Fashion Text Collaborative Glossary

<p dir="ltr">BACKGROUND </p><p dir="ltr">As Laura Garnder observes in Mode and Mode: Tactics for Publishing Fashion in the Margins (2019), ‘scholars have identified a lack of research on fashion media, especially considering its vital role in the production and consumption of fashion.’ Although theorist such as Roland Barthes (The Fashion System, 1967) and Malcolm Barnard (Fashion Theory: A Reader, 2007), have long shown how fashion writing produces fashion meaning, their work has largely focused on developing theoretical arguments and critiquing extended texts. Meanwhile, little attention has been given to that shorter fashion paratexts –captions and coverlines – that comprise much contemporary fashion media and which the Fashion Text Collaborative Glossary seeks to address. </p><p dir="ltr">CONTRIBUTION </p><p dir="ltr">The Fashion Text Collaborative Glossary is a collectively composed text that analyses the tropes and tendencies found in the fashion paratexts – captions and coverlines – of commercial fashion media. The glossary is comprised of 25 textual analyses, written by 14 leading fashion researchers. Of these, Cibis contributed 4 analyses under the headings; Frenglish, Interdictions, Redefining Words and Transfigured Time. By treating these peripheral and commercial texts as significant sites of fashion production and meaning making, the glossary contributes to fashion research by i) drawing attention to an overlooked aspect of fashion practice, ii) critiquing an aspect of the fashion media which often goes unquestioned, and iii) exploring the creative opportunity afforded by marginal texts. </p><p dir="ltr">SIGNIFICANCE </p><p dir="ltr">The Fashion Text Collaborative Glossary was published in volume 06 of the internationally renowned Viscose Journal; that seeks to expand possibilities for fashion research, practice, and critique. The journal is edited by Jeppe Ugelvig, author of Fashion Work: 25 Years of Art in Fashion (2020) and is supported by the Nordic Culture Fund, Danish Arts Foundation and The International Library for Fashion Research, Norway. The glossary itself was edited by leading fashion academics Dr. Laura Gardner (RMIT University) and Femke de De Vries (ArtEZ University of the Art) and includes contributions from esteemed fashion researchers including Dal Chodha (Central Saint Martins) and Caroline Stevenson (London College of Fashion).</p>