Fashion-ology: Fashion Studies in the Postmodern Digital Era

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering sociological theories, institutional structures, historical shifts, and sustainable practices discussed in Yuniya Kawamura's Fashion-ology.

Fashion-ology

The sociological investigation of fashion that treats it as an institutionalized system producing both the concept and the phenomenon of fashion, distinct from the study of clothing or dress.

Clothing

The tangible, material raw material of what a person wears, characterized by physical production and utility functions, as opposed to intangible, symbolic fashion.

Modus

The Latin origin of the French word for fashion ("la mode"), meaning "manner" in English or "manière" in French, which first appeared in 1482.

Facio (or Factio)

The Latin origin of the English word "fashion," meaning "making" or "doing."

The Great Masculine Renunciation

A historical shift at the end of the eighteenth century identified by J. C. Flugel where bourgeois men abandoned their claim to be ornate and beautiful, choosing solely utilitarian dress and leaving ornamentation to women.

Reverential Imitation

A form of imitation identified by Herbert Spencer prompted by reverence for a superior, such as courtiers copying modifications in dress initiated by a monarch.

Competitive Imitation

A type of imitation identified by Herbert Spencer prompted by an individual's desire to assert equality with another person or social group.

Conspicuous Consumption

A concept formulated by Thorstein Veblen denoting the overt expenditure on goods and apparel to visibly demonstrate economic wealth and exemption from productive manual labor.

Folkways

A sociological term coined by William Graham Sumner referring to customary, habitual, and traditional ways of behaving within a group without strong moral judgments attached.

Collective Selection

Herbert Blumer's theory stating that fashion is driven by the collective, emergent tastes of the consuming public rather than by elite class differentiation, requiring designers to predict incipient mass preferences.

Production-of-Culture Approach

A sociological framework analyzing how symbolic cultural objects are fabricated through networks of collective cooperation, formal organizations, and occupational groups rather than by individual creative geniuses.

Symbolic Capital

Pierre Bourdieu's concept of economic or cultural capital that is socially recognized and legitimated, conferring prestige that reinforces existing social hierarchies.

Fashion System

A persistent, articulated network of institutions, organizations, events, and individuals that collectively legitimize designers' creativity and transform clothing into fashion.

Haute Couture

The formal system of exclusive custom-made clothing institutionalized in Paris in 1868 with the establishment of the French fashion trade organization.

Demi-Couture

An unofficial category meaning "half-couture" introduced by the French fashion establishment to integrate younger designers and counter declining Haute Couture clientele.

Patina

A visual proof of status described by Grant McCracken where an object's physical age and wear over generations verified longstanding elite standing, which was largely superseded by modern fashion's demand for novelty.

Gatekeepers

Institutional actors—such as fashion journalists, magazine editors, buyers, and forecasters—who evaluate aesthetic innovations and make authoritative decisions about what will be accepted as fashionable.

Fashion Dolls

Mannequins, historically called "La Grande Pandora" and "La Petite Pandora," sent from Paris to international courts from the late fourteenth century to circulate the latest French styles.

Living Mannequin

The promotional technique of presenting merchandise on live models, invented in 1858 by British couturier Charles Frederick Worth using his wife Marie.

Spectacular Subculture

Dick Hebdige's term for youth subcultures like British punks whose striking visual styles and customized, non-traditional objects communicate ideological opposition obliquely through appearance.

Neo-tribes (or Scenes)

A concept favored by post-subcultural theorists to describe fluid, transient, and less class-bound youth groupings who assemble around shared stylistic and musical resources.

Cottagecore

A digital-era youth subculture popular on TikTok and Instagram that embraces a romanticized, sustainable pastoral aesthetic featuring flower prints, cardigans, baking, and rural crafts.

Metaverse

A network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection, originating from Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash, where digital fashion items exist as intangible assets for avatars.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

Unique, non-interchangeable digital assets and wearables recorded on a blockchain and purchased with cryptocurrency to confer authentic ownership of virtual goods.

Blockchain

A decentralized digital ledger technology that records cryptocurrency transactions and ownership history, enabling authentication and traceability for digital and physical fashion products.

Environmental Performance Index (EPI)

A biennial metric developed by Yale University and Columbia University that evaluates and ranks 180 countries on environmental health and ecosystem vitality across thirty-two indicators.

United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion

An initiative established by UN agencies to coordinate global fashion value chains with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to reduce negative environmental and social impacts.

Next-gen Materials

High-performance, eco-friendly sustainable alternatives designed to replace animal- and petroleum-based textiles using plants, agricultural wastes, bio-based inputs, or microorganisms.

Certified B Corporation

A verified private status awarded by the nonprofit B Lab to companies that meet verified criteria in social and environmental performance, accountability, and public transparency.

Bluesign Certification

A Swiss-based industrial standard verifying that textile supply chains operate safely, reduce toxic chemical waste, and minimize environmental impacts from raw materials to final goods.

The FABRIC Act

A proposed United States federal bill authored by Kirsten Gillibrand and Caroline Maloney to enforce garment worker wage protections, mandate transparency, and incentivize domestic manufacturing.

Conspicuous Waste

A component of Thorstein Veblen's status theory referring to the deliberate squandering of goods, time, and resources to signal wealth, which has been stigmatized in the twenty-first century by the rise of sustainable consumption.