The Launch of “Global China” for Fashion Theory hosted by the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton and CREATURE

Co-convened by the Winchester School of Art, the University of Southampton and CREATURE, and supported by Culture Fashion Communication, the University of Bologna, the launch of Global China (2021; vol. 15, issue 7) for Fashion Theory. The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture is a 2-part event with a line-up of discussants to respond to the key themes and ideas raised within the special issue. Edited by Wessie Ling and Simona Segre-Reinach, the publication situates in fashion scholarship and focuses on China. It expands and traverses this field by drawing from a far wider and interdisciplinary model that crosses geographical, cultural, methodological and disciplinary boundaries. Global China addresses key contemporary themes that include but are not limited to sustainability and the creative and cultural industries; ecommerce and cultural privacy; Sino-Italian collaboration; exhibiting Chinese-ness in a European museum; transnational latex circulation and film studies; Sino-African garment production, and fashion law, demonstrating the reach and inclusiveness of both the publication and event.

Part 1

Time/Date: 13h-14h GMT, Wednesday 16 February

Chair: Dr Jo Turney

Speakers: Prof Ryan Bishop, Dr. Yating Jin, Prof Juliette MacDonald, Gemma Williams

Respondents: Prof Anthony Fung, Prof Wessie Ling, Prof Simona Segre-Reinach, Dr. Liang Xu

Part 2

Time/Date: 17h-18h GMT, Wednesday 16 February

Chair: Dr Jo Turney

Speakers: Prof Hazel Clark, Prof Jonathan Faires, Elio Hao, Dr Willemijn van Noor, Dr. Jianhua Zhao

Respondents: Prof Wessie Ling, Prof Sean Metzger, Prof Simona Segre-Reinach

Professor Ryan Bishop is Professor of Global Arts and Politics, Co-Director of the Archaeologies of Media and Technology Research Group within the Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton, and Faculty Director of the Doctoral School. He co-edited the journal Cultural Politics. Most recently, he co-authored Technocrats of the Imaingation: Art, Technology and the Military-Industrial Avant-garde and co-edited Seeing Degree Zero: Barthes/Burgin and Political Aesthetics.

Professor Hazel Clark is Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies in the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons The New School for Design. Her scholarship has focused on uncovering new perspectives, cultures and geographies for the study of fashion and design, in Europe, the United States, and China. Her scholarly books and co-editions include: The Cheongsam; Old Clothes, New Looks: Second Hand Fashion; The Fabric of Cultures: Fashion, Identity; Fashion and Everyday Life: Britain and America and Fashion Curating: In the Museum and Beyond among others.

Professor Jonathan Faiers is Professor of Fashion Thinking at the Winchester School of Art, the University of Southampton. His research examines the interface between popular culture, textiles and dress. He launched Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption; the first peer-reviewed, academic journal to investigate this globally contested term. He has published widely including the critically acclaimed work Tartan, and more recently Fur. A Sensitive History published by Yale University Press.

Professor Anthony Fung is a Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include the creative and cultural industry, and cultural policy on all digital content; popular and youth culture; and Chinese and Asian media and communication. He has published over 150 journal articles and book chapters. His most recent book includes Cultural Policy and East Asia Rivalry: The Hong Kong Gaming Industry and a co-edited volume on Made in Hong Kong, Global Popular Music Series of Routledge.

Elio Hao is currently a third year PhD student in design at Winchester School of Art, the University of Southampton. His research title is “An intersectional analysis of queer men in social-issue-driven fashion films”. His research is focused on the representation of queer men and gendered representation in contemporary fashion films, with a specific focus on the engagement within fashion films with queer-related social issues addressed. He is a visiting lecturer of MA Fashion Management, and is also an artist specialise in mythology, Yokai and surrealism.

Dr. Yating Jin is a lecturer in fashion studies at Ningbo University, China. She researches the formation and functionality of local fashion systems under the influence of globalization through the investigation of the Chinese fashion industry from social, cultural, industrial and political perspectives. Her article on A Mechanism of the Chinese Fashion System is published in Fashion Theory.

Professor Wessie Ling is Professor of Transcultural Arts and Design at the School of Art, Architecture and Design and the Director of CREATURE (The Centre for Creative Arts, Cultures and Engagement), London Metropolitan University. She has written widely on the socio-cultural revolution of the Chinese dress through which dissecting the material culture in China. She is the author of Fusionable Cheongsam and co-editor of Fashion in Multiple Chinas, and special issues for Modern Italy, Zonemoda Journal and Fashion Theory.

Professor Juliette MacDonald is Personal Chair of Craft History and Theory at Edinburgh College of Art, the University of Edinburgh. She is Director of the collaborative partnership between Edinburgh College of Art and Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation, Donghua University. Her interests focus on the evolution of practices of craft and the ways in which craft connects creativity, place and identity. Her most recent book includes Craft and Heritage and she co-edited Styling Shanghai.

Professor Sean Metzger is a Professor at the School of Theatre, Film and Television, the University College of Los Angeles. He works at the intersections of several fields: visual culture (art, fashion, film, theatre) as well as Asian American, Caribbean, Chinese, film, performance and sexuality studies. His monographs include Chinese Looks: Fashion, Performance, Race and The Chinese Atlantic: Seascapes and the Theatricality of Globalization.

Dr. Willemijin van Noor is Curator for the Chinese collections at Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, the Netherlands. Her main research interests are Chinese art and material culture within global history, the role of material culture in representations and perceptions of China, and histories of collecting and display. She is currently working on an exhibition about China for Wereldmuseum Rotterdam in 2023.

Simona Segre-Reinach is Associate Professor in Fashion Studies in the Department of Arts, the University of Bologna. Her research interests are sociology of global fashion, fashion theory, China studies, and fashion curation. Editor of Zonemoda Journal, she has published many books including Mode in Italy; La moda. Un’introduzione; Orientalismi, Un mondo di mode; Exhibit!; Fashion in Multiple Chinas; The Size Effect; Biki. Visioni francesi per una moda italiana. Her expertise in Sino-Italian fashion collaboration has resulted in numerous articles on the subject.

Dr. Jo Turney is Associate Professor of Fashion at the Winchester School of Art, the University of Southampton. Her research is predominantly situated in the contemporary, focussing on the 1970s as a pivotal period in social and design experimentation, innovation and change. She is the founder and Co-editor of Clothing Cultures, editorial board member of Textile: the journal of cloth and culture, and is a member of the advisory board for the Dress and Body Association. Her most recent book includes Fashion Crimes: Dressing for Deviance.

Gemma Williams is the author of Fashion China, Thames & Hudson, and Features Director of Jing Daily. She is the former curator of Fashion Space Gallery, London. She consults to a variety of clients including Shanghai Fashion Week and sits on the mentor panel of the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland.

Dr. Liang Xu is an Assistant Professor in the Peking University School of International Studies and Secretary-General of the Peking University Centre for African Studies. Liang’s research interests include Chinese diaspora in Africa, social and gender history of Africa, the political economy of African development, and international relations. He has written many articles on Sino-African relations in garment manufacturing. His latest research chronicles historical and modern-day ethnic Chinese garment production in Newcastle, South Africa.

Dr. Jianhua Zhao is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, the University of Louisville. His research clusters around two subject areas: the Chinese fashion industry and Chinese family businesses. He is the author of The Chinese Fashion Industry: An Ethnographic Approach.

Image: On the left, a model in Balenciaga from head to toe posting for a photo shoot in front of the Long Museum in Shanghai, 2019. Photo: Wessie Ling; on the right, a window display of a Balenciaga outlet and accessories in Balenciaga shop, Milan, 2019. Photo: Simone Segre-Reinach