Fashion Knowledge: Theories, Methods, Practices and Politics

On theory and method in the changing field of fashion studies. 

At a point when fashion studies are expanding and the fashion industry is at a crucial point of change, Fashion Knowledge makes a valuable contribution to the field. The book explores current issues in fashion research, with a focus on the relationship between theory and practice. This edited collection assembles academic essays and intellectual activism next to visual essays and artistic interventions, proposing a different concept for fashion research that eschews the traditional logic of academic fashion studies. It features acclaimed designers, artists, curators, and theorists whose work investigates the multi-faceted debates on the rise of practice-based research in fashion. Contributors look at new forms of fashion knowledge that are forming along with shifting practices, shedding light on the entanglement of fashion and politics in both contemporary and historical moments.

Elke Gaugele is a cultural anthropologist and professor of fashion, styles, and contextual design at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Monica Titton is a sociologist, fashion theorist, and senior scientist in the Department of Fashion Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.