Maria Mackinney-Valentin – författare

Konsten att gestalta individualitet, samtid och sammanhang genom olika estetiska uttryck är idag en växande praktik som balanserar mellan olika former av kommersiella och konstnärliga fält. Sådana gestaltningspraktiker bildar tillsammans det fenomen som brukar kallas mode. På senare år har mode även blivit ett forum för vetande av olika slag. Inom akademin har mode etablerat sig som ett expanderande kunskapsområde och från politiskt håll finns förhoppningar om att design-, livsstils- och upplevelseindustrin ska kunna skapa stark tillväxt för samhällsekonomin. I Öresundsregionen talas det, som på många andra platser, allt oftare om betydelsen av kultur och kreativa näringar. Här finns bland annat Nordens största modevecka liksom det första kandidatprogrammet i modevetenskap. När design och mode har blivit viktiga nyckelord i samtiden och ett betydelsefullt regionalt drivmedel för tillväxt finns ett behov av att belysa och problematisera mode som konst, materialitet, kultur och arbete. I antologin À la mode samlas nordiska forskare från olika discipliner och med ett intresse för moderelaterade företeelser i historia och nutid. Med hjälp av nedslag i pälsindustrin, bland filmidoler från 1940-talet och hos den historiska gestalten "sprätthöken" ställs frågor kring hur modets marknad kan förstås som gränsöverskridande uttrycksform, gestaltningspraktik och tillväxtmotor. Genom exempel från modefotografer och butiksinnehavare, klädkonsumenter på nätet och professionella garderobsrensare, illustreras och analyseras fenomenet mode i relation till såväl historia som nutid. Texterna i boken visar nya dimensioner av villkoren för modets olika näringar och för dem som arbetar där ur bland annat antropologiska, etnologiska, idéhistoriska och tjänstevetenskapliga perspektiv.

We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media and real-time fashion mediation, complicating the basic dynamic of identity displays, and creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption,by examining a diverse series of case studies - from ninety-year old fashion icons to the paradoxical rebellion in 'normcore', and from soccer jerseys in Kenya to heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis’ seminal concept of ‘identity ambivalence’ in Fashion, Culture and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of ‘status ambivalence’, in which fashioning one’s own identity has become increasingly complicated.

We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media and real-time fashion mediation, complicating the basic dynamic of identity displays, and creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption,by examining a diverse series of case studies - from ninety-year old fashion icons to the paradoxical rebellion in 'normcore', and from soccer jerseys in Kenya to heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis’ seminal concept of ‘identity ambivalence’ in Fashion, Culture and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of ‘status ambivalence’, in which fashioning one’s own identity has become increasingly complicated.

We dress to communicate who we are, or who we would like others to think we are, telling seductive fashion narratives through our adornment. Yet, today, fashion has been democratized through high-low collaborations, social media and real-time fashion mediation, complicating the basic dynamic of identity displays, and creating tension between personal statements and social performances. Fashioning Identity explores how this tension is performed through fashion production and consumption,by examining a diverse series of case studies - from ninety-year old fashion icons to the paradoxical rebellion in ''normcore'', and from soccer jerseys in Kenya to heavy metal band T-shirts in Europe. Through these cases, the role of time, gender, age memory, novelty, copying, the body and resistance are considered within the context of the contemporary fashion scene. Offering a fresh approach to the subject by readdressing Fred Davis'' seminal concept of ''identity ambivalence'' in Fashion, Culture and Identity (1992), Mackinney-Valentin argues that we are in an epoch of ''status ambivalence'', in which fashioning one''s own identity has become increasingly complicated.