Social Aspects of Fashion
LIbrary Guide for FSH 204: Examining clothing and fashion within various cultural contexts, focusing on how images and representations of clothing influence meaning and perception.
Fashion Design and Merchandising Librarian
Social Sciences Librarian
Need more help?
Social Aspects of Fashion - Library Guide
Social Aspects of Fashion - FSH 204 Fall 2024
This course introduces students to examining clothing and fashion within various cultural contexts, focusing on how images and representations of clothing influence meaning and perception. Students will explore the visual language of fashion, its role in daily and historical dress, and how cultural factors shape our wardrobe choices. Key questions include how garments’ meanings are manipulated and how these cultural lessons can be applied personally. Class discussions and readings will revolve around these themes, culminating in a final paper that synthesizes these insights.
Getting Started
This guide includes tools to help guide your research throughout the fall semester, and includes: databases for finding articles, links to library services, and tools.
Required Reading
The Meanings of Dress by
Providing insight into a broad and expanding range of topics, The Meanings of Dress, 5th Edition examines social, behavioral, and cultural aspects in fashion and dress based on current research and practices. This revised edition responds fully to the current social and fashion trends by including theoretical perspectives of intersectional identities in global landscapes, global fashion and dress, and efforts to decentralize and decolonize the normative Eurocentric approach to fashion and dress studies. This edition includes two brand new chapters: "Decentralizing and Decolonizing Fashion and Dress" and "Social Justice and Human Rights." New emphasis has been placed on how dress and fashion work as communication, not just "non-verbal" but also explicitly in social media. Issues on ethics in fashion are incorporated now throughout the book. New to this Edition: · Theoretical perspectives of intersectional identities in global landscapes, global fashion and dress, and efforts to decentralize and decolonize the normative Eurocentric approach to fashion and dress studies. · New Chapters: "Decentralizing and Decolonizing Fashion and Dress" and "Social Justice and Human Rights." · New material and perspectives on chapters about "Fashion, Dress and Communication" and "Agency and Appearance Management," as well as chapters on race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, and theories of the body. · Issues on ethics in fashion are central to the text. STUDIO Features Include · Study smarter with self-quizzes featuring scored results and personalized study tips · Review concepts with flashcards of terms and definitions Instructor Resources · Instructor's Guide to help integrate the text into your classroom · PowerPoint slides for every chapter
ISBN: 9781501391422Publication date: 2024-02-08
Social Psychology of Dress by
Social Psychology of Dress, 2nd Edition presents and explains the major theories and concepts of human behavior relating to dress, drawing from the social science fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The text positions dress as a process in which individual preferences, membership in social groups, and cultural awareness all impact choices about attire and appearance. Using empirical data and examples from current events and popular culture, the authors define dress, present its origins and functions, and discuss research methods for dress. They also explore the relationships between dress and topics including social perception, impression formation, identity, cultural patterns and rituals, and body image. Box features highlighting applications to the fashion industry, end-of-chapter summaries, and discussion questions to further engage students in their study of dress. New to this Edition: -New Dress Research in the News, Application to Consumer Behavior, and Social Media Application features and updated Dress in the News features addressing contemporary topics such as cultural appropriation, workplace discrimination, and advocacy for racial inclusivity -Increased focus on diverse cultural influences -Coverage of current industry trends including new research findings, smart clothing, and the body positivity movement -Discussion of the Covid-19 pandemic through examples and case studies STUDIO Features Include: -Study smarter with self-quizzes featuring scored results and personalized study tips -Review concepts with flashcards of essential vocabulary Instructor Resources -Instructor's Guide provides suggestions for planning the course and using the text in the classroom, supplemental assignments, and lecture notes -Test Bank includes sample test questions for each chapter -PowerPoint® presentations include images from the book and provide a framework for lecture and discussion -In-class activities stimulate student engagement with course material -Online chat activities encourage student participation and provide creative alternatives for content delivery
ISBN: 9781501391347Publication date: 2024-02-22
Dress Codes by
A "sharp and entertaining" (The Wall Street Journal) exploration of fashion through the ages that asks what our clothing reveals about ourselves and our society. Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Merchants dressing like princes and butchers' wives wearing gem-encrusted crowns were public enemies in medieval societies structured by social hierarchy and defined by spectacle. In Tudor England, silk, velvet, and fur were reserved for the nobility, and ballooning pants called "trunk hose" could be considered a menace to good order. The Renaissance-era Florentine patriarch Cosimo de Medici captured the power of fashion and dress codes when he remarked, "One can make a gentleman from two yards of red cloth." Dress codes evolved along with the social and political ideals of the day, but they always reflected struggles for power and status. In the 1700s, South Carolina's "Negro Act" made it illegal for Black people to dress "above their condition." In the 1920s, the bobbed hair and form-fitting dresses worn by free-spirited flappers were banned in workplaces throughout the United States, and in the 1940s, the baggy zoot suits favored by Black and Latino men caused riots in cities from coast to coast. Even in today's more informal world, dress codes still determine what we wear, when we wear it--and what our clothing means. People lose their jobs for wearing braided hair, long fingernails, large earrings, beards, and tattoos or refusing to wear a suit and tie or make-up and high heels. In some cities, wearing sagging pants is a crime. And even when there are no written rules, implicit dress codes still influence opportunities and social mobility. Silicon Valley CEOs wear t-shirts and flip-flops, setting the tone for an entire industry: women wearing fashionable dresses or high heels face ridicule in the tech world, and some venture capitalists refuse to invest in any company run by someone wearing a suit. In Dress Codes, law professor and cultural critic Richard Thompson Ford presents a "deeply informative and entertaining" (The New York Times Book Review) history of the laws of fashion from the middle ages to the present day, a walk down history's red carpet to uncover and examine the canons, mores, and customs of clothing--rules that we often take for granted. After reading Dress Codes, you'll never think of fashion as superficial again--and getting dressed will never be the same.
ISBN: 9781501180095Publication date: 2021-02-09
Other Helpful Guide
The ASU Library acknowledges the twenty-three Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries. Arizona State University's four campuses are located in the Salt River Valley on ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities, whose care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today. ASU Library acknowledges the sovereignty of these nations and seeks to foster an environment of success and possibility for Native American students and patrons. We are advocates for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies within contemporary library practice. ASU Library welcomes members of the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh, and all Native nations to the Library.
