Fashioning Identity: Status Ambivalence in Contemporary Fashion (Dress and Fashion Research)

We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media, and real-time fashion mediation, complicating the basic dynamic of identity displays, and creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption, by examining a diverse series of case studies - from ninety-year old fashion icons to the paradoxical rebellion in “normcore”, and from soccer jerseys in Kenya to heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body, and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis’ seminal concept of “identity ambivalence” in Fashion, Culture, and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of “status ambivalence”, in which fashioning one’s own identity has become increasingly complicated. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments 1 Introduction: Status Ambivalence And Fashion Flows Politics of appearance Dressing the part Sartorial dialectic of identity Fashion flows Vertical flow Horizontal flow Upward flow Scattered flow Fashioning identity Chapter outlines 2 Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Fashion And Time The ambiguous now Between dowdy and hideous Style revivals Old fashion Forever after 3 Perfectly Wrong Taxonomy of age Corporeal patina Logic of wrong Senior moment Staged ageing Age ambiguity Conspicuous poverty Radical permanence 4 Copy Chic And The Ambivalent Original Modes of copying Fashion IPR ‘Tis the season The Chinatown tote Copy chic? 5 Sartorial Shrugs And Other Fashion Understatements Sartorial shrugs Inconspicuous consumption Fashionable displays of the ordinary Deliberate lagging Staged casualness The fashion nun Biological capital Fashioned bodies Raw beauty Lazy chic Identity assemblage 6 Not So Fast Fashion: The New Perseverance The new speed of fashion? Gradual change Spot on Forever new Beyond saturation? Fashionable implications 7 The Devil’s Playground: Fashion And Subcultural Identity Metal visual culture The T-​shirt Fashion and subculture Subcultural persistence The band T-​shirt Copenhellsters vs. Copenhipsters Mass-​niche Multigenerational subcultures Humor and inverted snobbery Next step for fashioning subcultural identity 8 Trans-​Global Narratives “B” is for ball Soccer history Cultural exchange World dress The soccer jersey as fashion Fashioning goals “Welcome to our club” Transnational fandom Individualization Cultural ambivalence 9 Fashioning Zeitgeist Fashion as a mirror Low-​calorie realism Warp and weft The great outdoors Blue collar chic Gender and sexuality Is there a “right” zeitgeist? Afterword References Index "We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media and real-time fashion mediation, which has complicated the basic dynamic of identity displays, creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption by examining a diverse series of case studies, from fashion icons in their nineties and the paradoxical rebellion in 'normcore', to soccer Jerseys in Kenya and subcultural heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis' seminal concept of 'identity ambivalence' in Fashion, Culture and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of 'status ambivalence', in which fashioning one's own identity has become increasingly complicated."-- Provided by publisher We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media and real-time fashion mediation, complicating the basic dynamic of identity displays, and creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption,by examining a diverse series of case studies - from ninety-year old fashion icons to the paradoxical rebellion in 'normcore', and from soccer jerseys in Kenya to heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis' seminal concept of ìdentity ambivalence' in Fashion, Culture and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of s̀tatus ambivalence', in which fashioning one's own identity has become increasingly complicated