About the Journal

Focus and Scope

One of the objectives of the ZoneModa Journal is to promote a culture of fashion studies that includes multidisciplinary approaches. The journal's editorial policy seeks to take into account the complexity of the field of fashion studies, in particular its range of different subjects and study perspectives, history, sociology, cultural anthropology, art, literature, semiotics, aesthetics, architecture, design and business sciences.

In particular, the areas of interest are:

  • Fashion and Cultural Heritage
  • Mass Culture, Media Culture
  • Everyday Aesthetics
  • Social Studies
  • Visual Studies
  • Creative Innovation and New Technologies
  • Architecture and Design Cultures
  • Linguistic Studies

Target

The journal is for scholars of Fashion Studies, Cultural Studies and university students. The objective is to create a useful tool to frame the phenomena linked to fashion within a framework of broad reflection that refers to several areas of culture and research.

The multidisciplinary character of the journal and its willingness to include critical discussions on broad cultural aspects emerge from the titles of the issues published until now: Morphing (Vol. 1), Made in Italy (Vol. 2), Cultura Pop (Vol. 3), Well-being (Vol. 4), Fashion Convergence (Vol. 5), Possible Futures (Vol. 6), Fashion and Celebrity Culture (Vol. 7), Moda e Patrimonio Culturale (Vol. 8, No. 1), Moda e Infanzia (Vol. 8, No. 2), Gli anni Ottanta (Vol. 9, No. 1), Global Fashion (Vol. 9, No. 2), S.I. Be Cool! Aesthetic Imperatives and Social Practices (Vol. 10, No. 1S), Decostruzione (Vol. 10, No. 1), Fashion, Technology, and Social Distancing (Vol. 10, No. 2), Rethinking Fashion Brands in The Era of Digital Media (Vol. 11, No. 1), Giovanni Battista Giorgini. From Artistic Craftmanship to High Fashion, Italian Soft Power (Vol. 11, No. 1S), Fashion and Tourism in Transition (Vol. 11, No. 2).

Section Policy

Essays

Peer Reviewed

Backstage

Not Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

The double-blind peer review adopted by ZoneModa Journal follows international scientific rules. Each article is submitted for the assessment of two experts who do not know the author’s name. In turn, the author does not know the names of the reviewers.

Reviewers can approve the article, reject it or ask the author to make changes to the publication. In the case of opposite and equivalent assessments, the editors may decide to submit the contribution to a third reviewer (umpire) or themselves ask the author to make the changes deemed necessary for publication.

If the contributions are in a language other than Italian, they are subjected to a linguistic quality assessment. Any changes requested are necessary requirements for publication.

As part of the initial quality assessment, each article will undergo plagiarism detection through iThenticate.

Throughout the peer review procedure, Authors, Reviewers and Editors must abide by the rules included in the journal’s Code of Ethics.

Publication Frequency

The journal is semi-annual, it publishes on July and December. Since 2017 the journal was published once a year.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

It releases its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). It is not necessary to ask further permissions both to author(s) or journal board, although you are kindly requested to inform the journal for every reuse of the papers.

Authors who publish on this journal maintain the copyrights.

Publication Fees

The journal has neither article processing charges nor submission processing fees.

Journal Code of Ethics

This declaration is based on COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors
http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors.pdf.

Editorial responsibility

The Director, Guest Editor and the other members of the ZoneModa Journal Management Committee are solely responsible for the decision to publish the articles submitted to the journal itself. The Management Committee is guided by the editorial policies of the journal and bound by the provisions of current law concerning defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Management Committee uses at least two reviewers to make its decisions, according to a double-blind peer review procedure.

The Management Committee is required to assess the manuscripts based on their scientific content without distinction of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or scientific, academic or political orientation of the authors.

The Management Committee and the editorial staff are required not to divulge any information on the manuscripts. Communications relating to the publication process are only sent to authors, reviewers and potential reviewers, editorial consultants, as appropriate. The original material contained in the manuscripts submitted to the Journal cannot be used by the members of the Editorial Committee for their own research without the consent of the author.

Duties of the editorial bodies

The Management Committee of ZoneModa Journal guarantees the correctness of the systems used to evaluate, accept or reject the articles submitted by the authors, and in particular oversees the peer review process and the anonymity of the reviewers with respect to the specific article under examination. It also avoids any conflict of interest and discrimination based on gender, sexual or religious orientation, political convictions, geographical origin.

The decisions of the Management and the Management Committee are bound by the journal’s editorial policies and are bound by the provisions of current law concerning defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The Management and the Management Committee are required not to divulge any information regarding the manuscripts submitted, except to the authors themselves or to those who have been previously authorised.

The original material contained in the manuscripts submitted to the Journal cannot be used by the members of the Management Committee for their own research without the written consent of the author.

Duties of reviewers (peer reviewer)

The reviewers assist the Management Committee in editorial decisions and, through communications conveyed by it, may eventually help the author to improve the manuscript.

The selected reviewer who does not feel qualified to review the assigned manuscript or who knows that he or she is unable to perform the review within the required time frame must notify the Editorial Staff of the decision, declining to take part in the review process.

The articles examined for assessment must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown or discussed with anyone who has not been previously authorised by the Management Committee.
The review must be conducted objectively and with clear and documented arguments.
The reviewer has the task of identifying the presence of bibliographic material relevant to the work to be assessed but not cited, and to indicate to the authors possible improvements useful for the publication of the contents.
The reviewer must not accept manuscripts that have conflicts of interest arising from competitive relationships, collaborations or other type of connection with authors, companies or entities associated in any way with the subject of the manuscript.

The reviewer must notify the editorial committee if he or she finds a substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under review and any other published document of which he or she has personal knowledge.

Duties of the authors

The author guarantees that the article submitted for assessment is original, unpublished and not submitted simultaneously to other journals, and if the work and/or the words of other authors are used, they must be appropriately paraphrased or literally cited.

The authors are obliged to cite all the publications that have had an influence in determining the nature of the work proposed.

The author must accept the methods for selecting articles and in particular the peer review process. Manuscripts under review by the journal must not be submitted to other journals for publication purposes.

If the article is accepted, the author grants the journal the right to publish, releasing it under the Creative Commons 4.0 International license, as expressed in the journal’s Open Access policy.

When submitting the contribution for assessment, the author commits to declare any possible conflicts of interest that may have influenced the manuscript’s contents.

The author is obliged to correctly cite the sources of the contents included and obtain – under his or her responsibility – the authorisations necessary for the publication of images, tables or other content already published as established by copyright law. Fraudulent or wilfully inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

The author guarantees the truthfulness of the information presented in the manuscript and the objectivity of his or her interpretations. The corresponding data must be reported accurately and in detail to allow others to replicate the study.

All those who actually took part in drafting the text, viewed and approved the final version and agree with its publication must be included in the manuscript and noted as authors.

If there are other parties who have made substantial contributions to relevant parts of the article, they must be recognised and listed as contributors.

If the author finds significant errors or inaccuracies in the published manuscript, he or she has the duty to promptly notify the editorial committee and provide the appropriate corrections.

Conflicts of interest

A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or his or her institution), a referee or a member of the editorial staff has personal or financial relationships that may inappropriately influence his or her behaviour. It is up to the Management to manage any conflicts of interest as best as possible (for example with the system of double blind anonymous referees), and a declaration in this regard may be requested from the authors.

Handling of errors and misconducts

Editors will promptly act in case of errors and misconducts, both proven and alleged. In case such as errors in articles or in the publication process, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, appropriate steps will be taken, following the recommendations, guidelines and checklists from COPE. These includes the publication of an erratum (errors from the publication process), corrigendum (errors from the author(s)) or, in the most severe cases, the retraction of the affected work.

Archiving Policy

The University of Bologna has an archival agreement with the National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome within the national project Magazzini Digitali.
http://www.depositolegale.it/editori-aderenti/

Journal History

Following is a brief summary of the history of ZoneModa Journal.

The project stems from an idea of the professors of the Fashion Studies degree programme at the University of Bologna, Rimini Campus.

The first two issues were managed by Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, who, together with the editorial staff of those years, defined the main characteristics of the editorial project, establishing the two macro sections that make up the journal today. The first of the two macro sections focuses on a specific topic (main part). The second, called “Backstage”, is subdivided in turn into a series of subsections (work in progress – interviews – reviews – exhibitions – collateral thinking). Connecting these two parts is a photographic insert associated with the issue’s topic (up until issue 6 there was also an annotated bibliography).

Essays from different perspectives related to the issue’s topic are published in the main part. The authors who until now have participated in the publication of the journal include both renowned scholars and new researchers. In fact, the intent of ZoneModa Journal is to be a place of dialogue welcoming and promoting the proposals of experts alongside those of young scholars. Furthermore, it also seeks to create a space where traditional theories and points of view can interact with the ideas and analyses of new experts.

The Backstage section includes short articles, reviews and observations on new developments and cultural trends that can be linked to the world of fashion and culture in general.

The structure has remained practically identical over time. However, many changes have been made over the years. In 2013 the journal’s management was handed over to Antonella Mascio. In that same year (Issue 3, Pop Culture) the articles were subjected to the double blind peer review procedure initially carried out by the editorial staff, then managed by a group of external reviewers. The issues were published on a regular basis, once a year until 2017. Starting in 2018 the journal will be published every six months. The members of the scientific committee change constantly and the number of scholars having international prominence is increasing.

Up to issue 6 (Futuri Possibili, 2016) the magazine was published in two different formats: the Italian version was both paper and digital; the English only digital. From issue 7 (Moda e Cultura della Celebrità, 2017) ZoneModa is available in digital format only, and the articles are published only in one language: Italian or English.

In short, the desire of management is to continue to update and change the project based on constant and continuous work that includes the observation of the operating world of fashion and the theoretical horizon of Fashion Studies, with its many facets.

Publisher

Dipartimento delle Arti – DAR
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Piazzetta G. Morandi, 2
40125 - Bologna (Italy)