As part of the 1st Eastern Bloc Censorship Research Group Conference, we invite paper proposals for a panel exploring the complex relationship between fashion, censorship, and authoritarian power, with a particular focus on socialist and post-socialist contexts in the former Eastern Bloc, including Albania and Yugoslavia. This panel seeks to examine how fashion functioned both as a regulated cultural field and as a space of negotiation, resistance, and self-expression under state socialism and other forms of authoritarian governance. We are especially interested in the ways clothing, textiles, visual culture, and dress practices were
shaped by ideological control, economic constraints, and cultural policies, as well as in how individuals and communities navigated, subverted, or reinterpreted these frameworks.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• State policies on fashion, dress codes, and cultural production
• Censorship and moral regulation in the fashion industry and media
• Fashion as a tool of ideological representation and propaganda
• Informal economies, DIY practices, and underground aesthetics
• Gender, identity, and the politics of appearance under socialism
• Comparative perspectives across socialist and post-socialist contexts

We welcome interdisciplinary approaches from fashion studies, history, art history, visual culture, anthropology, sociology, media studies, and related fields.

The main language of the conference will be English. Please send proposals to: popescualinaayahoo.fr.

Deadline for submissions: 31 May 2026
Notification of acceptance: 5 June 2026

Conference Fees

• Regular registration fee: 750 PLN
• Reduced registration fee: 550 PLN
The reduced fee is available for students, doctoral candidates, and independent scholars, and may also be granted in other cases (subject to availability). The fee includes keynote lectures, a film screening, a guided tour of Łódź, simultaneous translation, conference materials, coffee breaks, lunches, and the conference dinner.

Organizer
The Eastern Bloc Censorship Research Group (EBCRG) – an international research network https://www.uni.lodz.pl/censorship-research-group