NY Street Fashion - NYFashionResearch.com

treet Fashion
NY S
- MAGAZINE -
Multicultural Fashion and Lifestyle
TELFAR:
A Postmodern
Designer
©
Spring 2009 Issue
The Hottest Store
In New York:
Maryam Nassir
Zadeh
How to Spot an
ANIME Fan
Through Fashion
Current and
Upcoming
Exhibitions
And Events
Recommended
Books on
Street Fashion
FREE
1
NY S
treet Fashion
- MAGAZINE ©
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3.
Dear Readers
4.-6.
The Hottest Designer in NY:
TELFAR*
7.
The Hottest Store in NY:
Maryam Nassir Zadeh
8.-10. East Meets West: How to Spot an Anime
Fan through Fashion
11.
Favorite Websites and Blogs
12.-13. Exhibitions and Events
14.
Recommended Books
15.
Fashion-ology
NY Street Fashion Magazine issued by NY Fashion Research
Company
Editor-in-Chief/Publisher: Yuniya Kawamura
Editor: Maya Kawamura
Contributing Writer: Solomon Chase
Contributing Writer: Sarah Fasano
Graphic Designer: Terry Prideaux
Advertising: MK International Ad Agency
Cover Photo: Telfar S/S 2009 Collection by Dom Smith
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FASHION LOVERS !
EDITORS/WRITERS WANTED
We are looking for fashionable people who dress
unique and different. If you would like to be featured in
NY Street Fashion Magazine, send us your photos in
high resolution (300dpi) and a brief profile of yourself
to [email protected]
NY Street Fashion Magazine is seeking a writer who
can interview Japanese designers and industry professionals in Japanese and write articles in English.
Background in fashion and a bachelor’s degree required. Please e-mail your CV to [email protected]
Dear NY Street Fashion Magazine Readers,
Photo by YOYA
We are very pleased to launch the first issue of NY Street Fashion Magazine in English. It is a free multicultural
fashion and lifestyle magazine published quarterly.
The magazine was launched in Spring 2008 in Japanese. Due to the overwhelmingly positive reaction from the
American audience, we decided to publish the magazine in English. The mission of our magazine is to introduce
emerging designers/creators in the New York area.
The most fascinating fashion today comes from the streets and youth subcultures. Our editorial staff walks
around the city of New York to find the coolest and the hippest designers/artists, people, stores and events. For
“The Hottest Designer in NY” column, I interviewed one of the most promising designers in NY, Telfar Clemens,
known as Telfar. He is a designer who rejects any classifications and boundaries that are socially constructed.
This issue also introduces one of the hottest stores in NY, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, and also includes an article
about different ways to spot anime fans through fashion. We provide information about current and upcoming
fashion- and art-related events and exhibitions in the New York Tri-State area.
We hope to make the magazine interactive with our readers so if you LOVE art and fashion and you would like
to be featured in our magazine, e-mail us your artwork or fashion at [email protected]
Comments and questions are also welcome.
Sincerely,
Yuniya (Yuni) Kawamura
Editor-in-Chief/Publisher
Spring 2009 NY Street Fashion Magazine issued quarterly by NY Fashion Research Company
67-71 Yellowstone Blvd, Room#7G, Forest Hills, NY 11375, USA
Our deepest gratitude to those who agreed to be photographed for NY Street Fashion Magazine.
©2009 NY Street Fashion Magazine
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.
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Name: Telfar Clemens
Birthday: January 21, 1985
Born in NY and lived in Liberia,
West Africa until the age of five.
Graduated from Pace University
in NY with a bachelor’s degree in
business. Started his own
collection in 2005.
http://www.telfar.net
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Telfar A/W 2009 Collection
The HOTTEST Designer in NY
TELFAR: A Postmodern Designer
By Yuniya Kawamura
T
elfar Clemens, known simply as Telfar, is one of
the most promising designers in New York. He is
avant-garde. He is postmodern. He understands
that our society is becoming increasingly postmodern.
“Fashion is about today, and I am not interested in
retro or in recreating something that was in trend in
the 1960s or 1970s,” he says.
What is so postmodern about Telfar’s design is that
he attempts to break all existing social categories,
such as sex/gender
or
menswear/
womenswear. In his
Spring/Summer 2009
collection, it is evident
that his clothes are
unisex, and his models
are androgynous. If
a man wears Telfar’s
clothes, it becomes
menswear; if a woman
wears it, it becomes
womenswear…as
simple as that.
Thornstein Veblen, anAmerican sociologist/economist,
in his famous The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
denies the practical and functional elements in fashion,
and this often leads to a discussion on functionality
vs aesthetics. Telfar convincingly integrates the two
dimensions in his design. “My basic philosophy is that
fashion should be wearable and practical, and at the
same time beautiful and fashionable. Things that only
have the aesthetic elements do not interest me at all,”
he explains. He also has his own accessories line
and designs unique accessory items, such as a knee
brace and an arm band brace, each of which has its
distinctive functional components.
During tough economic times, designers often become
less adventurous in their design since taking risks can
be commercially fatal. But Telfar always strives to be
original while seeking to find that is uniquely Telfar. “I
want to create something that’s just mine.”
For his most recent
Fall/Winter
2009
collection, he uses
zippers in a creative
S/S 2009 Collection
way. A jacket and
a skirt or a pair of
pants can either be
zipped and attached to create a one-piece outfit
or unzipped and worn as separate pieces. The
way we categorize various shapes of clothes into
different groups, such as jackets, pants or skirts,
is socially constructed. These classifications and
groupings also need to be destroyed.
S/S 2009 Collection
Telfar first works with an idea or a theme and
then executes it into real clothes with the help
of a patternmaker and a sample maker. He
began making and sewing his own clothes as a child
because he could never find things that he really
wanted or was looking for. His grandmother used to
run a sewing school so he learnt some basic clothesmaking techniques from her.
Accessories Collection
Photos By Dom Smith
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TELFAR
S/S 2009 Collection
S/S 2009 Collection
Accessories Collection
A/W 2009 Collection
Where you can buy Telfar:
S/S 2009 Collection
USA:
Valley at 48 Orchard St, NY
Blue and Green at 8 Greene St, NY
Oak at 208 North 8th St, Brooklyn, NY
Pixie Market at 100 Stanton St, NY
Eva at 227 Mulberry St, NY
Overseas:
N id (DUNE) at 6-14-6, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
2.41.17 at 2-41-17, B1F, Kamimeguro, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan
W-Vision at 5-8 Shinshigai, Kumamoto, Japan
Dumpy Dumbo Dummy at 3-17-5. B-1D, Sakae Naka-ku, Nagoya,
Aichi, Japan
Remedy at 4-634, Furumachi-dori, Niigata, Japan
P.R. Contact:
Kelly Mills at Black and White P.R.
540 Broadway, Suite 309
New York, NY 10002
Tel: 646-290-6863
A/W 2009 Collection
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Mobile: 917-379-2459
[email protected]
Photos By Dom Smith
The HOTTEST Store in NY:
MARYAM NASSIR ZADEH
By Solomon Chase
M
aryam Nassir Zadeh has created a fresh,
eclectic retail environment with her new
namesake boutique in New York’s lower east
side. Zadeh, a former textile designer turned fashion
designer and now store owner, relocated to New York
three years ago from L.A. after closing her successful
fashion line to try her hand at retail. She and her
business partner/fiancé, graphic designer Uday Kak,
think of the store as a lifestyle space that fuses their
fascinations with fashion, art, global culture and
performance. Surrounding the September ‘08 opening,
music and dance events were held in the store where
customers feted amongst clothes, shoes, jewelry,
cacti and
unique
sculptural
finds.
Floor to
ceiling
g l a s s
windows
expose
t h e
interior
of Maryam Nassir Zadeh from the relatively quiet
block of Norfolk St. between Rivington and Delancey.
The gutted space reveals the original architectural
structure, highlighting a beautiful, raw concrete floor,
steel support beams and a central column. Zadeh
sees the venture as more of a concept brand than
a traditional store. They not only sell the clothing
and accessories but the ever changing and carefully
chosen display pieces as well. Opting out of a
traditional merchandising system, Zadeh curates the
open floor space with plants, antique furniture finds,
and textiles found through out the world. She wants
the boutique to have a personal and familiar feeling
while providing rare and refined products. It’s a bit like
visiting someone’s home, purveying their décor and
going through their closets, only you can buy pretty
much everything.
There is a casual, effortlessness about the design and
motley array. The shopper is surprised at every turn
by a Hannah Sander metal-mesh necklace lurking
aside a pile of rocks or blown glass rings hanging
delicately from a
branch. Concrete
organic sculptures
are scattered with
handmade rubber
and metal jewelry
by Elena Estaun
Sanchez.
A
driftwood tabletop
is adorned with
Dieppo Restreppo
unisex oxfords, and a spattering of ultra-cool books and
magazines. Zadeh chooses labels that she believes
in, that have unique perspectives and are wearable,
functional necessities for any closet. The store stocks
New York fashion designers Vena Cava, Ohnetitel, and
Rachel Comey as well as Sweden’s Acne Jeans and
L.A. based Jasmin Shokrian. These pieces are mixed
in with a few worn to perfection vintage t-shirts, one of
a kind Peruvian textile cloaks by Lindsey Thornburg
and a very diverse array of accessories.
Customers come to Maryam Nassir Zadeh when
they’re looking for something special, artistic and
creative. In fact, many of the designers can’t be
found elsewhere yet, a fact that lead Zadeh to open a
showroom beneath the store to represent some of the
newer talent that she has discovered. The boutique
has most recently begun featuring the work of selected
artists across the white brick walls, adding another
component to the diverse approach. Zadeh says the
store is really a “platform to create,” and only part of
the multifaceted Maryam Nassir Zadeh brand that has
many more plans for the future. We can’t wait to see
what happens next.
123 Norfolk St
New York, NY 10002
Tel: 212-673-6405
maryamnassirzadeh.com
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Favorite Websites and Blogs!
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The Sartorialist
www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com
Street Fashion Worldwide
street-fashion.net
It is a phenomenally successful online fashion blog
started in 2006 by Scott Schuman who used to work in
sales and marketing in the high-end women’s designer
collection. The website shares pictures and comments
on men’s and women’s fashion and has over 23,000
page hits daily.
It is a worldwide community with no specific base location and provides emerging designers with the publicity
they need and street fashion lovers with the information they can’t live without. It features listings of stores
and street fashion photos from all over the world.
Fashion in Japan
www.fashioninjapan.com
HOY FASHION
hoyfashion.co.uk
The website provides us with numerous fashion snapshots of Japanese streets and stores. The website
shows the latest fashion trends in Japan. It has over
600 monthly updated pictures of clothing, shoes, bags
and accessories, men and ladies, street fashion, retail
news, fashion leaders, short video, etc.
It is website dedicated to style fashion in the UK. Samantha Toro Paz and Sophie Christian started HOY
FASHION in Liverpool where they both live, and travel
up and down the country stopping people in the street
who have a unique sense of style.
(Compiled By Maya Kawamura)
EAST MEETS WEST
Photos by Maya Kawamura 9
b
How to Spot an ANIME Fan Through Fashion
by Sarah Fasano
Y
ou may remember in 1998 when almost every
child in America was obsessed with Pokemon,
a cartoon from Japan. It was about a ten-yearold boy named Ash
(Satoshi in Japanese)
who traveled with his
friend, Pikachu, in order
to become a Pokemon
Master. What you may
have not known is that
this
cartoon,
along
with other Japanese
hits such as Dragon
Ball Z, Sailor Moon
and Digimon, started
a culture craze called
anime that has swept
the youth in the United
States and around the
world.
“Anime” is a term
referring to a style of
Japanese animation. It
is often based on
manga,
which
are
An anime buff wearing a DeathJapanese
graphic Notemessenger bag with buttons and
novels. Manga and Hello Kitty hair clips and sweatshirt.
anime characters can
be recognized by their large round eyes and big, often
brightly colored, spiky hair. This style of art has made it
easy for other cultures to accept anime. The characters
do not particularly look Japanese, or even Asian for
that matter. The first anime to air on television in the
United States was Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atom) in 1963
on NBC1. Astro Boy was created by Osamu Tezuka,
who is considered to be the father of anime2. He was
inspired by Walt Disney cartoons. After the success of
Astro Boy, Tezuka created Kimba the White Lion (Jungle
Taitei). Many anime buffs believe that Disney stole the
idea of Kimba the White Lion to create The Lion King,
which shares many similarities to the anime. Another
famous anime from the 1960s was Speed Racer (Mach
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Go Go Go), which was recently made into a live action
movie in the United States. Although anime continued
to be shown on American television, it did not reach the
height of its popularity until the 1990s, when channels
such as the WB (now CW11), Fox Five, and Cartoon
Network’s Toonami started to air popular anime titles
that hooked young American audiences.
People like anime for
different reasons. “I
knew I was a fan
of anime when I
first saw Dragon
Ball Z. It looked so
different and the
level of action was
so intense. I knew
that I had to see
more,” says Liza
Torres, the student
representative
of
the FIT (Fashion
Institute
of
Technology)
Anime Club. Other
aficionados
say
An anime fan with her Fruits Basket
that they enjoy the messenger bag adorned with a few buttons.
storylines. They feel
that they are very original, new, and intriguing. Others
adore and are often inspired by the style of art. Being
an anime fan also offers a community in which fans
can come together and make friends. Opportunities
where anime enthusiasts can meet take place at anime
conventions, which thousands of fans attend every year
across the United States. Similar to Star Trek fans (also
known as “Trekkies”), some buffs dress up as their
favorite characters at conventions. These people are
called “cosplayers”. Some cosplayers take their hobby
very seriously. They compete in costume contests and
present skits. The most skilled cosplayers can win
the chance to compete at the annual World Cosplay
Summit in Nagoya, Japan where the best cosplayers
around the world show off their beautiful handmade
A messenger bag depicting art from the popular anime,
Samurai Champloo.
costumes and perform fantastic skits.
Subcultures have a style that allows its members to
identify each other. This is the same for anime fans. The
way enthusiasts can spot each other is through animerelated clothing and accessories. Messenger bags are
very popular. Fans wear messenger bags
displaying the art from their favorite anime
or decorate the bag with buttons that have
pictures of their favorite anime characters on
them. They also wear t-shirts and sweatshirts
that show off their favorite Japanese
shows. Some anime fans wear fleece hats
that have animal ears on them, such as cat
ears, fox ears, and rabbit ears. People usually
wear these hats at anime conventions. But
it is very rare to see someone wearing one
in public. This also goes for cosplay. Anime
fans who don’t wear the clothes usually carry
anime-related key chains, cell phone charms
and wallets.
Many people grow out of their anime
craze after high school or college. People
start to look for jobs and work, so they no
longer have time to watch cartoons or go
to a convention. Some people also feel that
they get too old for anime and slowly stop
watching, and then they move on.
An anime fan decorating her bag with
buttons of characters from her favorite
anime shows and videgame.
Three girls posing in cosplay at Kinokuniya’s Cosplay Day. They are cosplaying
characters from three different anime
series. From left: dresssed as Talho
from Eureka Seven, Akito fro Air Gear,
and Crad from DNAngel. Photo by Keith
Cristol
(photos by Sarah Fasino)
1Marvin, Glenn. Ò Anime on TV History.Ó animeontv.com. Retrieved on March 22, 2009.
http://www.animeontv.com/mg/anime_tv_history.htm. 3/22/09.
2Zagzoug, Marwah.Ò The History of Anime and Manga.Ó novaonline.nv.cc.va.us. Retrieved on March 22, 2009.
http://novaonline.nv.cc.va.us/eli/evans/HIS135/Events/Anime62/Anime62.html.
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Current and Upcoming Exhibitions and Events
NEW YORK
Metropolitan Museum
Bringing together a vast array of dresses
and accessories from the Plains, Plateau,
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd St, NYC 10028
and Great Basin regions of the United
Tel: 212-535-7710
States and Canada, highlights Native
www.metmuseum.org
---The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion women’s identity through traditional dress
and its contemporary evolution.
May 6-Aug 9, 2009
The Museum at FIT
Seventh Avenue at 27 St, NYC 10001
212-217-4560 www.fitnyc.edu
---Seduction
Through June 16, 2009
The Museum at FIT presents Seduction,
the first chronological survey to explore
250 years of sexuality in fashion.
The Museum of American
Illustration
128 East 63rd St, NYC, 10065
Tel: 212-838-2560
www.societyillustrators.org
---The Line of Fashion
Through May 2, 2009
Crow elk-tooth dress, ca. 1890. Montana;
Crow leggings, ca. 1890. Montana; Crow
belt, ca 1900. Montana.
Linda Evangelista in Guess (American,
founded 1981) and Virginia.Vogue Italia, December 1988. Photograph courtesy of by Peter Japan Society
Lindbergh (German, born 1944).
333 East 47th St, NYC, 10017
The exhibition explores the reciprocal
relationship between high fashion and
evolving ideals of beauty, focusing on
iconic fashion models in the latter half
of the 20th century and their roles in
projecting the fashion of their respective
eras.
Tel: 212-832-1155
www.japansociety.org
---Krazy! Delirious World of Anime + Manga
+Video Games
Through June 14, 200
Antonio Lopez (1943-1987) Poster art for
Gianni Versace Unpublished
National Museum of the
American Indian
One Bowling Green, NYC 10004
Tel: 212-514-3700
www.nmai.si.edu
---Identity by Design
Through Sept 27, 2009
Takashi Okazaki. Afro Samurai [film still].
STUDIO GONZO, 2007. © 2006 TAKASHI
OKAZAKI, GONZO / SAMURAI PROJECT.
KRAZY! is New York’s first major show
dedicated to the Japanese phenomenon
of Anime, Manga, and Video Games—
three forms of contemporary visual art
that are exercising a huge influence on an
entire generation of American youth.
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This exhibit pays tribute to the world’s
most highly regarded fashion illustrators
featuring works by Antonio Lopez,
Kenneth Paul Block and Joe Eula to
name a few.
The Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238
Tel: 718-638-5000
www.brooklynmuseum.org
---From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist
Jewelry of Arthur Smith
Through July 19, 2009
MARYLAND
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218
Tel: 410-396-7100
www.artbma.org
---Baltimore Album Quilts Revisited
Through Aug 23, 2009
NEW JERSEY
Newark Museum
PENNSYLVANIA
Allentown Art Museum
31 North Fifth St, Allentown, PA 18101
Tel: 610-432-4333
www.allentownart.org
---Fashion in Film: Period Costumes for the
Screen
May 17-Aug 9, 2009
49 Washington St, Newark, NJ 07102
Tel: 973-596-6550
www.newarkmuseum.org
---Glass Beads of Ghana
Through March 21, 2010.
Model wearing Art Smith’s “Modern
Cuff” Bracelet, circa 1948
This exhibition honors the gift of twentyone pieces of silver and gold jewelry
created by the Brooklyn-reared modernist
jeweler Arthur Smith (1917–1982).
American Folk Art Museum
21 Lincoln Square, NYC, 10019
Tel: 212-595-9533
www.folkartmuseum.org
---Textural Rhythms: Constructing the Jazz
Tradition
Contemporary African American Quilts
Woman dressed for dipo, a ceremony
Through Aug 23, 2009.
celebrating coming of age, January 2005,
Akosambo Ghana, photo by Christa Clarke,
Collection of The Newark Museum
Janet Patterson- Evening dress of gold
lamé overlaid with black and gold net worn
by Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer in The
Portrait of a Lady. Photo by Mark Thomas
Photography, London, England
It showcases 36 period costumes worn by
these and other high-profile celebrities in
film classics known to all.
The exhibition focuses primarily on the WASHINGTON D.C.
contemporary creation and use of glass The Textile Museum
beads in southern Ghana, with an 2320 S Street NW, Washington D.C. 20008
emphasis on recent innovations.
Tel: 202- 667-0441
www.textilemuseum.org
---Constructed Color: Amish Quits
Through Sept 6, 2009
*Texts and photos are taken from the
respective press releases and websites.
(Compiled By Maya Kawamura)
By Liz Pemberton, Tobyhanna, PA 2006.
Appliqued and hand-quilted cotton with beads
and feathers. Photo by Robert Geisler.
This exhibition steps into this discourse
with a focus on quilts inspired by jazz
music. The sixty-four textiles, divided into
two presentations, illustrate a broad range
of techniques/inspirations and examine
the importance of faith in the work of the
artists.
13
Recommended Books on Street Fashion
New York Look Book
(Melcher Media 2007)
By Amy Larocca and Jake Chessom.
The book gives an overview of how real New Yorkers dress on the streets. There are
over 200 pictures of New Yorkers of different ages, races, occupation, and gender, all
dressed in their own unique ways. The editors interviewed each one of them about their
clothes and fashion.
Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook
(Chronicle Books 2007)
By Izumi Evers, Patrick Macias and Kazumi Nonaka.
The handbook has lots of cute and colorful illustrations and pictures of Japanese girls, It
traces a history of the Japanese teen fashion trends from Shibuya’s Ganguro to Harajuku’s Gothic Lolita among many other Japanese subcultures. If you don’t know anything
about Japanese youth fashion, you’ll be hooked once you see this book!
Street Fashion Parade Volume 1: Graphics, Fashion, People, ArtÉi
(Happy Books 2006)
n the Street
By Fabio Caleffi, Marco Papazzoni and Paola Turcato.
As Paola Turcato writes in Introduction, street fashion is ”a rich kaleidoscope of visual
and aesthetic stimuli, a sum of ideas, proposals, and suggestions joined together by
a precise and diligent graphic research”. With over 2000 pictures of T-shirt and street
graphic from all over the world, graphic designers can use it as a reference guide.
Street: The Nylon Book of Global Style
(Universe 2006)
By Editors of Nylon Magazine.
It is a photography book compiled by Nylon, a popular monthly street fashion magazine.
It gives a global look on street fashion in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Melbourne,
Copenhagen and Berlin. It captures some of the best street styles around the globe.
Whether you think each city has distinctive street fashion or not is for you to judge.
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(Compiled By Maya Kawamura)
Fashion-ology
Polhemus (1994, 1996) emphasized the association of
fashion with an ideology of social change, and a situation
in which change is also possible and desirable. In some
societies where the dominant ideology is antipathetic to
social change and progress, fashion cannot exist. Why
does fashion change? One simplistic common view today
is that fashion is the result of a conspiracy on the part of
makers of clothes to make us spend more money, and
that it is designers, clothing manufacturers and business
people who impose new fashions in order to stimulate the
market and increase their trade. This may be an economic
explanation but not a sociological one. The building of
fashion cultures does not depend on the amount of money
that consumers spend on clothing. I argue that a fashion
system supports stylistic changes in fashion. The system
provides the means whereby fashion change continually
takes place.
W
hat exactly is fashion? It is difficult to give an
exact definition of fashion because the word has
had different connotations throughout history;
the meaning and significance of the word have changed
to suit the social customs and clothing habits of people in
different social structures. When fashion is treated as an
item of clothing that has added value in a material sense,
it confuses the notion of fashion. Fashion does provide
extra added values to clothing, but the additional elements
exist only in people’s imaginations and beliefs. Fashion is
not visual clothing but is the invisible elements included
in clothing. Brenninkmeyer (1963) defined fashion as a
prevailing usage of dress adopted in society for the time
being. It is the result of the acceptance of certain cultural
values, all of which are open to relatively rapid influences
of change. Fashion as a concept signifies additional and
alluring values attached to clothing, which are enticing to
consumers of ‘fashion.’
Finkelstein (1996) accurately points out that consumers
imagine they are acquiring these added values when they are
purchasing ‘fashionable’ items. Similarly, Bell (1976[1947])
argues persuasively that fashion is the essential virtue
in a garment without which its intrinsic values can hardly
be perceived; fashion encompasses the value added to
clothing. However, these writers do not determine what
precisely these values are. For instance, Paris as a brand is
definitely one of the values, but scholars neglect to provide
evidence as to how that value was produced.
No matter which time period in history one is talking about,
the definite essence of fashion is change. The fashion
process explains the diversity and changes of styles.
Novelty is also included as a crucial part of fashion, and it
is highly valued in fashion. Koenig refers to ardent fashion
followers as ‘neophilia’ (1973: 77) stating that humankind
receptiveness for anything new is, among many other
aspects, in some way essential to fashion-oriented behavior
(Koenig 1973: 76). Similarly, Barthes correlates fashion
to newness as follows: ‘Fashion doubtless belongs to all
the phenomena of neomania which probably appeared in
our civilization with the birth of capitalism: in an entirely
institutional manner, the new is a purchased value’ (1967:
300).
Change and novelty are two of the characteristics that
fashion encompasses. Fashion-ology makes an attempt
to explain how institutions encourage and control these
changes in style on a regular basis which simultaneously
creates novelty. Contents of fashion, that is clothing, are
constantly changing, but fashion as a form always remains
in fashion cities.
(Excerpt from Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies (Berg 2005)by
Yuniya Kawamura)
References:
Barthes, Roland (1967), The Fashion System, translated by M. Ward and R.
Howard, NY: Hill and Wang.
Bell, Quentin (1976[1947]), On Human Finery, London: Hogarth Press.
Brenninkmeyer, Ingrid (1963), The Sociology of Fashion, Kšl n-Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Finkelstein, Joanne (1996), After a Fashion, Carlton, Australia: Melbourne
University Press.
Koenig, Renee (1973), The Restless Image:A Sociology of Fashion, translated by
F. Bradley, London: George, Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Polhemus, Ted (1996), Style Surfing, London: Thames and Hudson.
About the Author
Yuniya Kawamura, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Fashion
Institute of Technology.
No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in
writing from the author and the publisher.
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