Glitch : when fashion fails

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperConference Paper

Abstract

![CDATA[Naomi Campbell tumbling in Vivienne Westwood’s 9-inch high platforms. Catherine Loewe falling four times in Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture. Gigi Hadid tiptoeing down the catwalk after the heel of her shoe broke at Marc Jacob’s Spring 2020 show. The Internet offers no end of models and celebrities suffering ‘wardrobe malfunctions’, revelling in those moments when the coherent image of the fashionable ideal is temporarily broken. At its most basic, the fashionable ideal is the successful combination of body and dress and demonstrates how contemporary bodies are supposed to look and act in clothes. But what happens when that successful combination fails? In this paper, I explore how such glitches challenge the way we read fashion by putting ‘an asterisk of uncertainty’ over what we normally view as a seamless performance (Berlant 2015: 193). At a time when social and political realities are forcing us to rethink and renegotiate our relationship with fashion, I look at how malfunction shifts focus from an abstract ideal to the materiality of bodies and the everyday practice of wearing clothes. In the process of questioning what a fashionable body is, what it can and cannot be, I argue that imperfection, as much as impermanence, is fundamental to fashion’s ongoing creative production.]]
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCritical Fashion Studies Conference, 27-29 February 2020, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne
PublisherUniversity of Melbourne
Pages45-45
Number of pages1
Publication statusPublished - 2020
EventCritical Fashion Studies -
Duration: 1 Jan 2020 → …

Conference

ConferenceCritical Fashion Studies
Period1/01/20 → …

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