BA (Hons) History of Art,
Architecture & Design
Semester A, Level 2
Claire
Lomas
Course Outline p.
3
“It is only shallow people who do not judge
by appearances. The true mystery of the
world is the visible, not the invisible”
- Oscar Wilde
This module considers the conditioning of
the body and body image. In doing so it
engages various discourses regarding the construction, performance and
representation of gendered, ethnic and sexual identities. The representation of appearance and its
projection through media and cultural production is a key theme of the module
and provides the opportunity to engage different modes of representation such
as film, advertising, fashion photography, texts, and magazines. In doing so the module focuses upon
deployment of strategies of distinction and conformity in the performance
identity.
·
Express an appreciation of the role appearance has played in
both previous and contemporary society with reference to changing modes of
production and consumption.
·
Demonstrate an awareness of how critical theories of
disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and art history have been used to
explain and account for personal and group identities.
·
Convey a knowledge of how ideologies of appearance and
‘beauty’ circulate through cultural and media production.
·
Demonstrate an awareness of the complex relationship of the
‘self’ to ‘society’ and some of the ways this has been explained.
There
are two formal assessment requirements for this module: a group presentation in
weeks 7 & 8 (you are required to hand in your presentation notes) and an essay
submission in week 12.
Attendance,
class preparation and participation also play an important part in the
assessment process.
Keywords refer to concepts, which will be introduced in the
session and which by the end of the module you should be familiar with, and are
able to employ in the understanding of fashion.
Fashion & costume history; cultural studies & popular culture -
why take fashion seriously?
Keywords:
Representation; Gender; Identity – structure and agency.
J. Entwistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory,
Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000
J. Finkelstein, After a Fashion, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1996
S. Hall (ed.), ‘The Work of
Representation’, in Representation:
Cultural Representation & Signifying Practices, Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1997,
pp13-74
Outlining
the main arguments in the “corset controversy”. How corsetry changed from being a mainstream fashionable garment,
a symbol of respectability, to entering the fetish scene.
J.
Entwistle, ‘The Corset Controversy’, in The
Fashioned Body, London: Polity Press, 2000, pp 195-200
B. Fontanel,
Support & Seduction: A History of
Corsets & Bras, New York: Abradale Press, 1992 (English translation
1997)
V.
Steele, ‘The Corset’, in Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp 57-89
Week 3 The Great Masculine Renunciation
A historical overview of men’s fashion
since c.1800, including J C Flugel’s theory of the Great Masculine
Renunciation.
C.
Breward, The Hidden Consumer,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999
B.
Burman & M. Leventon, ‘The Men’s
Dress Reform Party 1929-1937’, Costume,
no.21, 1987
B.
Burman, ‘Better and Brighter Clothes: The Men’s Dress Reform Party 1929-1940’,
in Journal of Design History, 1995,
Vol.8. no.4, pp 275-290
J.
Bourke, ‘The Great Male Renunciation:
Men’s Dress Reform in Inter-War Britain’, in Journal of Design History, 1996, Vol.9. no.1, pp 23-33
J.C.
Flugel, The Psychology of Clothes,
London: Hogarth Press, 1930
Week 4 Subcultural identity: The
Edwardian Suit & the Zoot Suit
Keywords: Class; group
identities.
An
introductory session to the post war period and the beginnings of youth culture
and sub-cultural style. This session will begin with the Edwardian suit worn by the teddy boys
in the 1950s and the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies
(CCCS), Birmingham University and look at the development of research into
subcultures including work on the Zoot Suiters.
S.
Cosgrove, ‘The Zoot suit and Style Warfare’, in A. McRobbie (ed.), Zoot Suits and Second Hand Dresses,
1989
T.
Jefferson, ‘Cultural Responses of the Teds: The Defence of
Space and Status’, in S. Hall & T. Jefferson (ed.), Resistance Through Rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain,
London: Hutchinson University Library, 1976, pp 81-86
A.
Haye & C. Dingwall, Surfers, Soulies,
Skinheads and Skaters: Subcultural Style from the Forties to the Nineties,
London: V&A Publications, 1996
Week 5 The New Man
Keywords: Homosocial; The
‘Homospectorial Look’.
Has
the Great Masculine Renunciation been renounced? A discussion of men’s fashion and magazines since the 1980s.
R. Chapman & J. Rutherford, Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1988, pp 193-225
A. Easthope, What A Man’s Gotta Do: The Masculine Myth in Popular Culture, 1990
T. Edwards, Men in
the Mirror: Men’s Fashion, Masculinity and the Consumer Society, London: Cassell, 1997
P. Jobling, Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography Since 1980, Oxford: Berg, 1999
F. Mort (ed.), ‘Boy’s Own?
Masculinity, Style & Popular Culture’, 1988
F. Mort, Cultures of Consumption: Masculinites and Social Space in Late Twentieth Century Britain, London:
Routledge, 1996
S. Nixon, Hard Looks: Masculinities, the Visual and Practices of Consumption, London: UCL Press, 1996
Week 9
Writing
your essay – a discussion of the essay questions and how to write your
essay. It is essential you have spent
time in advance looking at the questions and you should bring a plan and your
ideas with you.
This
session will be an introduction to a complex and emotive subject of ‘Asian
Identity'. Cohn’s chapter uses the
changing meaning of the turban to illustrate the symbolic nature of garments,
whilst Khan’s piece describes the British Asian identity as being fraught with
complex issues, for example the meaning of the Sari.
Alexandru
Balasescu, ‘Tehran Chic’, in Fashion
Theory, vol 7, issue 1 pp 39-56
L.
Dalby, Kimono: Fashioning Culture,
London: Virago Editions, 1993, 2001
P.
Jackson, Maps of Meaning: An introduction
to cultural geography, London: Routledge, 1989
N.
Khan, Chapter ‘Asian Women’s Dress: From Burquah to Bloggs - Changing clothes
for changing times’, in J. Ash & E. Wilson (ed.), Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader. London: Pandora Press, 1992
N.
Puwar, ‘Multicultural fashion… Stirrings of another sense of aesthetics and
memory’, in Feminist Review, No. 71,
2002, pp 63-87
Video: A
Brimful of Asia, Ch.4, 1998
Video: Faith
in Fashion, BBC1, 2002
An
introduction to the representation and stereotypes of gay and lesbian
identities, including how clothing has been used to indicate sexual identity.
R. Ainley, What Is She Like? Lesbian Identities from the 1950’s to the 1990’s,
London: Cassell, 1995
S. Cole, ‘Macho Man: Clones and
the Development of a Masculine Stereotype’, in Fashion Theory, Vol. 4, Issue 2, 2000a, pp 125-140
S. Cole, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, London: Berg,
2000b
D. Harris, The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, New York: Ballantine Books, 1997
K. Jivani, It’s Not Unusual: A History of Lesbian & Gay Britain in the Twentieth Century, London: Michael
O’Mara Books by arrangement with the BBC, 1997
E.L. Kennedy & M.D. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The
History of a Lesbian Community,
Middlesex: Penguin
R. Lewis, ‘Looking Good: The
Lesbian Gaze and Fashion Imagery’, in Feminist
Review, No. 55, Spring, London: Routledge, 1997, pp 92-109
K. Rolley, ‘Love, Desire and the
pursuit of the Whole’, in J. Ash & E. Wilson, Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: Pandora Press, 1992, pp
30-39
M. Simpson, Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity, London: Cassell,
1994
E. Wilson, ‘Deviant Dress’, in Feminist Review, No. 35, Summer, 1990,
pp 67-74
G. Woods (ed.), ‘We’re Here, we’re Queer and we’re not going
Catalogue Shopping’, in P. Burston & C. Richardson, A Queer Romance, London: Routledge, 1995, pp 117-163
This
session introduces the impact of postmodernism on fashion.
Keywords: postmodernism;
multiple fashion systems.
Key Texts
M. Barnard, ‘Fashion, Clothing and
Postmodernity’, in M. Barnard, Fashion as
Communication, London: Routledge, 1996
P. Braham, ‘Fashion: unpacking a cultural
production’, in P. du Gay (ed.), Production
of Culture / Cultures of Production, London: Sage, 1997
F. Davis, Fashion, Culture and Identity, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992
C. Kratz & B. Reimer, ‘Fashion in the
Face of Postmodernity’, in A. A. Berger (ed.), The Postmodern Presence: Readings on Postmodernism in American Culture
& Society, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1998
D.
Muggleton, Inside Subculture: The Meaning
of Style, Oxford: Berg, 2000
E.
Wilson, ‘Fashion and the Postmodern Body’, in J. Ash & E. Wilson, Chic Thrills, London: Pandora, 1992
There are two assessment requirements this
semester. The first is a group seminar
presentation, which accounts for 20% of your mark, to be presented in weeks 7
& 8 (Presentation notes to be submitted).
The second is an essay, which accounts for 80% of your mark.
Seminar
Presentation
The seminar presentation for this module
should reflect and address the issues considered during the sessions. Therefore they provide a possible starting
point for thinking about your presentations.
Working in groups of 4, you are required to discuss a personality /
celebrity, the name of which you will be issued with. You will be required to discuss the image your celebrity /
personality presents, how they have manipulated and how they have fashioned
their gender and identity. You are not to present a straightforward biography
of their life and work! You should
select some images which you will be required to discuss as well as a biography
that includes theoretical texts / frameworks you have used rather than just
magazine articles and internet sites.
Presentation notes must be submitted.
You
are required to an essay, presented in an academic format, of 2,000-2,500 words
answering one of the following questions:
1. “Women are fashionable but men are
not”.
(J. Craik, The Face of
Fashion, London: Routledge, 1994, p 176)
Discuss with reference to men’s fashion and / or magazines
since the 1980s.
2. “Very
little seems to have been written about the role of girls in youth
cultural groupings… When girls do
appear, it is either in ways which uncritically reinforce the stereotypical
image of women … or else they are fleetingly and marginally represented” (A.
McRobbie & J. Garber, ‘Girls and Subcultures’, in S. Hall & T.
Jefferson, Resistance Through Rituals,
London: Hutchinson, 1976 pp 209, or in A. McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture,
Hampshire: MacMillan Press, 1991, p 1)
Do you agree? Discuss with
reference to one subculture.
(J. Finklestein, After
a Fashion, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1996 p 56)
Discuss with reference to specific examples.
4.
“Dress is clearly neither
culturally nor politically neutral. It
is loaded with significance. Clothes are stuff that ‘speaks’ volumes”. (W.J.F. Keenan, ‘Dress Freedom: the
Personal and the
Political’, in Keenan (ed.), Dressed to
Impress: Looking the Part,
London: Berg,
2001, p 181)
How does clothing ‘fashion’ gender and identity? Discuss this statement with reference to specific examples.
J. Ash & E. Wilson, Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London:
Pandora Press, 1992
J. Attfield & P. Kirkham
(eds.), A View From The Interior,
Manchester: Manchester University Press
J. Attfield, Wild Things: The material culture of everyday life, London: Berg,
2000
M. Barnard, Fashion as Communication, London: Routledge, 1996
Q. Bell, On Human Finery, London: The Hogarth Press, 1976
C. Breward, The Culture of Fashion: A New History of Fashionable Dress,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995
J. Craik, The Face of Fashion, London: Routledge, 1994
D. Crane, Fashion and It’s Social Agendas: Class, Gender & Identity in
Clothing, London: University of Chicago Press, 2000
F. Davis, Fashion, Culture, and Identity, Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1992
A. De la Haye & E. Wilson, Defining Dress: Dress as Object, Meaning and
Identity, Manchester: MUP, 1999
F. El Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy & Resistance,
London: Berg, 1999
S. Hall & T. Jefferson
(eds.), Resistance Through Rituals: Youth
subcultures in post-war Britain, Hutchinson: London, 1976
D. Hebdige, Subcultures: The Meaning of Style, London: Routledge, 1979
A. Hollander, Sex & Suits, New York: Kodansha
International, 1994
A. Lurie, The Language of Clothes, London: Bloomsbury, 1990
E. Rouse, Understanding Fashion, Oxford: Blackwells, 1989
A. McRobbie (ed.), Zootsuits and Second Hand Dresses,
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989
A. McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen,
Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1991
V. Steele, Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996
L. Taylor, The Study of Dress History, Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2001
L. Taylor & E. Wilson, Through The Looking Glass, London: BBC
Books, 1989
A. Tomlinson (ed.), Consumption, Style & Identity,
London: Routledge, 1990
T. Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Classes, London: Allen & Unwin, 1899,
republished 1970
Wiener & Schneider (eds.), Cloth and Human Experience, Smithsonian
Institution Press: Washington & London, 1991
E. Wilson, Adorned in Dreams, London: Virago, 1985