Episode 4 - Who Are You Wearing?

Fashion is a system that organises most of our lives. In this episode, Anuja Pradhan and Alev Kuruoglu talk about fashions impact through mass media, and fashion as a system of distinction as well as its ethical contentions.

Notes, links and references for this episode:

Our Guest Erika’s Research:

Kuever, E. (2014). Mapping the Real and the False: Globalization and the Brand in Contemporary China. In Consumer Culture Theory. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Kuever, E. (2019). “If the People Do Not Raise the Issue, the Officials Will Not Investigate”: Moral Citizenship among China’s Fake-Fighters. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 48(3), 360-380.

Kuever, E. (2019). Moral imaginings of the market and the state in contemporary China. Economic Anthropology, 6(1), 98-109.


Fashion, Identity, Distinction, Desire etc - Some Fundamentals:

Simmel, G. (1957[1903]). Fashion. American journal of sociology, 62(6), 541-558.

Benjamin, W. (1935). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936.

Belk, R. W., Ger, G., & Askegaard, S. (2003). The fire of desire: A multisited inquiry into consumer passion. Journal of consumer research, 30(3), 326-351.

Davis, F. (2013). Fashion, culture, and identity. University of Chicago Press.

Rocamora, A. (2002). Fields of fashion: Critical insights into Bourdieu’s sociology of culture. Journal of Consumer Culture, 2(3), 341-362.



Fashion & Migrant / Minority Subjects:

Ger, G. (1998). Constructing immigrant identities in consumption: appearance among the Turko-Danes. ACR North American Advances.

Kjeldgaard, D., & Askegaard, S. (2006). The glocalization of youth culture: The global youth segment as structures of common difference. Journal of consumer research, 33(2), 231-247.

Kjeldgaard, D. (2003). Youth identities in the global cultural economy: central and peripheral consumer culture in Denmark and Greenland. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(3), 285-304.

Sandikci, Ö., & Ger, G. (2010). Veiling in style: how does a stigmatized practice become fashionable?. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(1), 15-36.

Vihalemm, T., & Keller, M. (2011). Looking Russian or Estonian: young consumers constructing the ethnic “self” and “other”. Consumption Markets & Culture, 14(3), 293-309.



Fashion and TV:

Andò, R. (2015). Fashion and fandom on TV and social media: Claire Underwood’s power dressing. Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 6(2), 207-231.

Attwood, F. (2005). Fashion and passion: Marketing sex to women. Sexualities, 8(4), 392-406.

Kuruc, K. (2008). Fashion as communication: A semiotic analysis of fashion on ‘Sex and the City’. Semiotica, 2008(171), 193-214.

Behind the Seams, The Secret Language of Sitcom Fashion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rEuh2RfQrY


Fast Fashion and its Discontents:

Brooks, A. (2019). Clothing poverty: The hidden world of fast fashion and second-hand clothes. Zed Books Ltd..

Crewe, L. (2017). The geographies of fashion: Consumption, space, and value. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Taplin, I. M. (2014). Who is to blame? A re-examination of fast fashion after the 2013 factory disaster in Bangladesh. Critical perspectives on international business.


Fashion & Social Media:

Duffy, B. E., & Hund, E. (2015). “Having it all” on social media: Entrepreneurial femininity and self-branding among fashion bloggers. Social Media+ Society, 1(2), 2056305115604337.

Scaraboto, D., & Fischer, E. (2013). Frustrated fatshionistas: An institutional theory perspective on consumer quests for greater choice in mainstream markets. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(6), 1234-1257.