Modern Fashion Traditions: Negotiating Tradition and Modernity through Fashion

Description

Modern Fashion Traditions questions the dynamics of fashion systems and spaces of consumption outside the West. Too often, these fashion systems are studied as a mere and recent result of globalization and Western fashion influences, but this book draws on a wide range of non-Western case studies and analyses their similarities and differences as legitimate fashion systems, contesting Eurocentric notions of tradition and modernity, continuity versus change, and 'the West versus the Rest'. Preconceptions about non-Western fashion are challenged through diverse case studies from international scholars, including street-style identity in Bhutan, the influence of Ottoman cultural heritage on contemporary Turkish fashion design, and an investigation into the origins of the word 'fashion' in Chinese. Negotiating tradition, foreign influences and the contemporary global dominance of Western fashion cities, Modern Fashion Traditions will give readers a clearer understanding of non-Western fashion identities in the present. Accessibly written, this ground-breaking text makes an essential contribution to the study of non-Western fashion and will be an important resource for students of fashion history and theory, anthropology, and cultural studies.

M. Angela Jansen is an independent fashion anthropologist based in Brussels, Belgium. Her publications include Moroccan Fashion: Design, Tradition and Modernity (Bloomsbury, 2014). Jennifer Craik is professor and head of the Fashion Discipline at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her publications include Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression (Berg, 2005) and Fashion: The Key Concepts (Berg, 2009).

From Indian dresses adorned with holy writing to youth fashion blogs in Bhutan, from the modern re-evaluation of Ottoman costumes to the role of plastic bags in South African art and design, Modern Fashion Traditions examines fashion cultures in non-Western regions, many of which are newcomers to studies of fashion and dress. This is a lively, important, and illuminative collection for any student interested in non-Western cultures, particularly South, South East, and Far East Asian and African regions. -- Masafumi Monden, University of Technology Sydney, Australia