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Creativity, Craft, Gender and Fashion, Dec 2023
- Editorial
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- Articles
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Gender, fashion, sustainability
More LessThe ability to affect sustainability outcomes is often culturally gendered. This article examines sustainability practices in fashion in the light of core themes in the gender and sustainability literature, drawing upon a re-analysis of a decade-old dataset of resourceful clothing use practices from the Local Wisdom project. In the dataset, evidence is found both of gendered practices and differentiated levels of involvement by gender. The article presents and examines these findings and then extends the discussion to the effects of gendered influence within the field of fashion sustainability more broadly, a field that may often be seen to be gender-blind. The article argues for a new attention to gender and for a re-imagining of the domain based on metabolism and relationship to overcome ideologies and practices based on separation of one group of people from another and of humans from nature.
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Craftivism: An investigation of female critical crafting circles
More LessThe specific relationship of female textile artists and crafters and political engagement has a long history and its social relevance is gaining more and more academic attention these days. At the same time, within recent still trending textile and fashion movements like DIY, Slow Fashion, Slow Crafting and Craftivism, the different sociocultural forms of female crafting circles and communities that have been at the margin of fashion studies under the non-fashionable term of ‘domestic arts’ are also getting more attention. This article explores craft activism, as e.g. the Craftivist Movement, in perspective of future-oriented possibilities and transformational societal and individual outcomes. It investigates several contemporary international female activist groups, their different approaches and relations in historical context. As these can be furthermore understood as relevant regarding not only recent insight on material and thing engagement (Material Engagement Theory) but also psychosomatic research, this article focuses also on the somatic experience: the various and individual inner processes of making within the specific socio-emotional context of shared critical crafting circles. These can be observed out of several perspectives as spaces of solidarity, recharging and peace, and within that contain an underestimated chance for empowerment – not only for women but marginalized groups in general. Simultaneously, critical thinking and making through textile and design, e.g. as observed with the hand stitching Arpilleristas in several countries of Latin America, can function as an approach to process individual and common bearings. Thus, in this context, textile Craftivism can transform into a tool for personal well-being.
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Fashion (hi)stories: Poetics and politics
More LessFashion or ‘fashioning’, is, beyond its dominant perception as a global industry, a cultural practice. As such, it is to be approached from its entanglement with history, art and culture. This article presents an investigation into the 2022 fashion film Horizon Blues by Jeano Edwards for Wales Bonner and examines the creative space of a fashion collection based on artistic collaborations. Starting from the fabric, the film shows how history, meaning and experience are interwoven and connected to the body and sheds a different light on the relationship of art and fashion. Picking up aspects of the different narratives, cultural interrelations and historical dimensions at play within this space, it shows how creating from such a collective knowledge space changes the face of fashion and anchors it differently in space and time. The film is referring in form and content to the various meanings, concepts and maxims attached to Sankofa, an Adinkra symbol linking past and present in the prospect of a different future; and offers an alternative perspective on the ideas of coloniality and sustainability.
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Gender and creativity in fashion practices
By Sandra JägerThis article investigates the dualism of binary/non-binary approaches to gender within fashion through the lens of creative practices and community. It discusses how fashion has a special connection to performativity (Butler and other theories on gender) and deconstruction (Derrida and de Beauvoir), as well as the violence and harassment that gender non-conforming people face. Using the case study of the Fashion Freedom Fest, an annual interactive art exhibition/event in Odense, Denmark, through qualitative observation, this article analyses the ways in which this event represents a way that these conditions of binary norms in fashion can be altered in a safe space through creative and artistic practices, which in turn can either challenge or reinforce binary perceptions of masculinity and femininity within fashion. The goal of this article is not only to re-establish gender theories within fashion but also to argue for a different approach for fashion to deconstruct binary gender norms through creativity.
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Crafting platforms: Student rebellion, gender struggles and collectivism in Danish crafts 1969–77
Authors: Tau Lenskjold, Anders V. Munch and Vibeke RiisbergDuring the 1960s and 1970s, Denmark experienced a significant shift in arts and crafts, driven in particular by younger women. This paper examines how such upheavals took place across different platforms, such as the 1969 student rebellion at the Copenhagen School of Arts and Crafts, the initiation of a collective crafts shop, and the staging of an international feminist art exhibition. Despite challenges posed by patriarchal hierarchies in art and craft, female practitioners, especially in textiles, leveraged these platforms to foster collaborative practices, reshape their status and secure livelihoods. Drawing on archives, interviews and feminist theory, the paper explores tensions between tradition and innovation, focusing on how craft evolved from decorative to critical practice, gaining institutional recognition. These struggles highlight the dynamic intersections of gender, art/craft hierarchies and societal change, offering insights into how Danish studio craft challenged conventions and inspired new frameworks for education, collaboration and feminist expression.
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Bauhaus, gender, creativity and fashion
By Katrina SarkDespite the fact that the Bauhaus school (1919–33) purposely restricted, streamlined and often discriminated against its female students and their creativity, and despite the fact that fashion and clothing were very deliberately excluded from the textile workshop production because the Bauhaus did not want to be associated with women’s crafts, ‘domesticity’ and the ‘frivolity’ of fashion, there are nonetheless several fashion objects that survived and many fashion stories that have not been included in the mainstream Bauhaus narratives and histories. This article investigates the suppressed histories of Bauhaus fashion by tracing the origins and remains of several Bauhaus dresses, as well as by investigating the biographies of former Bauhaus students and teachers who had different careers in several fashion industries (in Paris, Prague, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc.). My investigation revealed just how biased history and historiography can be, how certain (gendered) narratives fall through the cracks and how difficult it is to reconstruct an accurate representation of the multiple narratives that constitute the mythos of the Bauhaus.
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