| Description: | When we hear "fashion", we think automatically of clothes and dress, but fashionability entails much more than the latest style of shoe on the catwalk. Trends of style and desirability occur in every human society, from the most "simple" to our own highly complex international interactions. Using the fashion of dress as a starting point, this course examines the universal patterns and particular variations of fashionability in both Euro-American and non-Western societies. We will examine the phenomenon of fashion in clothing, speech, and activities by searching for trends and examining the trajectory of fashionability as practices move from the underground to the mainstream to being "old-fashioned", because fashion is necessarily defined in opposition to something that is not fashionable (is Mizrahi still cool now that he designs for Target? Or is he even cooler?). We will investigate historic examples of past fashions, as well as current trends and the phenomenon of brand awareness, with an eye on our own sense of what makes something fashionable for us today. |