BA, MA (Trent)
Dissertation: The Fashion Object, Death Dialects, and the Contradiction of Historic Time: A Re-examination of Historicism that Accounts for Fashion's Embodied Practices
Examining Committee:
Suzanne Bailey (Supervisor), Anne Pasek, Emily Bruusgaard
External Examiner: Rebecca Halliday (University of Victoria)
Internal Examiner: Rita Bode
Chair: Joshua Synenko
Abstract
This thesis examines contradictions in approaches to fashion cataloging by considering how the fashion artifact is used as physical evidence for public memory of the past. As a memorial practice and timekeeper, fashion presents a complex cultural understanding of artistic production, aging, and history. How does this understanding of fashion as a cultural index and narrative challenge our knowledge of history and the problems in trying to produce a historical narrative through cloth? Where do we fall short in reconstructions and our understanding of time and aging through the theoretical approaches to fashion and dressing? How do these considerations challenge cultural attitudes toward fashion’s role in helping understand death and aging in the larger cultural lexicon? Addressing the timeliness and death aspect of dress, we allow for a less biased approach to historic fashion that will account for more regional, communal, and individual tastes in dress. This method of inquiry permits a more balanced understanding of dressing ideals across socioeconomic levels regarding garment production and reproduction. Continually addressing the personal in fashion reinforces the unique nature of each garment and its relationship with the body as part of fashion’s corporeal register.
Keywords: Fashion Artifact, Garment Production, Garment Reproduction, Reconstruction, Corporeal,