Fashion Remains: Rethinking Fashion Ephemera in the Archive

"Fashion ephemera-from catalogues and invitations to press releases-have long been overlooked by the fashion industry and fashion academics. Fashion Remains redresses the balance, putting these objects centre stage and focusing on the wider creative practice of contemporary fashion designers, photographers, graphic designers, make-up artists and many more. Fashion ephemera are considered not as disposable promotional devices, but as windows into hidden networks of collaboration and value creation in the fashion system. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Fashion Remains explores the unseen and privately circulated fashion ephemera produced by today's most prominent international fashion designers such as Margiela, Yamamoto and Raf Simons. Showcasing a unique archive of materials, it focuses on Antwerp's avant-garde fashion scene and reveals the potential of these ephemeral objects to evoke and call into question material and immaterial knowledge about the fashion industry's actors, practices and ideologies"-- Provided by publisher Cover Contents List of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Exploring fashion ephemera Self-reflexive fashion discourses Fashion and ephemeralism Rethinking the ephemera in the archive The implied beholder: Reading, looking and touching Fashion remains 1 Authorial networks Matters of signature: From authenticity to intimacy Authorial bodies and stories Authorizing visible and invisible voices Multiple authors Aesthetic and disciplinary dialogues Keeping and expanding authorship Blurring fashion authorities Authorial networks 2 Performances of time One ephemera, multiple events Between disappearance and permanence The look moment Show(ing) time, fiction and montage The liveness of the show Show mediatization Allusive fragments Performances of imagination 3 Poetic transformations A ménage à trois Haptic fashion images Material animations The sense of fabric Point of touch Paratexts and touching concepts Poetic transformations Conclusions – Fashion remains Between material and immaterial From inform to perform The archive and the agency of ephemera ‘Ways of operating’ of fashion ephemera Ambivalent knowledge Future remains and the economy of the live Notes Select Bibliography Index Fashion ephemera-from catalogues and invitations to press releases-have long been overlooked by the fashion industry and fashion academics. This book redresses the balance, putting these objects centre stage and focusing on the wider creative practice of contemporary fashion designers, photographers, graphic designers, make-up artists, and many more. Fashion ephemera are considered not as disposable promotional devices, but as windows into hidden networks of collaboration and value creation in the fashion system. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Fashion Remains explores the unseen and privately circulated fashion ephemera produced by today's most prominent international fashion designers such as Margiela, Yamamoto, and Raf Simons. Showcasing a unique archive of materials, it focuses on Antwerp's avant-garde fashion scene and reveals the potential of these ephemeral objects to evoke and call into question material and immaterial knowledge about the fashion industry's actors, practices and ideologies Acknowledgments Introduction CHAPTER 1 ? AUTHORIAL NETWORKS -- Matters of Signatures: from Authenticity to Intimacy Authorial Bodies and Stories Authorizing Visible and Invisible Voices Multiple Authors Aesthetic and Disciplinary Dialogues Keeping and Expanding Authorship Blurring Fashion Authorities Authorial Networks CHAPTER 2 ? PERFOMANCES OF TIME One Ephemera, Multiple Events Between Disappearance and Permanence The Look Moment Show(ing) Time The Liveness of the Show Show Mediatization Allusive Fragments Performances of Imagination CHAPTER 3 ? POETIC TRANSFORMATIONS A Mňage à Trois Haptic Fashion Images Material Animations The Sense of Fabric Point of Touch Paratexts and Touching Concepts Poetics Transformations Conclusions Bibliography Index "This book focuses on contemporary fashion ephemera like catalogs, invitations, and press releases, to explore an overlooked aspect of creativity in fashion"--