Representing the creative future

10 fashion academic terms you hear all the time, explained

A cheat sheet to sounding really intellectual (and becoming a little wiser in the process)

Fashion people are smart. We know that, you know that, but somehow it’s 2022 and the world still isn’t quite sure. Despite Reese Witherspoon’s pioneering work in Legally Blonde and Miranda Priestly’s iconic belt-based monologue in The Devil Wears Prada, caring about what you wear and having a brain are still seen as mutually exclusive. Très archaique, très misogynistique.

It’s not easy to navigate the fast-paced and constantly changing world of fashion but unfortunately, not everyone gets that. So we need to think about changing tactics. If the intelligentsia isn’t prepared to start speaking our language we’re going to have to start speaking theirs.

With this in mind, we’ve put together an academic starter pack with a breakdown of our favourite academic terms and how they relate to fashion. As well as an example of how each term can be used irl, so you can start sprinkling them into conversation like the intellectual salt bae you were born to be. A little neoliberal here, a dash of intersectionality there and looking amazing while doing it? To quote Rachel Zoe, one of the early 21st century’s brightest minds, we die.

Neoliberalism 

What does this mean?

Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that favours privatisation over collectivism.

Tell me more…

It is the belief that everyone should be responsible for themselves and that the state has little to no responsibility for the wellbeing of individual citizens. Politically, this results in cuts to public services like health care, education and housing, and on a more micro level, the ideology seeps into the way we relate to each other. The celebration of the ‘self-made millionaire’ or ‘the young independent designer’ are highly individualised ideas that seek to erase the support systems that are essential to an individual’s survival and success.

Okay, but why should I care? 

The freelance working culture that is prevalent in the fashion industry is a classic example of neoliberalism in action. Working in a freelance capacity means that the individual worker bears all the risk and the companies that hire them bear none. If the freelance worker is sick and can’t work, they lose money. If they want time off, they lose money and if they can’t find work, it’s their problem too. This approach to working is so normal in the industry now that we rarely question it. However, it wasn’t always the case. The collective organising of workers through unions used to be commonplace and many of today’s established designers regularly talk about their reliance on the benefits system to support them during the early stages of their careers. Today, without these support systems, taking risks – which is at the heart of being creative – is only available to the privileged few who can afford it, impacting our ability to be creative and risking the loss of innovative thinking across the fashion industry.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

Neoliberalism is so endemic. I helped Zarina finish her fashion week expenses because she was struggling with the scanner. Did she acknowledge our collective struggle when she sent the form to accounts? No, no she didn’t.

Reading recommendation: The March of the Neoliberals by Stuart Hall

 

Intersectionality

What does this mean?

Intersectionality is a framework that allows us to explore the ways in which identities that are inscribed on our bodies (gender, race, sexuality, ability, class etc) are interconnected and shape each other

Tell me more…

Following Black feminist tradition, intersectionality allows us to recognise the wholeness, complexity and uniqueness of every individual. Rather than reducing someone to a list of categories, like white + woman + gay + working-class, an intersectional analysis accounts for the ways that each influences the other – by examining how race influences gender, gender influence class, class influences sexuality…you get the idea.

Okay, but why should I care? 

As the fashion industry begins to reckon with its whiteness, middle-class-ness and general all-round elitism, if we want to tackle these issues in a sustainable way, we need to be aware of the complexity that comes with actually confronting them. Yes, having more diverse catwalks is important but the conversation needs to move beyond the platitude of ‘celebrating difference’ and start asking the question ‘difference from what?’. Through it’s associations with black feminism, intersectionality is often linked to marginalised identities but all identities are intersectional. By interrogating the identities of those in power – rather than creating hyper-visibility around those who have historically been marginalised – we can start to make visible the structures that are keeping this power in place.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

You know the ‘If your feminism isn’t intersectional it isn’t feminism’ quote? I think we need a fashion one…something like ‘if you didn’t call Morplan desperately requesting 5 rolls of clear garment bags every week in September, you didn’t do a fashion PR internship’…I feel like they’re both equally powerful and raw in their honesty

Reading recommendation: The Combahee River Collective Statement by The Combahee River Collective

 

Pedagogy

What does this mean?

Very simply, pedagogy means the practice of teaching

Tell me more…

It might sound basic, but it’s easy to accept traditional teaching methods without question. But actually, how, what and from whom we learn are all political decisions that shape how we think and act every day, on both societal and individual levels

Okay, but why should I care? 

If we think about the key pedagogical spaces for aspiring fashion workers, there’s formal fashion education and there’s the fashion internship. Both are highly competitive environments to gain access to, so before even entering the fashion industry the entry system is teaching us that peers are competitors rather than collaborators. Once inside, course curriculums come with extremely high workloads and it is assumed that students can, and will, incur high costs on top of their tuition fees in order to pay for materials. These learning conditions aren’t coincidental, it’s all pedagogy. Courses are designed to build students’ stamina so that, when they enter the labour market, working through the night is normal and spending rather than earning money in order to work goes unquestioned. These unspoken lessons have a direct influence on the labour conditions fashion workers are willing to accept, benefitting the industry at large, as employers profit from the labour of overworked and underpaid fashion graduates who don’t know any other way of working.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

Maybe my 10 hours a day screen time average is a bit excessive, but Instagram is a core element of my pedagogical practice and if reducing my screen time means jeopardising my learning, it’s just not something I’m prepared to do.

Reading recommendation: Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks

 

Capital

What does this mean?

Capital refers to resources

Tell me more…

Economic capital means money or other financial assets, social capital is access to social resources like networks or institutions and cultural capital is the knowledge, skills, education and body that would allow someone to ‘fit in’ in specific social spaces

Okay, but why should I care? 

In fashion, low or unpaid jobs at entry level (and beyond) are the norm. For many outside the industry the idea of working for free or next to nothing is unthinkable but for aspiring fashion workers getting experience with a great brand on your CV is often worth the unpaid labour. This is because workers recognise the importance of social and cultural capital in the industry, maybe they’re not getting paid but their association with a luxury fashion house will pay off in the long run, or so they hope. This access to other forms of capital is regularly used by fashion companies to justify low or unpaid labour and it is often the biggest companies with more economic capital who benefit from this the most. The bigger the brand the bigger the cultural capital payoff and the less they have to pay in cold hard cash. Sound fair? No, we didn’t think so either.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

I’m still waiting for my last 3 invoices to be paid but the brand did say I could get a press invite to their sample sale next week. The money I’m owed would obviously be great but I’ll take the cultural capital of early sale access for now and chase those payments wearing my new SS17, ex-outlet-stock jumper that I didn’t know I wanted and don’t actually need

Reading recommendation: The Forms of Capital by Pierre Bourdieu

 

Gender is a performance/construct 

What does this mean?

That gender is created, it is not naturally occurring but rather a social categorisation that is put on each of our bodies in order to regulate them

Tell me more…

Contemporary queer and feminist studies widely accepts gender as something we ‘do’, rather than something we inherently ‘are’. Theorists describe the ‘doing’ of gender as an ongoing and subconscious performance which, through constant repetition, comes to be seen as naturally occurring but is in fact produced. The ways we ‘do’ gender are infinite – the way we sit, talk, walk, stand, eat are all influenced by the cultural ideas that we have about how a body that is assigned a certain gender should behave.

Okay, but why should I care? 

Because gender is everywhere!! But on a fashion-focused level, because clothing is a primary social signifier of gender and is integral to the gendered performances each of us is producing. Changing how we decorate and present our bodies has the power to blur and subvert assumed gender categories and as the people designing, making and selling clothes those who work in fashion have the potential to lead the way on deconstructing traditional gender categories.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

Gender is a construct but if the FedEx guy wants to assert his masculinity by insisting on carrying every box himself, who am I to argue with centuries of gender oppression?

Reading recommendation: Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

 

Meritocracy

What does this mean?

Meritocracy is the idea that we are all equal with the same opportunities and that those who succeed in society do so based purely on talent and skill

Tell me more…

What this idea overlooks are the structural inequalities that mean that different people have different levels of access to success. Success is rarely down to merit alone, cultural and social capital are usually in the mix as well – family connections, going to the ‘right’ university…you know the drill.

Okay, but why should I care? 

Fashion is deeply attached to the myth of meritocracy and the romantic notion that talent and creativity alone can take you anywhere. However, you only have to apply for an internship (or twenty) without an introduction from your friend’s neighbour’s cousin to know that this is not the case. Without that connection that lets you get a foot in the door to prove your talent, the door is very much closed for most people. Of course, this is true for many industries but other sectors are faster to face up to the problem. Considering itself to be open and progressive, there’s often more resistance in the fashion industry to bringing in formalised structures that try to address this nepotistic network-culture than in more traditional workplaces. But without targeted recruitment drives that are specifically designed to hire outside the very small pool of personal connections of people already in the industry, fashion is going to be stuck with snail’s pace change for the foreseeable future.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

If meritocracy is real then why have I been assisting for three years while the designer’s son has come straight in as head of ready-to-wear? The guy doesn’t know who Demna is and when I asked for a Pantone reference the other day he asked if I was talking about the mugs!

Reading recommendation: Unspeakable Inequalities: Post Feminism, Entrepreneurialism, and the Repudiation of Sexism among Cultural Workers by Rosalind Gill

 

Hegemony 

What does this mean?

Hegemony refers to the dominance of one social group over others and the ways in which this power is maintained

Tell me more…

Despite being everywhere, hegemonic power is often difficult to pinpoint as those in power tend to remain out of sight. For example, in a patriarchal society there is a masculine hegemony – patriarchal social relations are created and are constantly being maintained but because there is no singular physical embodiment of ‘the patriarchy’ power appears as abstract. The invisibility of hegemonic power means it is easy not to question how and why the systems and spaces we occupy have been created. We accept that the conditions we experience are ‘just the way it is’ and remain subordinate to the faceless individuals who have the power to change our systems and spaces.

Okay, but why should I care? 

More and more in fashion we pay lip service to the urgent need for change but continue to work within a very rigid system that doesn’t allow for this change to grow. Within industry discussions, the complexity of changing the fashion system is often cited as the reason that it is yet to happen, but if those in power (LVMH, Kering, Conde Nast etc) really wanted change they have the resources to create it. The reality is that the current system – built on exploiting workers, damaging the planet and creating a surplus of stuff that no one needs – works for the fashion hegemony because it keeps their money coming in. They’re not going to change a system that, for them, isn’t broken…no matter how much they say they want to.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

If Kering wants to keep their hegemonic power invisible maybe they should ease off a bit on these marketing campaigns, I feel like I’m being bombarded by Gucci and Saint Laurent ads at the moment. You’ve got a huge advertising budget, we get it!

Reading recommendation: The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House by Audre Lorde

 

Affect

What does this mean?

A much-debated term in academia, affect is the embodied experience of feeling or emotion, described simply by Lola Olufemi as “the ability to be moved”

Tell me more…

Although our feelings and emotions are experienced in the body, it is important to understand that our affective responses (how we feel in relation to people and situations) are not innate. Similarly to the performance of gender, they are a result of our social and cultural influences and each of us is affected differently depending on our social standpoint.

Okay, but why should I care? 

Affect drives fashion. It drives consumers to buy products at highly inflated prices because they are sold the idea that they will feel a certain way through proximity to an object or brand and it drives fashion workers, who buy into a dream of how they will feel if they work inside this exclusive and supposedly glamorous world. When the reality of working in fashion doesn’t quite match up to the dream, it is common for workers to still cling on to the affective attachment they have created in relation to fashion and maintain that they love their job, even when all signs suggest otherwise. We feel we should love our jobs, so we keep saying it in the hope that one day it will be true. Neoliberalism teaches us that we alone are responsible for our emotions and managing them so when we don’t feel what we think we should feel, we question ourselves instead of the environments that our feelings are in response to, allowing the external factors that create our bad feeling to go unquestioned.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

I don’t know why I’m still so obsessed with referencing Marc Jacobs at Vuitton on every mood board, all I can say is those affective attachments run deep

Reading recommendation: The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sara Ahmed

 

Labour

What does this mean?

The act of working

Tell me more…

Labour is typically produced in exchange for financial reward but this is not always the case. Actually, the value ascribed to labour changes depending on who is performing it, where it is being performed and the visibility of the work, with those who are most marginalised in the spaces they inhabit usually receiving the least remuneration for their work and sometimes none at all

Okay, but why should I care? 

Our effective ties to fashion mean that we rarely see ourselves as ‘workers’ who deserve fair pay for our labour and, instead, view ourselves as ‘creatives’ who are compelled to work in this world. It’s a phenomenon that academics refer to as ‘passionate work’ – the idea that taking pleasure in your work justifies exploitative working conditions – and it is immediately familiar to those who work or aspire to work in fashion. This acceptance that fashion labour is performed for love, not money, is used by employers to negate the need for a conventional labour/wage exchange and alongside that the need for conventional labour laws and safeguarding measures. So, if we want fairer and more sustainable working conditions, we need to stop glamourising our work and get back to basics. Workers have rights and fashion workers are no different!

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

I’m all about knowing my rights now so I’m asking for a pay rise, I can’t keep doing the emotional labour of listening to my boss’ showroom stories anymore. There are only so many times I can pretend to care about her carnet paperwork not clearing customs, without being compensated, and I think I’ve reached my limit

Reading recommendation: The Most Beautiful Job in the World by Giulia Mensitieri

 

The Creative Economy

What does this mean?

The ‘creative economy’ has no standard, accepted definition as it’s developing so rapidly but, generally, the term is used to refer to the economic activity and profit-making potential of the creative industries

Tell me more…

The creative industries include fashion, advertising, design, arts and crafts, film, music, publishing, performing arts, software, video games, TV/radio. Within these sectors, fashion typically holds a feminised position and is easily dismissed as frivolous or unimportant but the industry makes a significant economic contribution to global economies and the highly networked nature of the industry means that this economic impact is very far reaching

Okay, but why should I care? 

On the hardest days in fashion, when clients are being demanding, you’ve worked an 80 hour week without recognition or you’re writing your 5th strongly worded email to a finance department for payment on a job you didn’t even want to do, it’s easy to question the point of the career you’ve devoted your life to. But in these hopeless moments, thinking about the fashion industry in economic terms can help. Beyond those working directly in the industry, fashion generates income for hundreds of thousands of people. From the van drivers transporting showroom collections to Paris to calligraphers tasked with personalising 500 show invitations, fashion is creating jobs that wouldn’t otherwise exist and that’s important. Yes, the industry is far from perfect but thinking about fashion in terms of its on-the-ground economic potential can remind us that it does also have a positive impact on people’s everyday lives.

How can I use it to impress my friends? 

I want to support the creative economy, so really buying that Paloma Wool top is less about having something new to wear on Saturday night and more about a commitment to fiscal growth

Reading recommendation: Be Creative: Making a living in the new culture industries by Angela McRobbie