Researching Fashion: A Multifaceted Approach to Using Primary Sources

Fashion is a complex phenomenon that has become a fertile field of study for academics across disciplines including history, design, anthropology, visual culture, religion, marketing and communication, sociology, business and technologies of production, textiles engineering, craftsmanship, and artisanal entrepreneurship. Given fashion’s ephemeral nature, researchers might be tempted to focus both empirically and theoretically on its material aspects, identifying fashion exclusively or primarily with the area of costume and adornment. However, fashion is a complex phenomenon which should be investigated through a multidisciplinary and multifaceted approach. Values and meanings are attributed to fashion items in the collective imagination and in everyday practices of societies, where people use fashion as a means of expression and representation. Researching fashion can involve a variety of sources, from pictures and sketches to printed and audiovisual media content; from archives and collections of fashion items to books and articles dedicated to fashion culture; and from fabrics to product design. Through merging different sources, students can enhance their understanding of society, evidencing the differences between cultures and subcultures, social classes, gender roles, power discourses, and representations. Consisting of both symbolic and material aspects, fashion tells us the story of our society, its evolution, and the cultural heritage we received from our ancestors. It also allows us to understand the position (and the social mobility) of individuals within what Pierre Bourdieu1 defined as the “fields” of society, where the habitus and specific tastes are very often associated with fashion and symptomatic of individuals’ status and relationships. Having read this case study, students will be aware of the complexity of fashion and will have learned to scrutinize sources beyond their materiality and appearance. Students will also be able to create meaningful connections between different fashion-related languages and topics, evidencing the role of fashion as a central mechanism in forming our society through human history.