ABOUT THIS BOOK

On theory and method in the changing field of fashion studies.

At a point when fashion studies are expanding and the fashion industry is at a crucial point of change, Fashion Knowledge makes a valuable contribution to the field. The book explores current issues in fashion research, with a focus on the relationship between theory and practice. This edited collection assembles academic essays and intellectual activism next to visual essays and artistic interventions, proposing a different concept for fashion research that eschews the traditional logic of academic fashion studies. It features acclaimed designers, artists, curators, and theorists whose work investigates the multi-faceted debates on the rise of practice-based research in fashion. Contributors look at new forms of fashion knowledge that are forming along with shifting practices, shedding light on the entanglement of fashion and politics in both contemporary and historical moments.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Elke Gaugele is a cultural anthropologist and professor of fashion, styles, and contextual design at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Monica Titton is a sociologist, fashion theorist, and senior scientist in the Department of Fashion Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

REVIEWS

"Fashion Knowledge offers a variety of thought-provoking methods and practices for critical interrogations. Two of the high points of the volume address decolonization: the first thinking through historical research and the second with a distinctly contemporary bend. [...] Gaugele, Titton and their contributors demonstrate that research methods are helpful to challenge existing ways of knowing and can be used to questioning historic structures and developing more equitable practices. [...] This is a thoughtful collection and critical intervention into research methods that is much needed. Gaugele and Titton should be lauded for pulling together these diverse voices, perspectives and efforts at decolonizing and democratizing fashion research. This volume is a welcomed step forward in the growing area of fashion studies and certainly has the potential to shift contemporary critical practices."

— Myles Ethan Lascity, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: The Politics of Fashion Knowledge between Practice and Theory 1

Elke Gaugele and Monica Titton

PART I: FASHION KNOWLEDGE 13

1. The Transformative Power of Practice-Based Fashion Research 15

José Teunissen

2. Theory as Practice: Notes on the Sociology of a Practice-Based Fashion Theory 27

Monica Titton

3. Ornamental Politics and Assembled Textures of Artistic Research: The Project kotomisi: un-inform by knowbotiq 36

Elke Bippus

4. Fashion Ontology: Researching the Possibilities for Knowing through an Expanded Fashion Practice 53

Lara Torres

5. DISCOURSE, Cruise 2020 70

Maria Ziegelböck

PART II: REFLECTIONS ON FASHION AS PRACTICE 79

6. Notes on Fashion Practice as Research: Episodes of Conversation Pieces 81

Ruby Hoette

7. Work with the Existing: Be Realistic 91

NCCFN

8. The Empress’s New Clothes, or How One Makes Fashion (or Doesn’t) 96

Wally Salner (translated by Travis Lehtonen)

9. Skin Host and Heavenly Visitor 106

Priska Morger (Prof. PriskAMORger)

PART III: SITES OF FASHION AND POLITICS 111

10. T-shirt Matters 113

Carol Tulloch

11. DEAD WHITE MEN’S CLOTHES 136

Jojo Gronostay with an introduction by Elke Gaugele

12. Fashion Politics: Dressing Segregation and Distinction 143

Andreas Spiegl

13. Early- Modern Fashion Knowledge and the Western Politics of Science 150

Elke Gaugele

Notes on Contributors 163