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This article analyses the role of costume in contemporary heterosexual hard-core moving-image pornography. Building upon a previous study (Church Gibson and Kirkham 2012), it focuses on the representation of youth in a sub-site of the American website Reality Kings (2000–present). By drawing on an emergent yet fragmented body of work in this field, it situates the importance of costume and dress in communicating aspects of gendered identity and debates pornography’s use of ‘authentic’ visual strategies. In addition, it problematizes the much-discussed concept of ‘pornification’, arguing for the recognition of an inverse effect in pornographic texts.

This article analyses the role of costume in contemporary heterosexual hard-core moving-image pornography. Building upon a previous study (Church Gibson and Kirkham 2012), it focuses on the representation of youth in a sub-site of the American website Reality Kings (2000–present). By drawing on an emergent yet fragmented body of work in this field, it situates the importance of costume and dress in communicating aspects of gendered identity and debates pornography’s use of ‘authentic’ visual strategies. In addition, it problematizes the much-discussed concept of ‘pornification’, arguing for the recognition of an inverse effect in pornographic texts.

In the past 8 years a new breed of ‘crafting’ books and magazines have flooded the market: extremely seductive tomes filled with pretty, ‘vintage’ styled imagery of beautiful interiors littered with pretty ‘fun’ but also pretty useless home crafted projects; Felted macaroons, knitted apple covers, crocheted beach huts…are all photographed in suitably ‘shabby chic’ aspirational homes. On the surface this proliferation of attractive imagery of the end result of domestic craft endeavours suggests a shift in status for hobby culture in mainstream culture. However is this really so? This paper positions these publications, through visual analysis, as a part of a resurgence if not an amplification of patriarchal, white middle class, conservative discourse simply sold in a seductive new package. Instead of empowering women through making they promote the return of the 1950s housewife with time and money to waste as a new/old ideal of appropriate femininity. Further more it questions the purpose of these books and argues that they operate as a Marxist joke: the commodification of ‘production’ that encourages the visual consumption of making rather than actual making and that they culturally operate as white middle class female pornography- the fetishisation and objectification of labour from a detached scopophilic perspective. Instead of offering alternative careers and thus independence through making skills during a global financial crises of which, arguably women have directly or indirectly been the biggest victims, they offer an ideological plaster on a gaping wound.

This paper investigates why there appears to be a gap in the literature regarding the styling of 90s female alternative musicians. The investigation into why these women (for instance: Kim Gordon, Juliana Hatfield, Liz Phair, Kim Deal) are largely overlooked in terms of style will foreground issues of authenticity, gender and credibility. It would appear their “authentic” identity versus that of the “artificial” or “fabricated” one of their colleagues the “pop princesses” has left them positioned as an alternative to the mainstream and thus above ‘frivolous’ concerns such fashion and appearance. Their talent and artistry are seen as so central to their identity, seemingly excluding an understanding of, an interest in, or concern with self-representation and style. This credibility ascribed to them as musicians on the one hand has afforded them the enviable status of having been to a large extent excluded from scrutiny and assassination by the popular press, however it has also led to the invisibility in academic writing of their appearance. Academia (O’Brien 2002,Leonard 2007, Miller 2011) appears to have adopted the same stance as the press: credible female alternative artists have transcended the ‘trivial’ feminine concerns of appearance and hence in books on alternative female artists appearance is not covered, and in volumes on fashion and music, alternative female artists (with the banal exception of Courtney Love) are not studied. This stance is very problematic in regard to its implicit view of gender stereotypes and how it keeps alive the idea that a woman can, and only will, be afforded credibility if she renounces an interest in fashion and style and by extension that ‘serious’ women in fact have renounced any such interest. This paper aims to make a start at rectifying this current academic impasse by addressing these issues and arguing that credibility and fashion do not have to be, and indeed are not, mutually exclusive.

This chapter examines the enduring appeal of the 'flapper' who emerged as a type of modern woman in the 1920s, and locates how and why her visual appearance is both spectacular yet hollow when adopted by contemporary fashion imagery. By mapping both her semantic and visual roots and development, the chapter highlights how her once transgressive potential is neutralised through the language of commerce and how a figure that initially challenged notions of femininity, in its current incarnation merely affirms them.

This article aims to investigate the reasons for the prolific use of feathers in 1930s Hollywood costume. Instead of positioning them merely as a spectacular tool of glamour in the Golden Age, it will focus on feathers as a form of material culture and specifically on their fetishistic nature in order to pose an alternative explanation for their sartorial popularity in a decade marked by the introduction of the Production/Hays Code. I wish to demonstrate that by shifting the methodological emphasis on feathers from object to subject, we open up an autonomous narrative for the material that would be missed when focusing only on its contextual reading. This in turn potentially offers a new dimension as to their use, in particular as a metaphor for female sexuality and therefore as a vehicle for reading 1930s cinematic sexuality.

This article is a critical examination of the visual culture that accompanies and promotes the current knitting revival. It examines the revival’s roots, its impact, and most importantly its place within the contemporary vintage craze witnessed in style and popular culture. By focusing on issues of New Domesticity and conspicuous leisure it aims to open up a discussion on the more problematic ideas that underpin these seemingly fun and sugary images.

Design and fashion historian Emmanuelle Dirix gave an illustrated talk called Women, fashion and the First World War and discover how the First World War not only changed women’s lives but also how they dressed. Ms Dirix discussed how the huge political and social upheaval of the early twentieth century led to dramatic changes in the fashionable female silhouette and saw the birth of the New Woman after the war. For the first time in history women took on traditionally male roles in the workforce on a huge scale while men fought on the Western Front. This was reflected in a more practical approach to dressing and saw the shocking introduction of shorter skirts, shorter hairstyles and even trousers into the female wardrobe. Ms Dirix focused on the female war experience as a force for change from the lavish but constrictive Edwardian style to a more comfortable and ultimately modern fashion aesthetic. The talk was followed by a question and answer session. This talk was in conjunction with the London Transport Museum’s 2014 exhibition Goodbye Piccadilly: From Home Front to Western Front.

The French tricolor was originally derived from the cockades worn during the French Revolution by the Paris Militia and citizens who supported a constitutional monarchy and adopted it as a visual manifestation of their political beliefs. In 1790 the tricolor was approved as the official flag of France as a symbolic break with the past. While each of the 3 colors’ individual symbolic associations have been debated (and disputed), from the outset the adoption of the tricolor was affiliated with patriotism and a revolutionary spirit. From 1940-1944 during the Vichy regime and the subsequent German occupation of France, the tricolor made a ‘fashion’ comeback and can be identified in fashion design, illustration and photography; Mme Gres opened her salon with a parade of tricolor haute couture garments, Marie-Claire magazine repeatedly featured covers in the palette, and surviving fashion items show that ordinary women made hats, bags and shoes in red, white and blue. However, due to the complicated French political situation, the tricolor’s adoption and symbolic significance was highly complex during this period. Where as to some its use signaled support for France, the Vichy regime and Marshal Petain (who had signed the armistice and entered on a route of willful collaboration with Germany), for others it symbolized subversion and opposition to the occupiers and the government, to others still it was a symbol in support of the Free French and de Gaulle – yet to all it remained, and indeed was claimed as a symbol of patriotism. During this period the use of the tricolor thus questioned the notion of patriotism itself and evidences that readings of color can be a highly complex socio-political undertaking, which is not only context- but also reader-dependent.

The paper deconstructs Lana Del Rey’s “Ride” (2012) video which heavily relies on, and some would say exploits, a very stereotypical image of American Biker culture: as the back-of-the-bike babe she travels through the mythologised American great wide open, engages in deviant sexual experiences and hedonistic partying. Her clothing, her over-sexualised pouting and posing are all images from the clichéd album of biker fantasies. On the surface this is therefore yet another repetition of the myth of Othering and deviance associated with this culture. However, as this presentation will argue, a closer reading reveals that for Del Rey biker culture in her work operates as metaphor for her own career and her understanding of it. Instead of using biker imagery to appropriate authenticity, Del Rey—aware of her own artificial persona—uses the image of biker culture as a metaphor for her own inability to ever be authentic. By utilising it in this manner instead of devaluing the actual culture, she devalues its clichéd stereotypes through positioning herself as entirely fake.

This article examines the enduring myth of the Antwerp Six. By consulting primary sources it revisits the circumstances under which The Six burst onto the international fashion scene and repositions their story into a wider narrative of marketing and branding.

This chapter focuses on Italian influences on knitwear in high fashion. Emmanuelle Dirix co-edited the book in which this chapter appears with Federico Poletti.

In 2007 the Flemish Parliament hosted the 6+ Antwerp Fashion exhibition, a show tracing the development and impact of Flemish fashion focusing almost exclusively on graduates from the Antwerp Fashion Academy. The 6 in the title refers to the now mythical Antwerp Six the six fashion designers and Antwerp Academy graduates Dries van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, Walter van Beirendonck, Marina Yee and Ann Demeulemeester who burst onto the international fashion stage in the mid 1980s and transformed Belgium, and Antwerp in particular, into ‘‘the world’s unlikeliest fashion capital’’ (Elle UK,October 1987). That‘‘official’’version of events, that one that keeps being repeated, is a nice story; a story about a small country that most people have only driven through,rising to the top echelons of fashion cool thanks to the creative genius of six friends who all studied together at the Fashion Academy and who one day drove to London in a big old van and within a week, to everyone’s surprise, conquered the world of fashion, and more importantly established‘‘Belgian Fashion’’ both as a concept and a reality. The story of this apparent(fashion) revolution is one that is still repeated and heavily relied on today in terms of the promotion of Antwerp as a fashion city and the promotion of Belgian Fashion world-wide full stop. By examining press materials from the 1980s, and juxtaposing these with later journalistic copy, this paper wishes to question and to challenge certain aspects of the ‘‘official’’version. Not for its own sake but to try and establish the wider context to this enduring myth. The focus on and the blind belief in this oversimplified version of events by those who repeat it, may have resulted in not all of those involved in the story of TheSix being given the credit they deserve in helping stage this fashion revolution, and in establishing and branding Belgian Fashion. More importantly it has promoted a one-sided view of Belgian Fashion which opposes

The changing status of knitwear in high fashion is a fascinating history in which the threads of socio-cultural revolutions and fashion design are closely knit together. By unravelling its ups and downs, in different places and eras, this book starts to shed a light on the origins of our current perspective on knitwear. Due to knitwear's associations with hobby culture, femininity and crafts, it is too often overlooked that it can also be something highly fashionable, experimental and a daring choice for fashion designers. Knitwear's contemporary comeback is in fact a vogue for something that never really disappeared. Body hugging cling, jersey sportswear, raw knits, sculptural volumes, lace-like body nets... the possibilities of knitting make it an endless source of inspiration for fashion designers. This books starts to tug the yarn of knitwear's hidden history, investigating different product-ion methods, social histories and the aesthetic (r)evolutions of knitwear in fashion. With topics ranging from granddad chic to utilitarian jumpers, from fashionable stockings to 3D knits, the everlasting appeal of twinsets and the formless in fashion... this book takes a closer look at something we all own but that is often simply taken for granted: knitwear.

From the MoMu website: This exhibition introduced the visitor to a wide variety of exquisite knitted garments and accessories from across the last centuries, with a focus on high fashion pieces and their vernacular interpretations. Top pieces by national and international designers and labels, historic couture pieces as well as more avant-garde and cutting edge pieces by established designers and newcomers on the international fashion scene sat side by side to reveal the richness and diversity of knitwear in high fashion.

This section is part of a book that is an international standard work on all aspects of knitwear in fashion; some of the world's most important specialists highlight a specific theme. The focus of the book is on contemporary high fashion creations by Schiaparelli, Chanel, Issy Miyake and Alexander McQueen, presenting knitwear in all its dimensions: socially and stylistically, but also discussing more popular and practical themes. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Fashion Museum in Antwerp.

Knitting is the unlikely story lurking behind the history of twentieth century warfare. In the First World War the conflict prompted British civilians to knit ‘comforts’ for the troops. Official support for home-front knitting may have been driven by the desire to use wartime to reconstruct gender roles, but a widespread enthusiasm for domestic crafts also reflected the rise of volunteering, which swept Britain during the First World War. During the Second World War many men also got involved in knitting for the troops, due to the ease with which knitting could be incorporated into everyday life, and the contribution that comforts made to the war effort. Images of cheerful and patriotic knitters may be the popular face of the wartime volunteer project but war knitting challenges the sentimental image of needlecrafts. If the mobility and Do-It-Yourself qualities of home knitting encouraged wartime volunteer knitters, today it inspires guerrilla knitting ventures and the use of hand knitting in high fashion. Then and now, the mobility and simplicity of knitting makes it an attractive activity for both men and women. Wartime concerns about austerity, recycling and improvisation have resurfaced in the twenty-first century, which has found military-inspired knits taking on new meanings in fashion.

This talk focuses on the wives and mothers who found themselves in charge of their new homes, in Metroland - far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city centre. The talk explored how homes changed dramatically after the First World War, through the boom in technology and labour saving devices, and in their decorative schemes. It compared the sleek ideal 'moderne' interiors that featured in magazines and promotional material, with the ubiquitous reality of mock Jacobean sideboards and floral wallpapers. Drawing on women's magazines of the time it also discussed the woman's role in the house, where she shopped and what she bought.

This chapter gives both an overview of the reasons behind the adoption of the black suit by men in the 19th century (considering social, political and economic factors) and aims to move away from accepted 'histories' and to put forward a more balanced account of the era by challenging the convenience of some of the more established and over-generalised 'conclusions' often put forward in historic overviews of this period.

This chapter on the Chanel LBD (little black dress) contextualises the dress as part of a process of the social and cultural repositioning of the colour black, combined with new approaches to design, production, the female body and modern life. It aims to overthrow 'accepted' histories, or, better said, 'myths' within fashion studies, and instead poses a methodology which encourages a return to primary historic source material.

From the website of the London Transport Museum: During Word War II rationing and later the government's utility scheme meant everyone had to tighten their belts. Fashion and design historian, Emmanuelle Dirix will explain that, far from being put on the back burner, beauty and fashion practices became much more inventive and were encouraged through the government's make-do-and-mend campaign. Despite strict regulations and 'fashion rations' people still maintained style. New austerity fashion items such as trousers and wedge sole shoes, along with hats - which were unrationed, provided an opportunity to update looks, whilst old blankets and curtains took on new roles as coats and dresses. This illustrated talk, will include archive propaganda film footage of the make-do-and-mend campaign, and will show how the Second World War and the utility style made fashion more accessible to the masses, and explain how New York became one of the world's leading style centres as a result of the occupation of Paris.

During the early 1980s a group of fashion designers emerged from Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts and established the city as the centre for radical fashion design. Trained by designer Linda Loppa, the original ‘Antwerp Six’ consist of Dries Van Noten, Dirk Bikkembergs, Dirk Van Saene, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck and Marina Yee (Margiela was the unofficial seventh member). All of them have challenged the traditional systems of the fashion world, adopting a deconstructivist, avant-garde approach that has heavily influenced contemporary fashion.

From Private to Public examined the motivations, both conscious and unconscious, of putting very personal photographic work into the public domain. How does the practice of artists working in this field differ and relate to the proliferation of personal imagery that is found on social networking sites? This symposium brought together both artists and academics to examine and debate some of these ideas.

The chapter investigates the relationship between London underground, graphic design and female consumers in the interwar period. It traces how fashion culture was utilised to attract female custom- Underground posters were designed to appeal to women in the 1920s and 1930s as it became apparent that 'posters accompanied the housewife all the way from her front door to the shop window'- resulting in a new style of poster emerging to cater for this new consumer audience but also how the posters examined are evident of a societal shift in attitudes towards women in the era. It examines the strategic move of London Underground to employ female fashion illustrators and textile designers to develop this new genre of poster, evidencing a modern and canny understanding of advertising psychology. The work uses these posters as a case study to dispel popular myths of women and femininity in the 20s and 30s and instead presents a contextual examination of women’s roles (both domestic and urban) and their representations within visual culture.