[Commlist] cfp: "The Four Elements of Fashion" International Fashion Conference

International Fashion Conference

Organised by Università Iuav di Venezia

March 16-17, 2023

Venice, Italy

Open call for contributions

Deadline for abstract submission: 16 October 2022

EARTH, WATER, AIR, AND FIRE: THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF FASHION

Convenors

Anneke Smelik, Radboud University of Nijmegen

Alessandra Vaccari, Università Iuav di Venezia

Sun, air, water and soil are in most of the clothes we wear. In the era 
of ecological crisis, this international conference aims to investigate 
the new paradigms of fashion cultures through the four archetypal 
elements of matter. By doing so, it shifts the attention towards the 
material and sensory aspects of fashion, features that have been largely 
neglected by fashion studies over the past forty years. This approach 
fits in the current debate on the ‘material turn’ inspired by 
de-centering the human and re-centering matter and the materiality of 
things, objects, technologies, and bodies (Latour, 2007; Rocamora and 
Smelik, 2016; Lehmann, 2019; Smelik 2021). The conference proposes to 
analyse this ontological shift through the redefinition of the substance 
of fashion and its history. In Western and non-Western cultures matter 
is conceived as a coexistence of multiple elements following a tradition 
that includes, among others, the cosmological treatise of Aristotle, the 
Hinduist and Buddhist meditations on the ‘primary material elements’ 
(mahabhutas), and Jābir ibn Hayyān’s alchemy.

The conference will take place in the context of Venice, a city that 
emerged from water through a process of significant anthropisation, and 
in which life rhythms and movements historically coexist and are 
dependent on a critically changing environment. Venice has a long 
experience with phenomena such as the high tide (acqua alta) and the 
increasing submersion of the emerged land; but also with air and water 
pollution due to the nearby petrochemical pole of Porto Marghera and the 
cruise ships traffic.

The conference aims to provide a fertile ground for interdisciplinary 
and transnational dialogue to respond to the sustainable fashion 
challenges posed by the Anthropocene (Payne, 2019), and to envision 
possible futures engendered by an environmentally and socially aware 
fashion culture and industry (Vaccari and Vanni, 2021). Scholars, 
researchers, educators, and practitioners in the fields of fashion 
theory, history, and design are invited to send a proposal on the 
following themes:

- Earth recalls a sense of being grounded, interconnecting the material 
impact of clothes and their lifecycle – between ‘hyperobjectivity’ 
(Morton, 2013), recycling and biodegradation. Earth is where millions of 
tons of garments are disposed every year into huge landfills, especially 
in developing countries, but it is also the ground for providing 
sustainable biomaterials. Bacteria, mushrooms, plants and agricultural 
by-products take active part in an often high-technological challenge to 
reconfigure the concepts of nature and artificiality. It draws on the 
notion of earthbound (Latour, 2019), with its implications in terms of 
hybridised and symbiotic life forms. The current disruptive 
anthropogenic impact makes vital the reassessment of fashion studies and 
design’s involvement in reconfiguring an increasingly entangled, queered 
and multispecies existence on the planet (Barad, 2011; Tsing, 2015).

- Water constitutes the majority of the human body, and therefore it 
marks the close bond between corporeality and life. The silhouette 
emerging from a black petroleum sea in Marine Serre’s Marèe Noire 
fashion film (2019) is highly evocative. Today’s dispersion of 
microplastic particles makes it inevitable to co-live with 
contamination. The theme of water ranges from the toxic and fashionable 
aniline dyes of the 19th century (Matthews David, 2015) to the issue of 
water footprint along the production chain of cotton. It also 
encompasses the concept of Blue Fashion, a new definition unifying 
fashion and water, in line with the notion of Blue Economy.

-  Air is an element closely linked to the issue of environmental 
pollution. The atmosphere residues leave a textured patina on objects 
that remind of the poetic and provocative microbes infestation on 
Margiela clothes at the Museum Boijmans in 1997. Examples of the close 
links between air and clothes also include the relics of the atomic 
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – as photographed by Ishiuchi Miyako 
(2008) – and the post-Chernobyl fashion of the anti-contamination 
protective clothing. Albeit its negative impact, air pollution can be 
the starting point for redrawing alternative creative and social 
practices in fashion.

-  Fire is the only natural element not commonly available in nature and 
is therefore considered a human prerogative. It is defined as the result 
of a process of energy exchange that allowed for the survival of the 
human species and, through the calories, has a transformative power on 
our bodies (Vince, 2020). In the fashion industry, this element allows 
the exploration of different sources of energy for production. It is a 
powerful and dangerous tool that is responsible for turning 
overconsumption and overproduction of textile waste into pollution and 
dust. Fire is also connected to solar energy and alchemical processes, 
which can be read as the vibrating force of matter. It is a mix of vital 
and psychic energy able to bridge the experience of embodiment with a 
renovated sense of spirituality.

We welcome contributions by researchers of all grades of experience 
and/or works in progress. Proposals should be structured in: Title; 
Keywords (max 5); Introduction and research issue to be addressed (max 
200 words); Methodology (max 200 words); Achieved or expected results 
(max 200 words); References (max 5); Short author’s biography (max 75 
words). Proposals should be submitted in English to 
(fashionfuturing /at/ iuav.it) by 16 October 2022 with ‘The Four Elements of 
Fashion’ in the subject line.

The conference will be held on 16-17 March 2023 at the Università Iuav 
di Venezia, in dual mode (online and in presence). If you wish to 
publish your paper, you should submit a full paper by April 2023. The 
essays will be reviewed and selected through a peer-review process. 
Selected essays will be published in the conference proceedings with 
ISBN in 2023.

Important dates

Abstract submissions by 16 October 2022

Selected abstracts notification by 30 November 2022

Registration by 31 January 2023. Regular fee: 140 €; reduced fee (PhD 
and MA students): 80 €

Conference: 16-17 March 2023

Full paper submission for publication (optional) by 30 April 2023

References

Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity.

Ferrando, F. (2013). ‘Posthumanism, transhumanism, antihumanism, 
metahumanism, and new materialisms’. Existenz, 8(2), 26-32.

Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the 
Chthulucene. Duke University Press.

Latour, B. (2007). ‘Can we Get our Materialism Back, Please?’, Isis, 
98(1), 138-42.

Latour, B. (2019). Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. 
Polity.

Lehmann, U. (2019). Fashion and materialism. Edinburgh University Press.

Matthews David, M. (2015). Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past 
and Present. Bloomsbury.

Morton, T. (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of 
the World. University of Minnesota Press.

Payne, A. (2019). ‘Fashion Futuring in the Anthropocene: Sustainable 
Fashion as “Taming” and “Rewilding”’. Fashion Theory, 23(1), 5-23.

Rocamora, A., & Smelik, A. (2016). ‘Thinking through fashion: An 
introduction’. In A. Rocamora & A. Smelik eds, Thinking Through Fashion: 
A Guide to Key Theorists, 1-27. I.B. Tauris.

Smelik, A. (2021). ‘A Posthuman Turn in Fashion’. In V. Manlow, E. 
Paulicelli, & E. Wissinger, Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies, 
57-64. Routledge.

Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the 
possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.

Vaccari, A., & Vanni, I. (2021). ‘Fashion Futuring. Rethinking 
sustainable fashion design’. In Design Culture(s), Cumulus Conference 
Proceedings Series, 2(7), 3448-57.

Vince, G. (2020). Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, 
Language, Beauty, and Time. Penguin.

Information

Università Iuav di Venezia

Venue: Venice, Italy

Contact: (fashionfuturing /at/ iuav.it)

Url: http://www.iuav.it/Ateneo1/eventi-del/2023/Earth--Wat/index.htm

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