Fashion Cultures and Histories – Research Seminar Series

Sophie Kurkdjian (PhD, Assistant Professor, American University of Paris)

Renate Stauss (PhD, Assistant Professor, American University of Paris)

Aims of the seminar series

• To encourage, support, showcase and disseminate fashion research

• To connect academic and applied research cultures – people, work and institutions

• To facilitate an inter-disciplinary and international exchange of research methodologies, resources, findings, and collaborations

• To transform, decentre and de-hierarchise fashion research cultures and narratives

• To heighten the visibility of fashion studies

REGISTER TO ATTEND THIS EVENT: April 21, 18:00 (CET) Edition 2022/2023: Deconstructing Paris Fashion: Towards a De-Hierarchized Narrative

This seminar series aims to deconstruct dominant narratives around “Paris fashion”, to contribute to the re-writing of de-hierarchized and de-centralized fashion histories. To do so, it builds on and brings together seminal research, practices and perspectives. The history of Paris fashion has largely been told as a story of high fashion, of individual creativity and genius, of exclusive and perfect products, glossy images, and the enduring figure of La Parisienne. Fashion here has been largely promoted by media, advertising, and tourism as an essential element of global Western modernity, rooted in the city of Paris. The commercial and cultural narrative of Paris as “world capital of fashion” – as enticing and economically successful as it may have been and still is – has had significant consequences that have not been sufficiently analysed and call for a transdisciplinary critical enquiry.

Check back for more dates.