Read: Luvaas, Street Style, Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (look over quickly, paying attention to photos), Chapters 3-5; Chapter 6 and conclusion are optional, but you should look over the photos.
Miller and Woodward, eds, Global Denim, Chapters 2, 5, 8 (choose one chapter)

1. What is Luvaas' method? How are street style blogs similar to and different from anthropological research?

2. Why does Luvaas see street style as not necessarily democratizing fashion? Provide concrete examples.

3. What are some of the different ways that "the street" is imaged in street style blogs? How do these images relate to gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, age, physique? What, according to Luvaas, do photos say and not say?

4. What is style radar? How does it relate to affect? To Bourdieu's notion of habitus?

5. How does Luvaas's discussion of the business dimensions of street style blogging compare to what Pham described in her analysis of Asian superbloggers' taste work? What does he mean by the term, "serious hobby"? How are bloggers positioned with respect to the fashion industry?

6. How are jeans in Bollywood movies both unremarkable and distinctive? What connections between gender and sexuality are displayed? How does this compare to the Indian dress dilemmas that we saw in Gandhi's day? How do the dynamics compare to Veblen's idea of emulation?

7. Mizrahi argues that the materiality and agency of "Brazilian Jeans" shapes their meanings and usage. How, specifically are clothes, the gendered body, and dance related in her ethnographic account of Funk Balls in Rio?

8. How are class (particularly the idea of "Proll") and subculture debated and expressed through carrot-cut jeans in Berlin? How do the dynamics described by Ege compare to those identified by Hebdige?

For more information, contact:  aleshkow@holycross.edu