Jun Chen, who holds a bachelor's degree in multimedia and photography, explores women's representation in high-end fashion publications (Chinese edition) throughout her work of master's thesis.

This thesis explores the images of the "white, immature, thin" women in high-end Chinese fashion publications from 2013 to 2021. In the early 2000s, the rapid development of internet information technology and the popularity of social media platforms lowered the cost of access to information and made fashion more accessible to people. Social media platforms such as Weibo, Wechat, and Xiaohongshu benefit Chinese social media users by accessing rich media content from various sources. It also advanced fashion publications to reach broader audiences online. Images of women in magazines, from editorials to commercials, have influenced and constructed modern Chinese women's definitions of fashionable dressing and attitude toward beauty, and reflected on their perceptions of themselves and others.

The research begins with drawing a historical outline of beauty standards within Chinese internal history and the western impacts. Then, I look at the various examples I selected from the Chinese edition of Harper's Bazaar and Cosmopolitan, from magazine articles to editorials. In part two of this thesis, I explore the retouching and manipulation of images in fashion photography by introducing the influential Chinese fashion photographer named Chen Man. Then I continue to look at two prominent Chinese female celebrities, Angelababy and Yang Mi, and their images as the renditions of the "white, immature, thin" women.

My research is supported by visual analysis, discourse analysis, and in-depth interviews with ten young Chinese women. By doing so, I aim to explore modern Chinese women's experience with body image and beauty standards concerning the "white, immature, thin" women popularized by Chinese fashion publications and fill the gap in the discourse on Chinese women's representation in the discipline of fashion studies.  

Expanding on her undergraduate streetwear collection titled, i used to love h.e.r., Jessica dedicates an ode to both adinkra and hip-hop by inviting two unique languages to converse with one another. Delving deeper into her research on adinkra and West African cultural heritage, she felt personally connected to a cultural value system that allowed her to provoke intellectual discussions while also addressing the fashion system. Engaging with a rich heritage to propose a new theory and framework, she seeks to shift the paradigm on modernity and present a more ethical approach to fashion history – fashion ethos.

While some can trace their histories back generations, there are other cultural legacies that were deemed unworthy of preservation and instead needed to be colonized – to evolve with the changing world. Modernity has commonly been defined within the realm of whiteness, considered as Europe and America's desire for change and innovation. In the field of fashion studies, “modernity,” is a grounding concept that scholars, professors, historians, and curators often are drawn back to in order to understand the fashion system as it stands today. However historical accounts of modernity often gloss over colonialism, commonly negating it, as if Europe and America were not in constant contact with the peoples of the nations, they imperialized and enslaved. Dismissing this from discourse on fashion and the modern world presents a subjective perspective from those privileged with power. Thus, leaving little room for interrogation and a broadened imagination of the ideas on “newness” during the 18th to 20th century.

In this study on the West African printing process of Adinkra, I aim to carve out the foundation for fashion ethos, a term that I have coined. I believe this term will shift the current paradigm on the new world and how it came to be. Thus sparking new conversations in the field of fashion. This work is archivally grounded, carefully examining the contributions of scholars from multiple disciplines to contextualize the history and ideas that influenced this working framework on fashion ethos. Additionally, I draw on the analysis of images, objects, artwork, interviews, and exhibitions, to carve out the inner workings of this framework. While also placing fashion ethos in a historical and cultural context.

In the spirit of sankofa, “going back to fetch it,” or learning from the past for the purpose of a progressive future, I aim to establish a foundation for fashion ethos. I hope that this term will be contested, reflected upon, and engaged with by other scholars. Thus making space for truth-telling about the Euro-American colonial pasts and reckoning with the cultures that have preserved elements of identity, heritage, and innovation to contribute to fashion across the globe. While this framework focuses on a West African practice, I hope that it can be a model for cross-cultural conversations as it pertains to fashion and the modern world. Adinkra is a cultural value system that dates to pre-colonial times – influencing every aspect of Ghanaian society and life. This value system has not only remained a staple in the Akan tradition but has transcended into Afro-diasporic realms, becoming an identifier of Africa. The knowledge that this practice holds meaning to an extensive group of people, makes it a fascinating point of entry for understanding its reach, spread, and influence for generations in the past – and generations to come.

Maria Ida De Ioanni previously graduated in Design and Visual Communication at the Polytechnic of Turin . Now at Parsons she is specializing in brand’s archive management as well as in the more vast field of the discursive construction of a gendered heritage in fashion houses.

Menswear has been a broadly investigated field within the domain of fashion studies, gender studies, sociology, psychology and many more. However the contemporary relationship between masculinities, fashion practices and the male body requires to be fed and discussed further. Indeed, as different scholars stated in the last two decades , the bonds keeping the relationship together still raise questions around the wider consequences in terms of gendered identities and social dynamics. Fashion researchers have revolved their main debates around specific menswear items , mainly garments, or more widely around the politics of menswear consumption and production, but many doors are still waiting to be opened for what concerns less explored areas of fashioning masculinities such as the role played by accessories and leather goods and how the male bodies and identities interact with those objects. The objects taken in consideration in this thesis will be men’s shoes as they had, in my opinion, gone through such conspicuous changes in the recent years that revealed them as a fertile place of self expression against the grain of the assumption that male identities and male roles just perfectly correspond.

The main aim of my thesis is to understand and analyze how the contemporary design and communication practices of a historically women shoes brand such as Christian Louboutin - whose men’s footwear only timidly emerged at the end of 2010 - can represent nowadays a powerful tool for the liberation of masculine identities and bodies from gender roles and how they further re-discuss the meanings of fashion for male individuals. Therefore, my research will be based on the main areas of fashion studies, fashion and the body, and fashion and gender, and then developed through a sociological lens that will allow me to examine the garments, Louboutin's shoes, and the sociological implications that arise from their wearing and embodiment. Through evidence of the gradual brand's heeling and camping of men’s footwear, I aim to reveal the fashion politics that govern the construction and deconstruction of the millennial men's identities. To do so I will analyze the brand's design and communication practices, and understand their resonance with the embodiment of Louboutin's shoes.

Through the analysis of the object, indeed the samples and the materials that constitute them, and the visual analysis of the representations of the objects, the drawings of the considered samples and the advertising campaigns that diffused the collections, the research will lead to the understanding of how footwear is a constitutive part of the contemporary drive to the liberation of diverse masculine identities. Indeed, the research will potentially recognize in contemporary fashion practices their contribution to a male’s heterogeneous embodiment of fashion.

With a degree in fashion design completed at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Renata Hernández is currently finalizing her research on the spaces of exertion, and resistance of an idealized masculinity during Nazism for her MA thesis at Parsons Paris | The New School. This research encompasses her interest in studying fashion in connection with historical and anthropological processes.

The extent of the reach, power, and effervescent popularity of the Nazi discourse has been an intriguing quandry because to believe that every single German was in line with Nazi principles seems, as it has been demonstrated before, as being far from the truth. Nevertheless, seeing truth as a relational and reliant term with reality, the question morphs into a reconsideration of the possibility of the construction of a reality staged by and for Nazi principles that inspirited a large amount of people into believing in the coming of better times and the reemergence of Germany by means of a warfare.

However, Nazism should not be thought of as a totalitarian and omnipresent ideology, but as a dominant one; for to speak of a totalitarian truth would be to deny the possibility of awareness of different perceptions. Thus, to analyze the possibility of a multiplicity of embodied existences during the Third Reich, this thesis builds up on the research of the spaces of exertion, negotiation, transmutation, and resistance within the formative processes of the mind and the body, particularly in the male youth [the men in the making], under an intended omnipresent discourse on masculinity built up during this epoch. Thinking of Nazism as a staged or ‘bastard’ reality allows to locate the conjuring of masculinity within the Nazi discourse and deconstruct it from its conception, creation, and representation through the visual and discourse analysis of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935), as well as through Martin Dammann’s photographic collection Soldier Studies: Cross-Dressing in the Wehrmacht (2018). The structure of this thesis is intended to allow an analysis of masculinity as not a mere systemized overreaching discourse, which implies a sort of unchallenged mechanization in the making of the mind and body, therefore perceiving the male body as a passive entity, but also to acknowledge the intersectionality aspect that troubled the implication and application of a protean masculinity in the German male population under Nazism.

With a degree in fashion design completed at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Renata Hernández is currently finalizing her research on the spaces of exertion, and resistance of an idealized masculinity during Nazism for her MA thesis at Parsons Paris | The New School. This research encompasses her interest in studying fashion in connection with historical and anthropological processes.

The extent of the reach, power, and effervescent popularity of the Nazi discourse has been an intriguing quandry because to believe that every single German was in line with Nazi principles seems, as it has been demonstrated before, as being far from the truth. Nevertheless, seeing truth as a relational and reliant term with reality, the question morphs into a reconsideration of the possibility of the construction of a reality staged by and for Nazi principles that inspirited a large amount of people into believing in the coming of better times and the reemergence of Germany by means of a warfare.

However, Nazism should not be thought of as a totalitarian and omnipresent ideology, but as a dominant one; for to speak of a totalitarian truth would be to deny the possibility of awareness of different perceptions. Thus, to analyze the possibility of a multiplicity of embodied existences during the Third Reich, this thesis builds up on the research of the spaces of exertion, negotiation, transmutation, and resistance within the formative processes of the mind and the body, particularly in the male youth [the men in the making], under an intended omnipresent discourse on masculinity built up during this epoch. Thinking of Nazism as a staged or ‘bastard’ reality allows to locate the conjuring of masculinity within the Nazi discourse and deconstruct it from its conception, creation, and representation through the visual and discourse analysis of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935), as well as through Martin Dammann’s photographic collection Soldier Studies: Cross-Dressing in the Wehrmacht (2018). The structure of this thesis is intended to allow an analysis of masculinity as not a mere systemized overreaching discourse, which implies a sort of unchallenged mechanization in the making of the mind and body, therefore perceiving the male body as a passive entity, but also to acknowledge the intersectionality aspect that troubled the implication and application of a protean masculinity in the German male population under Nazism.

Mary Kelleher is an MA student from the graduating Fashion Studies class of 2022 and completed her undergraduate degree in Classics at Trinity College Dublin in 2020.

This thesis addresses the lack of analysis of the relationship between fashion and poetry from a Fashion Studies perspective. More specifically within this relationship, it examines fashion shows and poetry. From the early performative poetry of Alcman, to Baudelaire and Mallarmé’s mid-nineteenth century fascination with fashion, to contemporary fashion’s use of poetry, a dialogue has always existed between both forms of artistic expression. By understanding both fashion shows and performative poetry as ritualized practices, I then unpack these relations through an examination of female agency, textile and myth. Taking Alcman’s Partheneion, as a methodological framework for my analysis of performative poetry and fashion shows, I investigate the origins of performative poetry which then helps an analysis of contemporary fashion performances. In comparing the Miu Miu Fall/ Winter 2021 fashion show to Della Costa’s poem, Zero/O as a common narrative device, I analyse the use of poetry in the fashion show while also the use of fashion in Della Costa’s poetic performance. This comparative case study then provides a framework to examine the contemporary blurring of fashion and poetry performances.

Upon an analysis of the use of performative poetry in fashion shows, this enables me to develop them further through the work of Ann Demeulemeester. In taking Roland Barthes’ The Fashion System as a theoretical tool to categorise the phenomenon of fashion through semiotics and linguistics, I apply his linguistic understanding of fashion to both fashion shows and poetry. Upon a detailed analysis of Demeulemeester’s work through text, garment and performance, I examine the poetic and performative nature of her work alongside Judith Butler’s theory on female agency. In addition, I examine the personal relationship between the fashion designer and poet. Through Demeulemeester, I explore how her work has been inspired by Dadaism as a whole and its poets, the poet Allen Ginsberg and the performative poet Patti Smith. In an analysis of various examples of her fashion shows and collections press releases, I examine how, as sources of inspiration, they not only converge but also how their poetry is reconfigured through her design practices. In this way I question whether her work is indeed “poetic” or poetry itself.

Ayaka Kitagawa is an aspiring fashion curator and specialist in fashion heritage communication and public relations, who holds a BA in economics from Keio University in Tokyo. 

Numerous turns have been described in the dynamic of fashion museology – the curatorial turn, the digital turn, and the archival turn. In the wake of these formulations, this thesis argues for a conservatory turn, a phrase coined here to capture the enlarging roles of textile (or fashion) conservators in the museum setting and beyond. More than ever, museums are displaying conservation practices and the figure of the conservator in their museum communications. By analyzing exhibitions on conservation practices and Instagram posts depicting conservators, this thesis focuses on the various discourses on textile conservation the museum portrays. Drawing on fashion studies, archive theory, museum studies, heritage studies, material culture studies and conservation studies (but from an outside perspective), this dissertation reflects on interdisciplinary theories to bridge the gap in the discourse on conservation in the discipline of fashion studies.

The dissertation is constructed in two analysis chapters, each focusing on the display of conservation in exhibitions and on Instagram posts. Chapter one, Exhibiting Conservation, looks at fashion and non-fashion museums’ discourse on conservation through exhibitions that focused on depicting the science, ethics and aura of conservation. As fashion or textile conservation is one of the minor fields within the mother studies on conservation, art museums’ display of conservation knowledge adds more examples to each discourse the exhibitions portray helping me to donate a context to the emergence of fashion exhibitions on conservation. Various fashion and non-fashion exhibitions are analysed in separation into the three categorisations: the science, the ethics, and the aura. Among the group there is a similarity in the way that the conservation practices are exhibited, yet different discourses emerge from each exhibition, enriching the discussion of the museums’ aims in staging the backstage labour. The second chapter, Conservation on Instagram, analyses the digital representation of conservators looking at the posts published by museums on their Instagram pages.

Natalie is graduating from Parsons with a master’s in Fashion Studies and has focused much of her time on studying fashion writing and journalism.  Drawing from her undergraduate education in psychology, she focused her thesis on well-being in fashion journalism.  She is passionate about promoting ethical practices and mental health within the fashion industry.

Fettered Flourishment: The Effect of Restricted Creativity on the Mental Well-Being of Fashion Journalism Professionals

Stephanie Lever is a second-year Masters student in Fashion Studies at Parsons Paris / The New School having completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of Bristol. Her research interests currently lie in the fields of fashion heritage, museology, and curation, and is undertaking her postgraduate thesis focusing on the construction of the gaze within the space of the fashion museum, in partnership with Palais Galliera - Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris.

Within the space of the fashion exhibition an encounter is played out: an encounter between the curatorial and spectatorial, and, since the exhibition is necessarily and specifically a site of visuality and observation, this encounter can be understood as an encounter of the curatorial and spectatorial gazes. It is through this lens of the gaze and ways of looking that this research will be framed. Through the primary case study of Palais Galliera: Musée de Mode de la Ville de Paris, as well as various other fashion and art exhibitions, this paper intends to uncover how discourses of the gaze are constructed and played out in the space of the fashion exhibition. It will also examine how these ideas might affect the way that the exhibition is curated and in turn received, and if the different ways of seeing a fashion exhibition impact the effective transmission of knowledge from curator to spectator. Ultimately, it is my hope that this research will have implications on how we can construct the museum and exhibition as a place for the transmission of knowledge. I suggest a potential reconsideration of the manner in which museological institutions understand the experience of the exhibit, and how they conduct their research into exhibition reception.

Jacqueline Lopez is a twenty-four year old American who is originally from Detroit, Michigan.   She previously attended The University of Miami, Florida where she studied Entrepreneurship, Accounting, English, and Journalism. After obtaining her undergraduate degree she decided to follow her passion for fashion which, inevitably, led her to the Fashion Studies Masters program at Parsons Paris. Moving to Paris not only opened her eyes to the world but also allowed for many different internship opportunities. These opportunities included working for Mastermind Magazine, working with Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode during Fashion Week 2021, and working alongside the professionals at Personae Consilium as a talent agent assistant.

This thesis will explore a unique space associated with the modern-day French auction system, located in Paris, France, and fashion’s role within it. The research stems from various works related to auction houses, in general, and aims to fill a gap within this area as it relates to fashion. Today, there are so many new and innovative spaces where one can find fashion, one space that is often overlooked, but just as crucial, is that of the auction house and spaces associated with it. Although, mostly, affiliated with the acquisition and auction of historical pieces of fashion, most houses also sell high end fashion merchandise like those found on resale platforms. The significant aspect that will be analyzed and discussed is how the unique space subject of the case study within this thesis, specifically, is a place where one can find and interact with fashion. It also aims to highlight that this unique space is one where different kinds of spaces intersect, therefore, revealing its dynamic capabilities as not only a geographical space, but also a commercial, cultural, and emotional space. All these spaces, along with their definitions, affect the fashion they house differently, and therefore, interact for it differently as well. This thesis will explore these different definitions and the unique interactions made with them by both the auction house and the consumers.
My work will follow my own personal experience at a fashion auction hosted at Hôtel Drouot, the space subject of the case study. The following thesis will be organized as a mirrored reflection of my own experience, from beginning to end, as I walk through the process of not only attending a fashion auction, but also bidding and acquiring a fashion piece. As the journey unfolds, the characteristics and structurally embedded processes of the auction house will be uncovered, as well as how they contribute to, change, and glamorize the social lives of each fashion object they house. Through this journey, the auction space will not only be solidified as a multidimensional space where fashion is sold, preserved, and displayed, but also a space where fashion heritage is activated.

Fashion has enormous environmental and social impacts on our planet and there is a dire need for transformation of fashion materials, fashion systems and design practices. This thesis will analyze the global industrial fashion production system, with an emphasis on the relationship between Bangladesh and its trade partners. Bangladesh makes for an interesting example in the realm of fashion studies because the country is known for having the majority of their exports represented by garment production. The questions that guide this research are: How has neoliberal capitalism influenced the country of Bangladesh? And is the business of offshoring providing economic advancement for both the suppliers and the buyers as it intended to? Bangladesh is a major sourcing hub for international brands, for efficient and cheap production systems in place. Unfortunately, these clothes are often produced with significant cost to both the employees and the environment surrounding them. Through qualitative interviewing, this thesis offers a critique of the fashion production system from the perspective of two workers in the Bangladesh production industry, a denim business owner, and the head of a product development department within a knitwear company. The research conducted serves as a micro example of garment supply chains in the current neoliberal system.

Aishwarya Pureti is a second year Maters student in Fashion Studies / Parsons Paris with an undergraduate degree in Fashion Design at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, India. Her research interests lie at the intersection of dress and gender studies including her current work on androgynous clothing and its effects on the construction of gender and identity in India.

Gender fluidity has seen rapid growth amongst designers and consumers in recent years. The diminishing gender restrictions around clothing has led to a whole new fashion movement, making room for much more creativity and expression. My thesis seeks to understand how the factual media discourse in India describes the gender fluid fashion or the ‘new androgyny’ that has witnessed a clear expansion during the period of 2015 to 2021 and its characteristics through a critical discourse analysis. Through this analysis, it looks at the question of why the fashion industry in India waited so long to adopt androgynous clothing in recent times when the country has a long standing history of genderless clothing tracing back to the Hindu Puranas and Vedic Scriptures. It explores a series of theories ranging from gender as being performative to the contribution of new androgyny in constituting identities through its “performative acts” of being gender fluid. This thesis aims to investigate and uncover the symbolic systems and reinforced boundaries that have been strengthened over time through dress and performativity. I will also be extending this analysis to unpack the existing discourses practiced by designers in the name of androgynous clothing. The research also broadly differentiates between the concepts of “performance” and “performativity” in order to better understand the work of mainstream and niche fashion designers. Since my analysis includes visual representation of the androgynous dress by designers, models constitute an important part of this research by discussing the rise of gender-agnostic models in India. Building on feminist theories by Judith Butler and questioning what is considered natural, the cis gendered female and male bodies are used as representation of a standard to highlight  the gender-neutral body. This study focuses on images of clothes as objects of study through visual & textual analysis. 

Experienced in communication and production within the field of art and fashion, Rhea Saad is an MA graduate in Fashion Studies. Her research is mainly focused on the multiple intersections between material culture, memory, identity and the body as well as heritage, and finally challenging the hegemonic history. This exploration is a passionate process through which she emphasizes on the importance of engaging with archival material in order to make sense and innovate the performance of the present.  

Building upon exploring the social role of photographic studios, the aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of portrait photography in relation to representation and identity formation within the space of a photographic studio, during the Lebanese golden age (from the 1950s till the mid-1970s). By taking as a case study Studio Shehrazade, a commercial photographic studio located in the South of Lebanon to anchor my research, I am particularly interested in exploring the ways in which Lebanese living in Saida experimented with photography as means of defining new social identities. It explores the representations of both men and women in photographs, not only drawing from gender expressions, but also experimenting with identities from different social classes and geographic places, through the practice of self-fashioning.

This research investigates the performative role of studio photography, in the imaging of self as other. It examines performance and theatricality that work to shatter fixed identities, using the body as modality of freedom. As I argue, the way visitors decide how to dress and stage their bodies, may be interpreted as gestures of empowerment; animating their personal autonomy and becoming through their playful experimental transformations and celebrations of their personal multiplicity. In this sense, by seeking a liberating dissolution of fixed identities, we can understand the primary function of performance as revelatory. The photographic portraits that I will bring forth throughout this research contain images of both men and women engaging with the representation of their own selves using their bodies as a medium to construct new meanings; which call out our very identities into question.

Noyonika Sircar, fashion writer and enthusiast.

Fashion is an integral part of culture and is a tool of communication. Malcolm Barnard, in Fashion as Communication, challenged fashion for being a language of communication, challenged the notion of fashion as superfluous by introducing and explaining fashion and clothes as cultural phenomena.[1] However, in 2020, the pandemic has charged the new channels of digital communication like Instagram and Twitter to open spaces of negotiation and discussion. By gathering an audience of industrialized consumer society and with the rise of image sharing, the digital surge has added another layer of meaning to everyday life, encouraging social realities to construct from online experiences.In terms of fashion, the industry has paused to rethink. Churning creativity from the chaos and missteps, underpinning the significance of ‘staying at home’ and ‘staying together’,fashion has addressed the difficulty of these unprecedented situations, either in solidarity of the time or to evoke a mediated reaction.

By capitalizing on the adversaries of the Covid crisis, fashion has successfully commodified the social turbulence, adopting a political stance. This thesis explores the blurred lines of fashionable politics with two case studies, considering the aftermath of production of the images in Vogue Portugal and Vogue Italia in April 2020. Both magazines represent the Coronavirus pandemic offering a visual commentary on the crisis. For the April 2020 issue, the magazines represented the relevant spectacle of the times, rather than their popular generic top-fashion imagery. Vogue Portugal, like its other issues, decided to highlight the new element of today, ‘the mask’ commenting on the paradoxes of our new day-to-day life, depicted by a couple kissing wearing face masks under the title ‘freedom on hold’.Vogue Italia, at the very last moment decided to release a white cover because white represents rebirth and respect for the health care workers, in solidarity with the challenging times.

To understand the political turn of fashion during the pandemic, I base my research on digital platforms, Instagram, of Vogue Portugal and Vogue Italia since the images were released there before they appeared in print. By examining how audiences make sense of these images, this research critically analyzes the meaningful space between fashion and politics through two national editions of Vogue.

[1] Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén (2020) Exploring Fashion as Communication: The Search for a new fashion history against the grain, Popular Communication, 18:4, 249-258

Violet completed her undergraduate degree in Finance and her thesis project focused on the spread of fashion among communities of young adults on social media app TikTok.

This thesis explores the #tryingdifferentaesthetics trend on social media platform TikTok, a video-based entertainment app which caters to young adults. By examining the trend, in which young users, mainly women, create a series of videos where they dress in the styles of popular “aesthetics,” this thesis examines online self-presentation through the concepts affect theory and post modernism to examine the relation of the videos to time, gender, and identity. TikTok, which functions based off an algorithm, encourages users to create close-knit groups around shared values and identities, and the performance of this trend functions as a form of self-categorization for the users who participate, often in an attempt to find their own individual styles while connecting with other users who identify with these “aesthetics”. Through digital ethnography, this thesis contributes to the recent addition of academic research on the platform TikTok, and youth culture, gender, and identity formation in a highly digital world.

Ilaria Trame is a second-year Master student in Fashion Studies at Parsons Paris / The New School, interested mainly in the field of archival research. She previously graduated from IUAV University of Venice with a Bachelor Degree in Fashion Design. She is currently undertaking her postgraduate thesis regarding the topic of fashion libraries and archives in order to explore the relevance of fashion documentation and printed matter in the field of fashion research nowadays.

This thesis will explore the multiple identities of a fashion library. It investigates the possible natures of a fashion library by analysing the heterogeneous materials that can be part of its collection as well as the history of certain selected cases that have never been studied and that participate in an unwritten history of fashion libraries at large. By acknowledging the ontological characteristics in the structure of a fashion library and showcasing the wide range of differences and similarities in materials that a library can archive, I here show and contextualise the contemporary emergence of a trend in discoursing and rethinking fashion libraries and the re-evaluation of this genre.

The thesis explores three case studies that will serve as a means to map the different types of libraries: the library of Palais Galliera Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, the library of RareBooksParis and the International Library of Fashion Research in Oslo. Using interviews and field notes as my primary sources, I show how each library corresponds to: an example of a research centre connected to the institution of a museum; a private archive that lies between its physicality and the digital realm, strongly connected to its owner and the memories he has about the materials; finally, an attempt to make of a private collection a public treasure in a quest to build an international library of contemporary fashion printed matters.

This thesis not only maps the differences and similarities between fashion libraries but aims to further highlight their importance in researching, archiving and also inserting a history of fashion libraries within fashion history and the history of institutions at large.

Jiaxuan Wu, from China, was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in International Communications from the University of Nottingham, and a Master’s degree in Film Exhibition and Curation from the University of Edinburgh. She is currently in the MA Fashion Studies program at Parsons Paris and working on the topic of “Chinese ancient costumes and identity construction” in her thesis.

This thesis discusses how the ancient costume in Chinese moving image productions still shows their influence on multiple layers of identity construction in the 21st century. Ancient costume refers to all performance costumes media products whose storyline takes place before or during the Qing dynasty, which was the last feudal dynasty and collapsed in 1912. Structured in three analytical chapters, this thesis discusses the role of costume in the identity construction in a coherent and progressively expanded space: that of the artistically manipulated characters within the cinematic space; that of the costume designers who contribute to the shaping of roles in filmmaking space; and that of the broader audiences who cosplay as a Chinese people in the actual social space nationally and internationally. The conclusion links the three sections into a single narrative progression, summarising how contemporary Chinese people individualise differential expression based on imagining themselves as a collective national community by identifying the consensual cultural elements carried by costumes.

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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I am an artist and designer from the United States. My work takes inspiration from archiving, memory, and taste regimes. The installation, In defense of 77 sunsets, features antiquated projections and prints of sunsets in order to explore the cultural values associated with such images. How does the ephemeral beauty and nostalgia of sunsets experienced in person deviate from the consumption of such images?  When does the experience become kitsch and in bad taste? The piece questions whether kitsch begins in the camera roll, in the mass production of images, or in the accessibility of their beauty.

I work in graphic design and creative direction. My commercial work is about problem-solving and creating brand identities, while my creative projects aim to communicate the perspectives of people from different demographics and make their individual experiences collective. A recreated Ikea showroom becomes an environment informing/ advocating knowledge of shared methods of contraception. This setting not only facilitates exchanges between couples who share a home but closes the knowledge gap of gender-based responsibility for contraception.

I am a Colombian artist whose works explore current social, political and environmental issues. I G N I S /1 of 4 highlights the destruction of our planet through the abuse of the element of fire, particularly within the Colombian Amazon Rainforest which is at a tipping point. By surrounding viewers with floating decaying life, the work unveils how communities unwillingly create malignant fires that affect climate change, deforestation and the environment. By exposing how this invisible flame keeps growing, this piece sparks a change of perspective and behavior for the betterment of our planet and future generations.

I am an Indian multimedia artist interested in themes of displacement, ecology, home, and spirituality. Remembering a body/a mud bath brings together elements from my home country in an effort to recall a liminal healing experience that soothed feelings of anguish and desperation caused by homesickness, displacement, and detachment from the natural and from the self. Coming from a place of unexplained sadness, my work craves to dig, examine, and ultimately engage in constant introspection.

I am an artist and designer working in graphic design, multimedia and illustration. She is interested in visual non-verbal communication strategies. Her project Hollywood, the Global South isn’t yellow! explores how developing nations are depicted within American pop culture film and media. The project highlights how the yellow color filter used by filmmakers transmits negative connotations that reinforce racial and cultural biases and stereotypes about developing countries. These negative representations of the Global South are contrasted with the actuality of their colorful and vivid cultures and landscapes.

I am a Polish artist and designer, currently living in Paris. As a multidisciplinary creative, I explore the themes of spirituality, ancestry, and femininity. She, Who Knows is inspired by my Polish roots, Slavic paganism, and the need to spiritually connect with primal forces of nature. The final piece is a documentation of the performance during which the wreath is weaved and then worn, inspired by the Pagan rites.

I am a multidisciplinary artist exploring the female body and its complexity. Over the past years, I have extensively studied the female form, often also using my own body as a medium of artistic expression. The political situation in my home country, Poland, has also contributed towards my strong interest in the notion of feminism, inspiring me to explore the hardships of being a woman in the 21st century. My project DIY: LOCKDOWN WONDERLAND is an interactive installation archiving TikTok trends which during the outbreak of Covid19 became an escape from the traumatic reality shifting the uncertainty and mundanity of day to day life into the possibility of slowing down and focusing on self-care.

I am a multidisciplinary artist who uses introspective narratives to find common ground and cultivate connections with my audience. My thesis piece, Aunt Maude’s Economical Boiled Fruit Cake, creates a sensory experience with food-scented candles to trigger sensory encoded memories in order to temporarily relieve homesickness. It highlights how food reveals many things about the personal and cultural identity of the person eating it, and the role sensory stimulation has in treating dementia.

I am an Italian graphic designer with an interest in fashion, entertainment and editorial design. My thesis project, The Songwriting Café, treats song lyrics as literature. Through a series of literary analysis of song lyrics done by the songwriters, it illustrates the importance of the song’s message, as well as the role of words in the emotional power of a song. The game series, Song or Poem, emphasizes the similarities in form and content of the two art forms.

my attempts to understand the discomfort of a corporeal existence is the blueprint to many of their multimedia works. led by the feeling of belonging while being in water, and of loss when far from it, mother, swallow me is a multi-part performance installation that calls attention to our need to be closer to our origins, nature and water, in a highly digitized landscape. my vulnerability is an invitation to unlearn internalized rigid constructs and accept fluidity. 

I am a passionate individual who values an ethical way of living. I am a creative thinker and visual person with expertise in communications. 

My interest and experience in the beauty industry has led to the development of Cleanse, an elevated and carefully curated clean beauty city guide that brings together boutiques, salons, and wellness spots that operate sustainably and ethically. Cleanse would supervise and conduct selected beauty spots around the city with background checks for various certifications before partnering with the brands.

I am a highly motivated strategic designer with a particular focus on creativity and visual communication. 

My capstone project explores the issues of poor mental health among Lebanese civilians as a result of the Beirut blast of August 4, 2020, and other local challenges related to the current socio-economic crisis.

NASMA is a social business committed to bettering the mental well-being of the people of Lebanon, collectively and one step at a time - through the implementation of a social business model that features advocacy activities, along with the implementation of a digital mental health service, with the aim to restore hope and resilience among civilians.

A Brazilian American living in Paris, I am a design thinker focused on fields that combine social justice and creative business. I am currently working as a digital sustainability and social impact intern at The Dematerialised, exploring the ethical future of NFTs. 

CIDADE is a journalism alliance and platform run on blockchain technology that sets new standards for the news industry. With the goal of combating fake news, CIDADE re-establishes trust between mainstream media and readers by using smart contracts to transparently authenticate digital journalism. 

I am a curious and highly motivated designer with a strong creative and artistic sensibility. 

Based on my experiences in the fashion industry and my interest in digital solutions and emerging designers, I developed an e-commerce platform for the sole purpose of assisting emerging and new fashion designers in their efforts to establish and grow their brand through visibility, digital presence, sales, and brand recognition. The platform allows emerging designers to showcase their brand and sell their products in an elevated and luxurious way. The platform aims to be the go-to place for consumers searching for new and exciting brands in the fashion industry.

I am an American student interested in exercising the creative and analytical skill set acquired at both the New York City and Paris campuses.

Inspired by my own consumption habits, my solution to promote plant-based food products with the goal of spreading awareness of the environmental impact of animal agriculture is to create a food truck service, Sprouted, that collaborates with vegan restaurants in Chicago to bring sustainable foods to all neighborhoods using a “pay as you wish” business model.

I am open-minded, passionate about art, and dedicated to everything she does. My main interest is product design. I recently worked for La Bottega del Fiocco in Limone Piemonte, Italy, for which I designed skiing equipment. 

I noticed that Italian parents of my generation have difficulties in emotionally connecting with their babies. I decided to create Prima Premura, an app that acts as a guide for young Italian parents and helps them increase their emotional intelligence. 

Originally from Lebanon and raised in Kuwait, I am a driven individual who is inspired by my curiosity and willingness to explore and learn new things.

Passionate about health, I developed a podcast, Vitali, with the aim of increasing health literacy rates among people ages 60 and over, enabling them to better understand healthcare and make informed health decisions. Episodes will feature professionals discussing different healthcare topics and people sharing their healthcare struggles. Vitali’s e-commerce platform offers self-care products and guides for applying the healthful practices shared on the podcast.

A Lebanese expat raised in Kuwait and currently residing in Paris, I am a highly motivated individual who is pursuing engaging life experiences and creative endeavors.

Inspired by my passion for fitness and health and building on my active lifestyle, I founded Crickotein. Crickotein is a sustainable coffee brand that incorporates next-generation protein to provide consumers with the dual benefits of protein’s nutritional value and the stimulating, antioxidant properties of caffeine. Cricktotein allows consumers to attain maximal energy levels while living hectic lifestyles.

Originally from Warsaw, Poland, I am a highly motivated, creative individual who is constantly looking for new adventures. My company, Fuselab, aims at changing consumer behavior by offering a free sustainability rating chrome extension. Fuselab uses consumer data to provide industry with valuable insights in the form of a monthly subscription service. The main audience is companies that are not performing well in terms of sustainability as well as start-ups offering innovative textiles that want to know which brands to target.

The HCF is an art impact fund that works directly with the graduate sculptors, painters, and photographers of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. HCF is a venture capital fund that offers creators financing for art projects, financial management education, and communication. The fund functions with the goal of generating positive social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. The priority of the fund and its investors is to help Hungarian artists receive the creative and industry recognition they deserve and set the stage for international acknowledgement.

I grew up in Toronto, surrounded by creativity. Food is a huge part of my life, and being in the kitchen inspired the Cilantro Project. I created the project out of frustration at the large amount of plastic food packaging that ends up in landfills. The Cilantro Project promotes the use of fruit leathers in the fashion industry and reimagines the materials used to package fruits and vegetables.

I am a curious and open-minded creative who values storytelling and a strong artistic approach as a means of communicating ideas and creating social impact. My love of world cinema inspired me to create SEANS, a cultural institution that collects, preserves, and shares important Turkish films, with a focus on classic and independent cinema. It aims to make these films available to the public, construct an ongoing archive, and build a strong cinematic culture.

I am a curious and open-minded creative who values storytelling and a strong artistic approach as a means of communicating ideas and creating social impact. My love of world cinema inspired me to create SEANS, a cultural institution that collects, preserves, and shares important Turkish films, with a focus on classic and independent cinema. It aims to make these films available to the public, construct an ongoing archive, and build a strong cinematic culture.

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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