I work as a customer service representative for an online t-shirt retailer, and one of our shirts has recently become wildly popular after appearing in a hip-hop video. I've been closely following the recent discussions (on ILE and elsewhere) about the "Snowman" and "Stop Snitching" t-shirt controversies, and I've had a long standing interest in apparel as political expression.
A lot of the "fashion theory" readily searchable is primarily about class, gender, and identity in regards to popular women's fashion. I am interested in this part of it, and I would welcome reccommendations towards any good work in this direction. However, are there any legal examinations of clothing / apparel / fashion in regards to political speech?
I know there was a US Supreme Court ruling on this in the 70s -- something about a guy wearing a jacket that said "Fuck the War" in a courthouse -- but I don't remember the name of the case. I'd appreciate it if anyone could remind me of this, or give any sociological / psychological / etc etc critiques of fashion & trends.
― elmo (allocryptic), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 00:57 (twenty years ago)
I've done some research in fashion - it can get pretty huge, quite open to theorizing. Re: legal examinations: I haven't looked at that in particular, so I don't know if there are articles out there that address that directly (I bet there are though - it's interesting.) I'm coming from the cultural studies/communications point of view, which tends to focus on how fashion/clothes "mean" or what they signify - usually involves "language", semiotics, discourse analysis, but also organizational communication and examination of how "the new/the trendy" comes to be (material culture, etc.) Are you going to write a paper or are you just curious about what's been done and want to read about these things?
um, so I actually have a book list (though you'll want to search for more up-to-date articles on yr particular interest, obv), which I'm just gonna post here because hey, why not share?
Barnard, Malcolm. 1996. Fashion as Communication. London and NY: Routledge.
Barthes, Roland. 1983/1967. The Fashion System. Trans. Matthew Ward and Richard Howard. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
Bruzzi, Stella and Church Gibson, Pamela, eds. 2000. Fashion Cultures: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. London: Routledge.
Craik, Jennifer. 1994. The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion. London: Routledge.
Crane, Diana. 2000. Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender and Identity in Clothing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Davis, Fred. 1992. Fashion, Culture and Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Entwistle, Joanne and Wilson, Elizabeth, eds. 2001. Body Dressing. Oxford: Berg.
Hollander, Anne. 1994. Sex and Suits. NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Joseph, Nathan. 1986. Uniforms and Nonuniforms: Communication Through Clothing. NY: Greenwood Press.
Lieberson, Stanley. 2000. A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Lipovetsky, Gilles. 1994. The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy. Trans. Catherine Porter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lurie, Alison. 1981. The Language of Clothes. NY: Random House.
Parkins, Wendy, ed. 2002. Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, Gender and Citizenship. Oxford: Berg.
― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 01:29 (twenty years ago)
That's amazing, robyn, thanks! As to your question, my interests in the subject are personal and (dare I say?) entrepreneurial.
― elmo (allocryptic), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 02:38 (twenty years ago)
four months pass...
rrrobyn -- I didn't remember that this was YOU when we met @ terrastock. it could have been a topic of conversation, and I would have seemed less quiet! your bibiolgraphy has been helpful, tho, to be sure.
― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 4 May 2006 01:37 (twenty years ago)