Assist. Prof. Yuniya Kawamura
Yuniya is Assistant Professor of Sociology at FIT, State University of New York. She completed her Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia University. She is currently working on two books titled "Making Fashion: Japanese Designers in the French Fashion System" and "Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies" which will be published by Berg Publishers in Winter 2003. She is also professionally trained as a fashion designer and a patternmaker at Bunka School of Fashion in Japan, Kingston Polytechnic in England, and FIT.
Fashion-ology: Constructing a Science of Fashion
I introduce Fashion-ology, a scientific and sociological investigation of fashion as a system that constitutes institutions, organizations, groups, designers, gatekeepers, events, and practices, and that contributes to the making of 'fashion'. The structural nature of the system affects the legitimation process of designers' creativity, and the inclusion and exclusion of designers in/from the system. It is the content of fashion that is constantly shifting, not the institutions. My research focuses on a macro-sociological analysis of the social organization of fashion and a micro-interactionist analysis of designers. The interdependence between the system and individuals in the system will be observed. A systemic analysis of fashion helps us make a distinction between fashion and clothing which are two independent, autonomous entities although they are often utilized interchangeably. Clothing is a material production while fashion is a symbolic production. Clothing is a necessity while fashion is an excess. Clothing has a utility function while fashion has a status function. Clothing is found in any society where people clothe themselves while fashion must be institutionally constructed and culturally diffused. The actual relationship between these two systems varies according to time, place, and conditions, and it is the fashion system that provides the mechanism to transform clothing into fashion.
Top of page
