[ecrea] CFP Sewing Reality: Fashion in Non-Fiction Media

Call for papers

*Sewing Reality: Fashion in Non-fiction Media *

9th June, 2018

University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Pamela Church-Gibson (University of the Arts, 
London)

*Deadline for proposals: 5^th January 2018.*

As two distinct art forms, fashion and film have flirted with each other 
in symbiotic relationships since the dawn of the medium: from British 
and American actualities showing current high-street fashion, to French 
newsreels capturing fashion shows. The synergy has been mutually 
influential also as far as other media are concerned, with pop stars and 
television dramas inspiring catwalks and collections. While the 
literature on film and fashion is quickly growing, this interest has 
primarily focused on fiction and includes, among others, works on the 
construction of femininity and masculinity through costumes, the 
definition of national identities through cinematic clothing, and the 
haptic pleasure of fashion in film. Non-fiction material remains an 
understudied source, with only a few scholarly works shedding some light 
on early cinema’s attention to the fashion world, still and moving 
images in fashion archives, celebrity and fashion, but also make-up 
culture and TV entertainment, the relationship between austerity and 
sewing/knitting programs, and the political potential of fashion 
documentaries.

This interdisciplinary symposium wants to fill this vacuum and excavate 
and reassess the role of non-fiction media in shaping our understanding 
of fashion across multiple platforms and different national contexts. 
The event aims to create an open space for dialogue between fashion and 
documentary studies, drawing from different methodologies and 
approaches: media and cultural studies, ethnography, audience research, 
marketing and public relations.

This is a timely intervention given that the new millennium witnessed a 
boom of non-fiction media about fashion, including reality shows and 
factual entertainments programmes, such as /Project Runaway/ (Lifetime, 
2004 – ), /Fashion Police/ (E!, 2010 – ) and /The Great British Sewing 
Bee/ (Love Production, 2013-2016). The fashion documentary has even 
grown into a subgenre of its own and become a spectacular window into 
the inner workings of fashion magazines, modelling agencies, fashion 
houses, department stores and fashion subcultures. Covering a vast array 
of forms, from ironic takes or more explicit critiques of consumer 
society (/Out of Fashion, Girl Model, The Life of Pitti Peacocks/) to 
hagiographic portraits of iconic figures (/Iris/, /Diana Vreeland: The 
Eye Has to Travel/), the fashion documentary now reignites our 
fascination for style.

/Sewing Reality/aims to discuss the interconnection between fashion and 
media industries, the audiences of factual moving images about fashion, 
as well as the past, the present and the future of fashion 
documentaries. Possible areas of study include:

·Fashion documentaries;

·Mockumentaries and the fashion world;

·Reality shows and factual entertainment;

·Docu-drama;

·Fashion journalism;

·Fashion blogs and celebrity bloggers;

·Amateur footage and photography;

·Newsreel material, industrial films and fashion archives;

·Streaming fashion shows.

We are accepting submissions for audiovisual essays, posters, individual 
papers, and pre-constituted panels of three papers each. Please send 
abstracts of no more than 300 words with a short biography of the author 
(s). In the case of pre-constituted panels, include a brief rationale of 
the panel, as well as abstracts and biographies of all speakers.

For queries and submissions, email Dr Elena 
Caoduro,***(Elena.Caoduro /at/ beds.ac.uk) <mailto:(Elena.Caoduro /at/ beds.ac.uk)>*

Participants will be notified by the end of January.



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