The rise of modest fashion in fashion weeks over the past few years has led to a wider consciousness across different cultures within the fashion industry. Big brands such as Burberry, Gucci and Dior started introducing modest clothing in their collections during fashion weeks. Diversity played an important role which led to the beginning of modest dressing inclusivity in the West. With the controversy of modest fashion garments such as the headscarf or the face covering scarf that has been taking place in France since 2004, this thesis explores Paris’ fashion system and the representation of modest clothing during Paris Fashion Week.

The Oriental Fashion Show, the case study of this thesis, has become the hub of Eastern and Western fashion in the capital of fashion, Paris. Showcased during Paris Fashion Week since 2004, the show promotes Oriental fashion by exhibiting modest dressing representing the East while keeping the French identity, the Western identity. It is through the key players of the event, the models, the garments, and the space, that the identity of the Oriental Fashion show is studied. With the Covid-19 pandemic that occurred in the beginning of 2020, many debates have arisen around face coverings and its controversy in France, especially after setting the law of the obligatory face masks in public spaces as a protection against the virus. Thus, this thesis further explores the way the pandemic has affected the controversy of the face coverings vis-à-vis Western representations and perceptions and it shifted the show into the digital world.

This research is led at a time where fashion institutions in Lebanon are struggling to survive, in a country facing constant crisis beginning with a revolution, a pandemic and then a massive explosion that shattered the capital. My work will be focused on key fashion institutions such as Creative Space Beirut, a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing a free school in fashion design, and other establishments such as Fashion Trust Arabia, Starch foundation and The Slow Factory, three non-profit associations that aim to provide financial and business support to fashion designers in the MENA region, as well as established and emerging brands that play an important social role in the Lebanese fashion system. Through this analysis, the study aims to demonstrate the role of key players that constitute the Lebanese fashion system. There is a lack of academic literature regarding the field of fashion in Lebanon and an important factor of change regarding the different aspects of the Lebanese fashion industry that has still not been recognized. It is thus important to use ethnographic methods such as interviews, field notes and participatory observation as primary sources, in order to provide a complete analysis. Through this, I seek to uncover the importance of education and social innovation, the different impacts the field of fashion creates in a country in crisis and to come up with an action plan for the future of these institutions.

With the growing Asian market and the increasing consciousness of the value of diversity and the importance of recognizing local culture, it is a vital task for international brands to approach regional consumers with tailored communication methods. This research focuses on the representation of Western luxury commodities in Asian fashion media using the ‘glocalization’ concept, analyzing how Western products are integrated within Asian media identities and Asian cultural environments to effectively adapt to local taste. This thesis examines Vogue Taiwan’s relaunch strategies in 2020 as a case study, particularly the issues from March 2020 to October 2020, when the magazine modified its strategies with new aesthetics, content structure, production team and an accentuated Taiwanese identity. Combining visual and textual analysis, this part of the thesis dissects the establishment of the magazine’s identity and its mode of symbolic production. At the same time, this paper reveals Vogue Taiwan’s approach to representations that mingle Asian cultural identity and placements of Western luxury commodities. The case study demonstrates the integration of Western products and Asian production, and the balance between global perspectives and local implementation that adapts the representation of products to the cultural situation they inhabit. Moreover, the case study explores how Vogue Taiwan employs heightened local identity as an instrument to promote Western luxury commodities, mediating foreign material through a native mind and language.

As I argue, the retargeting decision of Vogue Taiwan is not only an approach to elevating its status in competition with other Taiwanese fashion magazines but also, with the rest of Vogue editions in Asia, it is critical to expanding the dialogue to examine the Asian market as a whole. In my research, I will bring in  two other Vogue editions in Asia – Vogue Japan, and Vogue China – to serve as a comparison in a further exploration of the coordination between Western products and Asian representations in current times. This part of the research will not only illuminate the power dynamics in the fashion industry within Asian countries but also the ones between the poles of the West and the East. By bringing the two power players’ glocalization strategies into the discussion, this thesis explores the constructions of fashion magazine identities in a more encompassing way, taking into consideration the influence of economic strength, cultural advantages, and the historical context that shapes the relationship between Asian media and Western luxury.

This thesis explores how the symbolic value of 'handmade' is both conveyed and constructed within the Parisian fashion system, examining representation of les petites mains as a case study. This research evolved from an observation in the resurgence of hand-making values at times of political and economic insecurity. As public awareness for environmental and ethical concerns in the fashion industry continue to rise, values of handmade such as craftsmanship and heirloom-worthy longevity, are being re-evaluated and communicated through visual imagery. By conducting a visual and textual analysis of media discourse in the Parisian fashion system, the concept of handmade is explored as a tool used to communicate intangible values including time, distinction and quality. This thesis will critically analyse the representation of handmade through the makers of the epitome of 'fashion', Parisian haute couture. By looking at earlier moments of hand labour representation, a better understanding of the current crisis in production is sought. How has the aesthetic of labour in ateliers been constructed/represented? How was it used at important moments of political and economic insecurity to characterize a valuation of labour?

Haute couture plays an integral role in the rise of the French fashion system, with ongoing social and economic influence. This research will examine two sources of French media representation, in which depictions of les petites mains at work in ateliers are visually and textually analyzed. First, a 1932 volume from a series of books documenting labour in industries across France, La France Travaille, is examined. Second, a 1940 editorial from a popular French fashion magazine, L'Art et la Mode, is analyzed. These two sources characterize a critical time period of political and economic instability, during the interwar years, the Great Depression and widespread labour unrest.

With its inherent qualities of traditional handcrafts and small scale production, how can haute couture's representation of labour affect ideas of fashion consumption and production practices? As calls for systemic change in the fashion industry towards sustainable fashion practices continue, this thesis argues that luxury brands can, through values of creativity, community and 'women's work', unite the ideals of fashion with those of environmental sustainability.

The fashion system and the art world have traditionally been viewed in somewhat reductive, binary terms which are rooted in perspectives that overlook the complexity of the relationship as it has evolved throughout history. The dynamics of this relationship often transform when examined through the lens of the magazine, where their respective discourses can be both challenged and reinterpreted through strategies of representation and context. The multipurpose objectives of this thesis begin by tracing a trajectory of moments where the fashion system and the art world have interacted in the space of historical and contemporary magazines like La Dernière Mode, La Gazette du Bon Ton, Artforum, Purple Prose and more. In so doing, this research aims to unpack and question the layers and hierarchies of values which have been presupposed as inherent to their relationship with one another.

A deeper analysis of case studies from the fashion magazine L’Officiel and the art magazine L’Officiel Art, are then used as evidence to reveal the dialogic and dialectic forces at work in the construction of this relationship. This analysis demonstrates that as opposed to functioning within a strict binary, their interactions, elements and actors most often oscillate between the fashion system and the art world, conveying the complexities of this ever-evolving relationship. Although the dynamics between these two fields have already generated a substantial amount of academic literature within fashion studies, this thesis attempts to uncover the strategies that transform them through the magazine.

The mindful effects on the self mediated through fashion illustration is what I define as ontological fashioning. Within this term, the activity of drawing the croquis is a reflection and refraction of the self which inevitably acts within the social construct of identity forming practices adjacent to self-fashioning. To appear is to exist, to appear in fashion is to exist fashionably, to see appearances informs how we appear ourselves. The croquis (French for ‘quick sketch’) is the catalyst for all fashion designers; it is the rudimentary sketch. The croquis is a fusion between the mannequin and the human emphasizing attitude and narrative silhouette. The fundamentals of fashion design education begin with instruction on how to draw the croquis. Despite attention in the media from models, designers, and the public's scrutiny against one figure size within fashion advertisements and campaigns, the industry's lack of inclusivity stretches as far as educational tools as well. While a traditional croquis in fine arts is 8-heads in height measuring the proportion of the figure vertically, the fashion croquis is 9-heads to appear exaggerated, representing a tall slender model. The body in fashion education pertains to only one standardized physique; tall in height and outlandishly slender in form. The market for manuals and tools to instruct how to draw the body is limited in terms of inclusionary narratives. Surprisingly, the literature surrounding the croquis in Fashion Studies is underexplored. As a practicing fashion illustrator and educator this finding stems from a personal observation over years of instructing the ‘traditional’ fashion figure. I find that every individual who picks up a pencil to draw the human figure tends to mirror themselves. Contrary to the fashion illustration template instructed, the figure drawn appears to resemble a direct reflection of the individual's physique. My aim is to address how fashion illustration is a representational medium of the self and how the educational industry fails to portray diversity in fashion illustration. Seeking to critically engage, my research takes a sociological perspective to explore the phenomenology of drawing as an embodied action within fashion illustration, interconnected with mindfulness practice.

In response to the educational tools available, I have created MindLines®: the 21st century fashion plate. The first ‘diverse’ digital fashion illustration manual can be found found at www.mindlines.net .

The overarching goal of this thesis is to explore a Twitter community self-titled ‘High Fashion Twitter’, or ‘HF Twitter’. I will be studying this group through a fashion criticism lens while observing the differences and similarities with other forms of media. By discussing the history of fashion criticism, I will begin to unravel the layers, perspectives, and goals of this Twitter community. The thesis will discuss some of the historical events within fashion criticism leading up to use of Twitter as a platform for fashion discourse in order to situate a context for the analyses. Following this history, the thesis will analyze interviews conducted with several prominent members of the HF Twitter community, and then continue with another analysis of the online book they published. This examination of HF Twitter from a historical and critical perspective will contribute a new discussion to the fashion studies field. Additionally, I will discuss the notion of democratization through the words and actions of HF Twitter community members, while also analysing the concept of authenticity. Hierarchical relationships will be studied through the use of Pierre Boudieu’s field theory. This specific theory will allow me to further study HF Twitter in relation to its fashion criticism counterparts (i.e. magazines and blogs).

This thesis explores the role of a contemporary tastemaker and what it takes to become one, specifically in the fashion industry today. With the increased popularity of PR agencies offering to refine and glamorize clients’ identity, it has become more complicated than ever to define who is behind the profile of a public persona. To understand and explain the increased interest in the notion of self-branding, which has rapidly gained popularity over the last decade, I will explore Paris-based public relations agency AVEC and interview two members of the team, discussing their perception of tastemakers and the importance of one’s social media performance in the fashion industry. This thesis further explores the idea of tastemaker through the persona of a contemporary tastemaker, Olivier Zahm, who is editor-in-chief of Purple Magazine, one of the most influential fashion publications, and who has successfully constructed his ‘self’ solely based on personal expertise. 

This thesis will also analyse the differentiation between a tastemaker and an influencer and what function the figure of a tastemaker plays in today’s digital landscape.  The rationale of this thesis begins with the observation of today’s social media and the ways in which it has encouraged users to establish ‘fake’ identities in pursuit of attention and personal recognition. Attempts to belong to specific communities and ways of constructing the self within these circles is another important issue.  In this research I seek to reveal who is actually a tastemaker today and to what extent one may mediate one’s ‘self’ to correspond to the global community’s ‘needs’, while maintaining one’s uniqueness when performing selective self-representation.

This research evolved from the observation of the need for more diversity with respect to models in fashion and the media in 2020. The year has been recognised by journalists and prominent figures in the fashion industry as one in which the voices of the marginalised called for significant change. As the discussion around the need for more diversity continues in popular media, I will critically analyse how the complex legacies of apartheid are shaping the contemporary modelling industry in South Africa, and how the experiences of models of colour, with a particular focus on coloured identity, adds to this narrative within the industry. Does the conversation about race and inequality in the modelling industry enable more inclusivity with respect to women of colour? Ultimately, this research will investigate how marginalised and tokenized models working in the industry experience the business of modelling and whether the industry’s underlying silent values affect the modelling process within South Africa.

My research will include interviews with models of colour, who recount their experiences of working in the fashion industry. The media representation of these models will be examined through a post-apartheid lens to create a visual and textual analysis. Lastly, it will include an account of my personal experience as a coloured model in the South African fashion industry. Through this research, I seek to ascertain whether the fashion system in South Africa operates in a way that limits the success of non-white models. I will also highlight the fleeting conversations that address the issue of diversity and inclusion but only result in minimal change and the industry continuing to capitalize on the tokenized model.

This thesis explores how fashion publication companies shift weight from printed magazines to digital and social media in China. The research arises from the increased use of TikTok/Douyin, one of the fastest growing short video apps in fashion and media since 2018, the year TikTok had its global release. As fashion magazines could not solely rely on print for their revenue, they gradually had to adopt social media platforms as their new pathways to their consumers. This research will examine how this shift was generated, in order to understand the differences between printed fashion magazines and digital media in terms of business models and content.

Although discussion around the emergence of social media like TikTok (Douyin) in the fashion industry has come to be widely addressed, there remains a lack of academic literature that analyzes the integration from printed publications to social media content within the fashion industry. I will firstly define traditional fashion magazines and ‘new media’, and then distinguish fashion journalism and advertisements, while exploring how advertising works in different platforms. The research will comprise case studies of L’Officiel China, as I have interned at the company; interviews with my former colleagues; and a series of discursive analyses of media studies. Through this research, I seek to reveal how the distinction between fashion journalism and advertising has been further dissolved by the rise of new media. By using new media platforms like Douyin/TikTok, fashion magazines are able to provide more possibilities and exposure for young talents to reach more audiences. It is a challenge that fashion publications are facing — balancing the quality of production while adopting this new mechanism.

Cooperation oils the machinery of getting things done, and sharing with others can make up for what we may individually lack. Cooperation is embedded in our genes, but it cannot remain stuck in routine behaviour; it needs to be developed and deepened.    

- Richard Sennett, Together, 2012

These are the words used to open the book Together (2012) by writer Richard Sennett. As part of a trilogy of books aiming to explore the ways we shape and craft our inner and external environment, the book comes as a reflection on responsiveness, empathy and the centrality of active listening in a community. Sennett’s path through the different ingredients of the importance of being together resonates in our current situation. More than a year after the beginning of the pandemic, we find ourselves with the detritus of individual memories and stories. We all have been connected to individual and collective losses. We all have been listening to personal and shared troubles. The pandemic has strangely highlighted the need to be connected while we have been enduring exaggerated forms of solitude and individualism. We all have experienced together and alone the pandemic.

Our work on the MA has not gone unaffected by this situation and this publication remains a testimony of our common and individual efforts, struggles and successes. The following pages provide a glimpse into the work of our graduating class of 2021, the first group of students graduating who have lived the majority of their academic experience in these exceptional times. The students have lived the pandemic on their skin and experienced not only the public trauma but also the institutional one. Our MA Program, similar to many other academic programs, had to change, adapt to the current situation, transforming pedagogical methodologies, teaching outcomes, ongoing projects, ways of interacting on a daily basis. Students and their experience of the MA drastically changed. What was supposed to be a path towards the making of a real, physical exhibition became preparation for a hypothetical project, group discussions became fragmented moments regulated by mute/unmuted microphones and unstable internet connections. All of this did not foster collaboration but rather individual reflection. It did not foster aggregation but rather isolation. This is true also for Faculty who had to completely rework their syllabi, understand new rhythms of teaching, invent new techniques of interaction, compromise with the absurdity of speaking in front of their screens with many black squares with names, wondering whether anyone was actually listening.

These challenges are amplified when you deal with a topic like fashion, a phenomenon that strives through embodied practice, personal and collective interaction. The impossibility of being physically together did not only show how the pandemic economically affected an industry but, I believe, showed even more so the importance and potential of fashion as a humanistic force. The advent of Covid-19 highlighted the social role of clothing, our daily engagement with it, its agency in making, affecting and transforming our bodies. It stressed the potential of fashion in all its multiform meanings, emphasizing the importance of reflecting, deepening our knowledge about it. And this is exactly what our students have done and what we show in the pages of this publication. By reading their theses’ abstracts and extracts, we invite you to see how they responded to isolation and struggle, reminding us of the multifaceted nature of fashion. The theses move through a wide range of topics and show us different ways of thinking about fashion. They explore identity formation, investigating issues of race in the modelling industry and techniques of self-fashioning and personification in these digital times. They highlight alternative and inclusive ways of teaching fashion or ways to think of fashion as both an economic and social source of resilience in times of political crises in Lebanon. They explore the importance of alternative systems and peripheries of fashion systems and fashion weeks in modest fashion. They investigate the effects of mediating fashion in the aesthetic construction of labour and workers like les petites mains. They look at magazines as spaces of dialectics and dialogical relationships between art and fashion systems; or even spaces for national identity construction as in the case of Vogue Taiwan. Finally, they navigate the forum of Twitter as a space of resistance and criticism; or the new territories of Tik Tok as a realm of transformation of fashion media practices. In all these fashion interpretations, our students combat and problematize a traditional understanding of fashion as exclusive and individual, reminding us of the importance of fashion as a collective endeavor.

This publication gathers their work and stands as a reminder of our cooperative effort and attempt to combat our current struggles. It reminds us that, although we were physically separated, we shared solitude, anxieties and difficulties, and overcame them. It is a pleasure to present this publication in our final year exhibition and symbolically celebrate our coming back together in person. The publication puts our students’ work together and celebrates the importance of that being together that Sennett sees as the only path towards an understanding how “social relations” are not only action for self-sustaining but also moments of self-teaching that, as he says, “promote an ethical life in which we recognize and honour what lies beyond us”. 

Congratulations Class of 2021! 

Dr Marco Pecorari

Director of the MA in Fashion Studies, The New School Parsons Paris

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Angelica D’Alisera is a multidisciplinary artist who has lived in Rome, Paris, New York, and London. Her works address identity and the relationship between body, space, and time, in order to explore the purpose of human existence.

Affects challenges the traditional conceptualization of portraiture by distorting facial features in an organic and handcrafted manner, moving away from digital software. By means of a scanner and manual movements the artist creates irregularities to illustrate the fragility and fragmentation of identity, in its many elements that might often change, vanish, or remain untouched in the span of a lifetime.

Sacha Rafaelle Assi was born in Dubai in 1999 and currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain. Having access to the Internet from a young age, her work focuses on the psychological, environmental and social consequences of our hyper-connected society. Digital Transcendence is an interactive website and installation that translates the overwhelming yet embedded relationship we have with mass visual consumption. The work highlights the rising issues of psychological and physiological overwhelm that come with the digital age of information, which are heightened by the current Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical crises.

Jenna Bickhardt is a graphic designer and illustration artist interested in exploring the space of the book and the book object. Inspired by the work of the late Massin, Jenna dedicated her thesis to exploring expressive typography and in-between spaces of reading, seeing, and play. Manifested within paper cards and typography installations, onomatopée, creates a space of gameplay where players read between letters, form, and active gesture to communicate in translation of associated sound-images. 

Nasia Chan is a visual artist born in Hong Kong and raised in Europe. She uses her art as a tool of communication to share her thoughts and imagination through media ranging from analog to digital. In her recent work, where i found rest, she explored her own experience of the paradoxical Christian life in everyday situations. This project uses 3D computer graphics to illustrate how God’s Word has made her content, satisfied and restful even as her physical circumstances may remain tough and turbulent.

Kathryn Frey was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. A trained classical ballet dancer, her visual art practice is highly informed by dance and how the body is integral to the making, production, and conferral of meaning. Her thesis project, Variations on a Theme of Butterflies, is a collection of sculptures, drawings, home videos, and performative narrations. While the project memorializes the death of a little girl’s fantasies of becoming a ballerina, Variations ultimately tells a story of transformation, and how the dream of dancing is still alive. 

Thalia Kassem was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her recent work explores the exploitative nature of social media platforms towards their users. Candy Shop: Getting Back What You Give is an interactive installation representing the unfair exchange between the companies and the users. In her work, Thalia uses candy to represent the revenues generated from user time on specific platforms. Using small amounts (at times fragments) of candy alongside large format illustrations of candy mountains representing the overall superfluous daily revenues of these companies, the candy operates as a metaphor for social media’s toxic allure.

Farah Mrad is a Lebanese-American artist and photographer, who focuses on food and anthropology. In her thesis work, she documents how food is integral to identity, class, gender, and culture, and how these elements were exacerbated during the COVID pandemic when sourcing ingredients became more difficult. Through interviews, Farah asked her subjects the question, “What would you most like to eat now that you couldn’t have during lockdown?” She then “granted their wishes” and captured these moments of gratification in a book of photographs entitled “Eat”; the book is accompanied by a sculpture, “Soldier’s Food”. Both works consider the trauma of isolation, mediated communication, and desire created by scarcity.

Ryuku Otsuka is a visual artist from Japan. His recent work, Guardian of the Amazon; Deforestation expresses the observation of the Amazon rainforest from contemporary discourse, an internet gaze. Inspired by the Youtube video “Guardian of The Amazon,” Laercio Guajajara is the leader of a paramilitary group, who is involved in the war against loggers. The assemblage of 5 frames includes the reason for deforestation, endangered and rare species in the rainforest. The primary source of this illustration is website images, whose authenticity is often questionable. While the work expresses the situation in the rainforest, it also questions the truth in reality and on the internet.

Jonathan Riese is a German digital artist and designer interested in the relationship between humans, nature and technology. His project Missing Blue explores our connection and longing for nature in a world increasingly removed from the natural environment. During his time in isolation due to COVID-19, he transformed his living space into the environments he longed for the most. With the limited means available he used digital tools and everyday objects to both simulate and reconnect to nature. Recordings of these installations are collected in a short film centered around his room’s transformation into an open ocean.

Jemima Jasmine Sieff is a textile artist and graphic designer interested in exploring how patterns and sequences in colour and shape can induce positive emotions. Inspired by the works of Mark Rothko, Kilma Af Klint and James Turell, and the study of ancient buddhists mandalas, Jemima created Loom of Light. This installation plays with the boundaries of a traditional meditation rug through its unique display, and creates a space offering peace and tranquility to the viewer, who is encouraged to reflect, breathe, and find moments of peace in their daily lives.

Natalie Stuckey is an American, multi-disciplinary artist who specializes in analogical art, digital media and film-making. Natalie is inspired by pop-culture, rock and roll of the 1960s-1980s, experimental, surrealist and fantasy films, animation, medieval art, and European history. “Playtime with Movie Genres” was created from home where she could indulge her passion for film. The challenge was finding films that shared complementary aspects including pace, narrative, actor movement and interaction, scene dynamics, framing and camera angle. The result is an intriguing, humorous and sometimes confusing mixture of similarity and opposition between films that questions conventional delineations of comedy, fantasy and horror.

Tamara is a strategic designer, with experience working in Futures Studies, and human centered design. Tamara’s aesthetic sensibility and multi cultural background translates into her design process. As she loves challenging things around, helping them serve their modern mission, she aspires to use her creativity and analytical skills to inspire innovation for the better.

Based off her experience as a Lebanese expat, Tamara developed a project based crowdfunding platform that aims to bring some lightness and modern branding to philanthropy. It is funded on the premise of a social network that allows for direct update, transparency, co-creation and community building. The app is designed to allow project planners to engage with contributors, empowering honesty, humility, and true human relations.

TALLY is a relevant, accessible, easy-to-adopt tool helping communities move towards a sustainable future by becoming conscious of the value of owned items. Whether to toss, keep or sell, TALLY is born to help people make the best decisions.

With 5 years of experience in marketing and communications, Lara is genuinely interested in people and systems. Her mission is to find relevant strategic answers to challenges both locally and globally.

Imagine a space, where the presentation of artisan work is displayed with unconventional and re-imagined techniques.

UNDERSCORE Studios was born from the idea of an equitable art system that not only facilitated monetary support to makers, but provided a welcoming, community-driven hub for patrons to visit and hopefully be inspired to purchase, learn, and value creative talent.

Passionate about generating value from communities and the efforts of others, Christian Glover has dedicated his time at Parsons New York and Parsons Paris learning the vast components of business practice, and creative exchange, rooted in innovation and design-thinking. He is driven by impact, and hopes to create inclusive shifts within today’s global marketplace by utilizing a unique approach to business design; maintaining an analytical yet creative mindset when it comes to business development, marketing, forecasting, planning, and critical research. Glover looks forward to beginning his career in New York City, in the art gallery, fashion, or publication sector during the Summer of 2021, and aims to transform his thesis into a viable company in the coming years. 

Artbul is a user knowledge-based digital guide to discover Istanbul’s art scene. It was created to be the communication tool between Istanbul’s art scene and Istanbul’s citizens, as a means to bridge the gap between art and people. This project stemmed from Lara’s personal experience seeing how Paris’ art scene communicates differently to its audience compared to Istanbul.

Yara is a designer with a thing for editorials, conceptual work and experience design. Born in Beirut and now based in Paris, she cultivates a strong interest for words and empathetic observations. As her practice develops, she ambitions to work and grow within environments related to human-centered design and encounters.

Garlic Press is a project that was born out of her strong interest in fields of investigation that can foster growth for personal and collective culture, like food, publications, technologies, and alternative forms of social gatherings. As a testimony to the importance of food in our cultural landscapes and identities, Garlic Press ambitions to redefine the way we record, share and preserve our recipes, to better honor our modern aspirations of legacy.

Nausea Studios is a digital ecosystem that allows emerging artists to have a sense of belonging in the art world. It aims to shock the system by providing an alternative solution to the current art-industrial complex which perpetuates exclusion and exploitation through high barriers for entry. It draws inspiration from speculative design, radical imagination and the ethos of rave culture as a form of subversion and disruption. We are NAUSEOUS of the art world, and looking for an escape through a re-imagined virtual space.

Michelle Rios is a strategic designer interested in the way in which design can serve as a tool to reconstruct broken systems, by centering people through creative problem solving. She is passionate about social change and finding ways in which cultural institutions can develop people to find new ways of interacting with art, music and one another. Having lived in South Africa, Mexico, France & the US, she has a strong culture sensibility which allows her to connect with people from all backgrounds.

Albert enjoys exploring arts and fashion through curation and editorial practices from the lens of his multicultural background. In combination with his education in Strategic Design and Management, he has a strong sense of aesthetics brings and relevant previous work experiences that he brings to all future endeavors.

MA Fashion Studies Students and BIAS Co-Managing Editors, Nate and Maegan, give us an inside look at the new BIAS Journal, Issue 7.

Building on “Fashion Studies: Key Concepts” and “Fashion, History and Mediation,” completed in the first semester, this course reflects critically on empirical research as a practice and a process. Students will engage in methodologies that are employed in fashion studies and reflect on how research findings are produced and interpreted. Informed by this critical methodological analysis they will pursue their own case-studies in which they research and interpret fashion as material culture and cultural practice. Students will develop a field study of fashion and engage in intersubjective research such as observation and interviews and position their own findings in relation to the scholarly discourse of fashion studies. The aim of the course is to challenge students to advance their research and analytical skills, to cross disciplinary boundaries and to develop new and original perspectives towards future fashion research. Combined with the lecture “Fashion Cultures,” which opens up global perspectives on fashion as culture, system and industry, the course prepares students for the advanced study of fashion in the second year.

This panel features some of our Second Year MAFS graduating students speaking about their masters thesis research and writing process. Their audience includes our first year students in the core required methods course, Interpreting Fashion.

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