Fashion Curating - by Annamari Vänskä & Hazel Clark (Paperback)

About the Book

Brings together international approaches to fashion curation in the 21st century as practiced in the museum, commercial spaces and online, analysing new spaces and methods for critical display.

Book Synopsis

As the practice of fashion curation extends into commercial galleries, public and retail spaces, and even to the individual self, professional concepts of 'curating' are undergoing rapid change. Today, everyone is seemingly able to 'curate', but where does this leave the traditional understanding of curation as clothing collected and displayed in a museum? This thought-provoking volume explores the practice of fashion curating in the 21st century, bridging the gap between methods of display and notions of 'the curatorial' in fashion exhibitions, commercial settings, and the virtual world.

From fashion's earliest forays into the museum to creative collaborations between luxury fashion brands and artists, this book challenges understandings of fashion curation by drawing on the palpably new spaces, places, and actors in today's curating scene. Exploring poetic and performative museum displays in venues such as the V&A, Somerset House, MoMu and the Royal Ontario Museum, alongside the ways that brands such as Dior, Chanel and Louis Vuitton have made use of 'the curatorial' in their own commercial strategies, Fashion Curatingasks pressing questions about controversial funding and collaboration from the commercial fashion sector, and the limitations of producing exhibitions that are at the same time critical and popular.

Bringing together approaches from fashion curators, designers and world-renowned academics, curation is positioned as a critical practice that opens up new ways of conceptualizing and theorizing fashion, challenging how we think and what we already know.

Review Quotes

The informed contributions gathered in Fashion Curating give a thought-provoking and timely reflection on vital aspects of the discipline.

Through the brilliant analysis of famous exhibitions and fruitful collaborations between artists and brands, critics, fashion curators and lecturers draw on the history of costume of the past 50 years.
GQ Italia (Bloomsbury Translation)

About the Author

Hazel Clark is Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies, and Research Chair of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, USA.

Annamari Vänskä is Professor of Fashion Research at the Aalto University, Finland, and Adjunct Professor of Art History and Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is also a Visiting Professor at Shanghai College of Fashion, Donghua University, China.