What is “Fashion” and How to Research it? Polybius for Punk Fashion Sociology

Anna-Mari Almila; David Inglis

doi:10.6092/issn.2611-0563/10547

Authors

Anna-Mari Almila University of the Arts London

She is Research Fellow in Sociology of Fashion at London College of Fashion, UAL. She writes in the fields of cultural, global and historical sociology, and her topics include the materiality of dressed bodies and their environments; fashion globalization and the history of fashion studies; the historical/political construction of urban spaces; and wine and gender. She is the author of Veiling in Fashion: Space and the Hijab in Minority Communities and the co-editor of The Globalization of Wine, The Routledge International Handbook to Veils and Veiling Practices and The Sage Handbook of Cultural Sociology.
David Inglis University of Helsinki
He is Professor of Sociology at the University of Helsinki. Before that, he was Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen. He holds degrees in sociology from the Universities of Cambridge and York. He writes in the areas of cultural sociology, the sociology of globalization, historical sociology, the sociology of food and drink, and social theory, both modern and classical. He has written and edited various books in these areas, most recently The Sage Handbook of Cultural Sociology and The Routledge International Handbook of Veils and Veiling Practices. He is founding editor of the Sage/BSA journal Cultural Sociology. His current research concerns the sociological analysis of the global wine industry.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/10547

Keywords:

Fashion, Globalization, Epistemology, Ontology, History

Abstract

Fashion changes societies, and is also itself shaped by multiple socio-cultural processes, including processes of globalization. At the same time, fashion scholarship is not only speaking about and seeking to understand fashion, but is also actively formulating ideas, assumptions and understandings as to what fashion can be, and where in history and in which geographical locations fashion can be found.
This paper addresses the increasingly complex question of the nature of fashion in a globalized and increasingly interconnected world. Arguing for a radical, “punk,” attitude toward fashion scholarship, and a concomitant rethinking of fashion, we suggest an approach that goes beyond academic and political fashions, drawing upon historical scolarship and examples. For while it is strikingly obvious that fashion is a global and globalized phenomenon, its specific character, and indeed its geographical locations and origins, remain contested. Drawing inspiration from the ancient Greek historian Polybius, and his ideas of an "ecumenical analytical" approach to studying world-wide phenomena, we reflect upon the history and current state of fashion studies in what we consider an ecumenical moment, which demands novel insights, but also holds many new opportunities for the field.

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What is “Fashion” and How to Research it? Polybius for Punk Fashion Sociology

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