INQ-260AN | Anthropology of Fashion

Full Title: The Anthropology of Fashion

Topic Description:

All humans experience the “fashion impulse," a basic desire to decorate the body that sets us apart from the great apes. But how do humans use fashion to shape the body? to construct individual identity? to create and communicate messages of power and positionality? to differentiate themselves collectively from others? to build a nation? to challenge and/or sustain political ideologies? to enrich the haves and impoverish the have-nots of consumer capitalism? To answer these questions, we will examine case studies ranging from Scotland’s kilt-wearing Highlanders to the salaula fashionistas of Zambia, from Asian Chic designers in Seoul’s garment district to runway models working Dubai’s Modest Fashion Week. In our examination of how fashions systems operate globally, we will use ethnographic methods to avoid making ethnocentric and Eurocentric assumptions about how cultural constructs of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class impact the production, circulation, and consumption of fashion.

Counts as Global? Yes

Topic Approved: May 2021