Research RCA: New Knowledge

''What is Fashion?'' this is the question I pose as part of my installation for Research RCA: New Knowledge - the first ever dedicated exhibition of the work of MPhil and PhD students held by the RCA.

In many ways this question ''What is Fashion?'' is less a statement than a provocation in re-assessing how we look at and consider what fashion is. While there is much commentary about fashion, both in the Fashion Press or Media and amongst those in academia who take up fashion as a serious subject of intellectual investigation, few have actually dared to ask the question out loud ''What is Fashion?''

In a well-known essay Valerie Steele, Director of the Museum at FIT in New York, has even gone as far as to state that for many Fashion is the ''F-word'' - something abusive, yet in turn itself also abused. This curatorial project seeks to address this stance, looking at the different ways in which we seek to define and process the meaning of what fashion is.

In the ''What is Fashion?'' section of my website I post up pictures of my installation together with a PDF copy of the accompanying brochure, with the aim of provoking a continuing and lively discussion. To join in the debate E-mail your thoughts, comments, ideas or images to: whatisfashion(at)nadabea.com

Details for the exhibition:

Research RCA: New Knowledge

22nd - 27th October 2010

Opening Times: 11.00 - 18.00 daily

Private View: 21st October 18.00-20.30

Venue: Gulbenkian Galleries, Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London. SW7 2EU.

Transport: Buses: 9, 10, 52 and 452 Tube: South Kensington and High Street Kensington

Quote of the Month

Fashion is inconceivable except as image. Fashion plays out in images, not on the streets. The fashion industry is intimately entwined with the logic of the illustration, the presentation. What stimulates our imagination are the illustrations, far too rarely the clothed individual himself. Less and less do we see the clothed person as an image, but more and more as a two-dimensional interpretation of that image. There is no fashion without the resonance in the logic of the illustration.

Lauwaert, Dirk, ‘I. Clothing and the inner being II Clothing is a thing III Clothing and Imagination IV Democratic snobbery’ in Brand, Jan, and Teunissen, José, Editors, 2006, The Power of Fashion: About Design and Meaning, Arnhem: ArtEZ Press and Terra Lannoo. pp: 183

This month's quote concerns fashion's relationship with images, and particularly the notion that because fashion is mostly perceived through images (such as those in magazine spreads) its aspect s flat. Yet this disconnects fashion from its very real haptic or tactile qualities. In exploring how and why fashion has become so popular as to be used in the promotion of such a wide variety of products, as I attempted to explain in my paper presented at the 2nd Global Conference on Fashion in Oxford, in part this is due to the very tangible nature of fashion. For everyone, the touch-quality of fashion is something that is perhaps very specific to the enjoyment of fashion - while we can all aspire to the images perpetuated through glossy fashion magazines - in ''real=life'' we also experience fashion through touch - with the clothes both in our wardrobes and those we encounter in shops. It is this tangible quality that many non-fashion brands and products seek to emulate in attempting to attach the idea of fashion to enhance the allure of their own products or services. Visible in the car industry, electronics and food. While the image of fashion remains important it is through the physical notion of touch that we perhaps truly experience fashion.

Wool Week

Sheep Herding in Savile Row

While we are all familiar with the glamorous round of Fashion Weeks - New York, London, Milan, Paris - a number of ''alternative'' events have recently been established here in the UK offering a more nuanced engagement and showcasing of specific aspects of the fashion industry. Following hot-on-the-heels of High Street Fashion Week in September comes today's opening of Wool Week (11th-17th October 2010) as a showcase of all things wonderful and woolly. Not only limited to London, with stores such as Harvey Nichols, Liberty and Jigsaw dedicating windows to the event, this initiative of the British Wool Marketing Board also includes events in Cumbria and at the Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead. This promotion of wool is part of British Wool Marketing's ''Campaign for Wool'', which even has the backing of HRH Prince of Wales, who attended its original launch in January. Now in the midst of autumn it is an appropriate time to turn our attention to wool as we seek out new winter coats in the shops, or search in the back of cupboards and drawers for old favourite scarves or pullovers. This is also an interesting example of a re-configuring of the idea of a Fashion Week to focus on a specific aspect of what is a sometimes forgotten aspect of Britain's rich textile culture. It is also a reminder that there are many mills in the North of England and Scotland, in particular, who remain key-players as producers of woollen cloth, sought out for their high-quality products. While it might be possible to pick up a cashmere sweater from M&S or Uniqlo for £60 or so there remains nothing quite as satisfying as pulling on a pullover made out of 100% wool, a fibre that has helped to keep as both warm and stylishly attired for hundreds of years. A bastion of the British fashion industry, Savile Row is also to be seen backing the event, in spectacular style, with a ''greening'' of the Row complete with grass and a heard of sheep!



For more information visit the British Wool Marketing Board at: http://www.britishwool.org.uk