I. Course Goals

A. History of fashion, emergence of consumer societies, global business
B. Relationship of fashion and consumption to culture and social relations

1. Consumer motivations
2. Fashion standards
3. Gender
4. Global markets: race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, power

 

II. Fashion

A. Latin: "facere," to do, to make
B. Fashion makes us
C. Difference between fashion, taste, style: standards, judgments, expert knowledge
D. Fashion = change over time, associated with N America, W Europe
E. Democratization of fashion

1. Dialogue between society/culture and individual
2. Fashion vs. fashion

F. Recent anthropological claims: other societies have Fashion

 

III. Culture

A. Root: Latin, cultura, from colere "cultivate"
B. High culture
C. Anthropological definition of culture:

English anthropologist Edward B. Tylor, 1871:
"Culture, or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." (Edward B. Tylor. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 vols. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1958. Vol. 1:1).

 

IV. Consumption

A. Economic chain: production, circulation, consumption
B. Production: industrial revolution ==> class structure
C. Circulation: monetary economy threatens social relationships
D. Consumption: using a good or service

1. Engine driving economy over past 70 years
2. Nike example: expand demand through creating new desires and distinctions
3. Consumption tends to rise with income, new needs emerge

 

V. Linking Fashion, Consumption, and Culture

A. Academics dismissed fashion and consumption as frivolous, feminine
B. Experiences of shopping and fashion

1. Pleasurable, self-expression
2. Negative responses, realities of class, income, gender, race
3. Ambivalence

C. Clothing as language with culture shaping the grammar

1. Messages can get garbled
2. Words and usages can change

 

VI. Structure of Course