came to define true beauty as ethical and aesthetic perfection.
Tattooing, body modifications, piercings have conceptually denaturalised the body.
They disclose the body as cultural inscription, revealing non-stereotyped beauty and
non-mainstream identities. Tattooing and particularly body modifications are perceived
and experienced as performances that engage a set of issues involving visibility, role
models, and gender that violate the classic models of the pristine, natural body.
Keywords: Tattooing, Beauty, Subculture, Gender, Body, Body art, Queer studies,
LGBT, Feminism, Exotic, Identity, Art
Marco Pedroni