Opposition to Fashion

Opposition to fashion can take many forms. Above the Big Lebowski bathrobe is a simple disinterest in adornment or to unite or separate. Other types of opposition include opposition to Western aesthetics that dominate the fashion industry, opposition to the forms of fashion as fixed, and oppositions to the rules of the fashion industry evident in counterfeiting.Speak to the children of Israel and say to them they should make themselves tzitzit on the corners of their clothing throughout their generations, and give the tzitzit of each corner a thread of blue. And they shall be tzitzit for you, and when you look at them you will remember all of...

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Nudity & Power in Fashion Editorials

by Bianca Murillo �What I find interesting is working in a society with certain taboos - and fashion photography is about that kind of society. To have taboos, then to get around them - that's interesting� said controversial fashion photographer Helmut Newton (Benfey). Nudity in fashion editorials is often a point of controversy because it does just that�attempts to traverse social taboos resulting in an interesting set of power dynamics to explore. Nudity in fashion images possesses power in that its use captures attention by contesting norms and serving as a platform for social critique. Through breaking from the ordinary the use of...

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Case Study: Paris Store Windows and the Power of Display

By Sydney KipenAs a complex and integral part of the modern world, fashion plays an influential role in society, portraying one�s position, both privately and publically. The store window serves to demonstrate the function of fashion to the public in a manner recreating certain idealized views of society. The different types of stores that exist in our consumer-based society each display different extents of power in their windows, and either retain that power to communicate their message, or give the power to their audience to interpret. Thus it is important to determine who has the power in the outlet of display: the window or the audience?...

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The Ethics of Counterfeiting in the Fashion Industry: Quality, Credence and Profit Issues by Brian Hilton, Chong Ju Choi, and Stephen Chen

Chelsea TurnerThe Ethics of Counterfeiting in the Fashion Industry: Quality, Credence and Profit Issues by Brian Hilton, Chong Ju Choi, and Stephen Chen focuses on great problem in the fashion industry: the issue of counterfeiting and the ethical issues that are raised by it. The authors delve into the issue that the problem may lie in the industry itself, meaning that it is the fashion houses that may need to change in order to solve the issue. According to the International Chamber of Commerce, seven percent of world trade is in counterfeit goods, and that the counterfeit market is worth $350 billion. Part of this is due to the difficulty that...

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"The Islamic Factor" by Nicholas Coleridge

by Zo-Ee Chee �The Islamic Factor� is a chapter from the 1988 book entitled �The Fashion Conspiracy� which reveals some of the fashion industry�s most provocative secrets. The author, Nicholas Coleridge, is the Managing Director of Cond� Nast (Vogue, GQ, Glamour etc.) in Britain and oversees the publishing company�s branches in Paris and Mumbai. He has also been a chairman of the PPA (the Magazine Publishers Association) and of the British Fashion Council. Needless to say, Coleridge is an authority on the inner workings of the fashion world.Published just before the Gulf War (1991), the chapter details the importance of the Middle East as a...

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Case Study: Patrick Demarchelier and His Power to Defy the Dominant Hegemony of the Fashion Photograph

By Elleree ErdosFrench fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier has revolutionized fashion photography with his truthful approach to the photograph; by maintaining ties with the tradition of his medium, truth to the apparatus of vision and spontaneity, and continuous engagement with portraits as exposure to emotion, Demarchelier has become an ambassador of truth in the field of fashion photography. His force in the fashion world is in his ability to make this truth acceptable in a field immersed in illusion, introducing his own hegemonic principle of the fashion photograph and implementing it to its full effect. Demarchelier legitimizes his...

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