Time in Fashion : Industrial, Antilinear and Uchronic Temporalities

Few phenomena embody the notion of time as well as fashion. Fast-moving and rooted in the “now”, fashion is constantly creating its own past through the process of rapid style change. Uniquely poised between the past and the future, fashion’s relationship with time is unorthodox. This anthology explores three alternative ways to think about fashion and time: the first identifies the seasonal nature of fashion as an industry, and shows how this has impacted on workers and wearers alike. The second looks at fashion design as a ceaseless process of adaptation, reconstruction and recombination of motifs, in which nostalgia and revivals play their part. The third construes fashion’s “imaginary”, with its capacity for fantasy and myth-making, as a form of alternate history that asks “what if?”. Within this framework, key classic texts are juxtaposed with lesser known ones in an interdisciplinary approach that includes philosophy, history, literature, media and fashion design, ranging from the 18th century to the present. Among the authors included are Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, Elsa Schiaparelli, Roland Barthes, as well as leading contemporary scholars.