Fashion and East Asia: Cultural translations and East Asian perspectives

With Elizabeth Kramer (University of Northumbria) I am co-editing a special edition of International Journal of Fashion Studies to publish 6 papers drawn from the workshops that were held as part of the interdisciplinary AHRC Network Project ‘Fashion and Translation: Britain, Japan, China, Korea’ or which I was Principal Investigator. I will also co-author an introductory essay that captures the current debates that were developed and new directions that were revealed through the Network’s activities as we explored the historical roots and contemporary factors of East Asian fashion, to create a new understanding of East Asian fashion’s intra and extra-regional movements. This collection will produce a timely new reading of East Asian fashion. By paying particular attention to the materiality of fashion as well as the multiple cultural fields within which fashion operates, and by decentring Euro-American fashion cultures in favour of East Asia, we further existing scholarship on transnational fashion in a sustained dialogue between European and non-European perspectives on the circulation of fashion. Using a range of voices, the special issue will also model theoretical and practical frameworks for translations between both cultures and disciplines