Constructing fashionable dress and identity in Bhutan

Whilst working as Head of Fashion in LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore (2007-2010) I was approached by Singapore International Foundation (SIF) to act as a Specialist Volunteer Overseas to co-develop a tailoring curriculum for the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources in Bhutan in an international development project funded by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2008-2009. In this chapter I present a critical reflection on our curriculum and broadly situate the role of international development projects focused on textiles and dress within discourses of globalisation. I examine how the interaction with non-governmental and inter-governmental agencies may combine with ideas about dress and identity within the recipient country. I wish to personify the processes through which these ‘hybrid’ identities are constructed, both physically and metaphorically, through ideas about fashionable dress present in garments and online discussions about them to challenge simplistic essentialist thinking about the ways in which ‘fashion’ is adopted by a ‘non-western’ culture