ZMJ Call For Papers: Fashion and Gender

2022-10-10

If “[f]ashion is obsessed with gender, defines and redefines the gender boundary,” as fashion scholar Elizabeth Wilson claims (2003: 117), it seems that in the past decade this obsession has been more emphasized than ever. With the appearance of multiple neologisms in mainstream debates, such as genderless, agender, non-binary, and genderfluid, reflecting the proliferation of more encompassing and inclusive sexual and gender identities (Cover 2018), contemporary fashion presents an important terrain in which these social and cultural shifts in the perception of gender are both represented and embodied.

However, if, on the one hand, the hegemonic conformities of the fashion industry are being challenged through the call for a more inclusive and diverse understanding and representation of gender, on the other hand, today’s polarized daily life and political landscape are becoming so strongly divided between systems which either celebrate difference and diversity or strive to establish uniformity and certainty. Indeed, while fashion shows, advertisements, and magazines are advancing a fluid reality where gender categories are gradually becoming blurred, our everyday life is still all too often a scenario of discrimination, and verbal and physical abuse towards nonconforming gender, sexualities, and aesthetic practices.

In line with the exponentially increasing interest in the field of fashion studies in critical scholarship on fashion, gender, and the body, ZoneModa Journal invites you to present a proposal for a monographic issue on fashion and gender. The aim of the issue is to encourage and develop critical, intersectional, and innovative thinking around the contemporary complexities concerning this important topic in the industry and everyday life. We therefore welcome submissions that explore, but are not limited to, the following:  

  • Trans, genderqueer, and non-binary embodiments and representations
  • Global perspectives on new developments in fashion and gender
  • Feminist methods and approaches to the study of fashion and gender
  • Fashion, gender, and everyday life
  • Fashion and gender in online spaces (digital communities, metaverse, social networks,)
  • Shifting and expanding approaches to male aesthetics and men’s styles
  • Fashion practices the challenge and disrupt the gender binary
  • Discursive and visual representation of genderfluid/genderqueer aesthetics in fashion media
  • Archiving, displaying, and exhibiting genderfluid fashion
  • Queer narratives and approaches to fashion and gender
  • Fashion as a political and activism platform for gender diversity

 

Submissions

Abstracts of no more than 1000 words + 5 bibliographical references (word*.docx format), written either in Italian or English, must be sent to: zmj@unibo.it

Abstract acceptance does not guarantee publication of the article, which will be submitted to a double-blind peer-review process.

 

Key deadlines:

  • abstract submission: November 10, 2022.
  • notification of acceptance/rejection: November 30, 2022 (notice of acceptance might include comments and requests for explanations).
  • full-length paper (6000/7000 words) submission: February 15, 2023.
  • comments of the reviewers will be conveyed together with the editor’s decision (approval with no changes, approval with major/minor changes and/or rejection): March 31, 2023.
  • authors shall send the reviewed article to the editorial staff by April 30, 2023.

 

ZMJ Vol. 13 N.1 is scheduled to be published by July 2023.

 

References

Cover, Rob (2018), “Micro-Minorities: The Emergence of New Sexual Subjectivities, Categories, and Labels among Sexually Diverse Youth Online”, in Talburt, S. (ed.) Youth Sexualities, Santa Barbara: Praeger, pp. 279-301.

Wilson, Elizabeth (2003), Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London: I.B. Tauris.