Project

Woman must dress her self: Thinking through the design poetics of female fashion designers using feminist theory (1960-2010)

Code
G067824N
Duration
01 January 2024 → 31 December 2027
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Promotor-spokesperson
Research disciplines
  • Humanities and the arts
    • Comparative literature studies
    • Gender studies
    • History of art
    • Performance studies
    • Fashion design
Keywords
design poetics fashion studies feminist theory
 
Project description

This project explores the interplay between second, third, and fourth-wave feminist theory and five female fashion designers working actively between 1960 to 2010. We focus on theorists and designers born in the 1930s and 1940s in order to examine the historical connections, interactions, development, and evolution of these two groups. Through the application of feminist theories to female fashion designers and their designs, we aim to show how these cultural and literary theories can be used to “read” fashion design and interpret garments designed by women for women as a form of “embodied writing”. This project aims to create a theoretical framework for analyzing the perspective of women designers during the creation process (design poetics) as well as the garments they design. The project takes an innovative approach to the fields of fashion studies and feminist theory by examining fashion both as an embodied practice and as a textual practice.