Animal Fashions

The international journal Apparence(s) will publish a special issue (Spring 2021) on the complex relationships between animals or animal by-products and fashion and dress. The special issue will examine the use of animal by-products (be it fur, feathers, cochineal or silk) alongside the inspiration animals have long provided to fashion (from the ‘mode giraffe’ in 1830 France to the shark-skin swimsuit of Michael Phelps). We want to study sartorial practices, their meanings and impact – whether cultural, economic or environmental. The volume aims to investigate the use of animal by-products in dress and fashion but also shed light on the trades and skills of people involved in the transformation of animal products for fashion – from feather workers to leather tanners, hat makers, furriers, or bone cutters…Their aesthetic, social and economic importance will be re-contextualised alongside the more general technological and environmental issues their trade raises.

Animals have been a source of inspiration for fashion designers but also an economic engine for the wealth of nations whilst in some cultures they are a crucial spiritual point of reference (the Pacific feather cloaks being a case in point) and they provide source material and inspiration to contemporary R&D projects (from spider-DNA to goat’s milk-derived fibres). Dress – whether fashionable, everyday, technical or ritual – has long had complex, multi dimensional relationships to animals.

Both as an interface between the body politic and the individual body and as defining features of human civilization, dress and bodily decoration are key sites in which the relationship between humans and animals are defined and constructed.

Yet, despite a few isolated studies, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship between animals and dress. Often narrow in terms of chronological, geographical or methodological scope, what exists has failed to grasp the more complex ramifications of the topic. At the crossroads of many disciplinary approaches, the « Animal fashion » special issue intends to explore these complex issues without restricting itself to a specific century, geographical space or cultural reality.

In this volume we also to intend to address questions raised by the fairly recent emergence of animal studies to see what light they can shed on our topic. This approach, which often posits animal agency, challenges the traditional dichotomic opposition between human subjects and animals seen as passive objects – be it as source material for fashion or as objects of study.

We are calling on historians, art historians, economists, archaeologists, archaeozoologists, anthropologists and animal studies specialists to send their proposals to
afennetauxyahoo.com and gabriele.mentgestu-dortmund.de

Please send complete 6000 word essays in electronic format – in French or in English – by October 30th 2020. The essays should be accompanied by a 300-word abstract in English and by a list of 5 keywords. Please refer to the journal’s website for formatting guidelines.

Articles will be subjected to double blind peer review, so please do respect the following guidelines for submission:

Submissions are to take the following form:
- One WORD file (times 12, double spacing) that doesn’t bear the name of the author which contains the text and footnotes of the article, a 300-word long abstract in English and 5 keywords, and a list of figures with the full captions of your illustrations.
- One WORD file with your name, affiliation, a 300-word long biographical notice of the author, the title of the article and your contact details
- A folder with your illustrations as jpg or tiff files titled in the following manner
o YourNameFig1.jpg/.tiff
o YourNameFig2.jpg/.tiff

For more information: https://journals.openedition.org/apparences/2272