The Aesthetics of Mainstream Androgyny: A Feminist Analysis of a Fashion Trend

Since 2010, androgyny has entered the mainstream to become one of the most widespread trends in Western fashion. Contemporary androgynous fashion is generally regarded as giving a new positive visibility to alternative identities, and signalling their wider acceptance. But what is its significance for our understanding of gender relations and living configurations of gender and sexuality? And how does it affect ordinary people's relationship with style in everyday life? Combining feminist theory and an aesthetics that contrasts Kantian notions of beauty to bridge matters of ideology and affect, my research investigates the sociological implications of this phenomenon. My thesis explores in what ways the new androgyny, apparently harmless and even radical, paradoxically reinforces traditional gender roles, and legitimatises particular kinds of femininity over others also in terms of class, sexuality and ethnicity. It interrogates whether this trend, and by extension contemporary mainstream fashion in general, can oppose traditional values, and investigates the relationship between the aesthetic sphere and socio-cultural inequality. In response to classical theories of fashion, and filling a gap in contemporary ones, my study also focuses on social class, now often overlooked, in the analysis of style. These questions are examined from a twofold perspective: first I investigate representation to identify ideological patterns of legitimation and de-legitimation arising from fashion intermediaries' portrayal of the trend. I then look at how this visual material becomes an object of affective engagement, and analyse emotional responses to the aesthetics. To do this, I employ a mixture of traditional methods, such as semiotics and discourse analysis, and experimental ones, like the collection of creative ethnographic data. I explore the particular aesthetics associated with the androgyny trend and consider how it is configured by the different fashion intermediaries, what its presence online entails, and what is its relationship with the wider public and their everyday negotiations of identity

Fashion\u27s Destruction of Unsold Goods: Responsible Solutions for an Environmentally Conscious Future

Over the past two years, headlines of fast-fashion and luxury brands burning their merchandise have flooded media outlets. While this came as a shock to the general public, it has actually been a standard industry practice for decades. As societal norms are leaning more towards environmentally conscious practices, destroying unsold products is no longer viewed as an acceptable option. Brands are facing increased scrutiny related to their environmental impact—such as the amount of textile waste that ends up in a landfill—and how they address the issue. While the media have criticized brands for these practices, they have not suggested long-term solutions to resolve the problem. Brands are left in the dark without a road map showing them how to modernize their systems. Furthermore, when governments introduce new bills focused on textile waste, brands experience added pressure. France is in the process of requiring brands to recycle or reuse their unsold goods by January 2020. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for any brand or country: what may work for a fast-fashion brand will not necessarily work for a luxury brand. In the same vein, what may work for France may not work for the United States. This Note explores a number of potential solutions to this problem which range from legal solutions, to reusing, manufacturing, technological, and crisis management solutions. Brands must start to address this issue within their supply chain in a thorough and transparent manner, as this is not a fleeting trend

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

Low Virial Parameters in Molecular Clouds: Implications for High Mass Star Formation and Magnetic Fields

Whether or not molecular clouds and embedded cloud fragments are stable against collapse is of utmost importance for the study of the star formation process. Only "supercritical" cloud fragments are able to collapse and form stars. The virial parameter, alpha=M_vir/M, which compares the virial to the actual mass, provides one way to gauge stability against collapse. Supercritical cloud fragments are characterized by alpha<2, as indicated by a comprehensive stability analysis considering perturbations in pressure and density gradients. Past research has suggested that virial parameters alpha>2 prevail in clouds. This would suggest that collapse towards star formation is a gradual and relatively slow process, and that magnetic fields are not needed to explain the observed cloud structure. Here, we review a range of very recent observational studies that derive virial parameters <<2 and compile a catalogue of 1325 virial parameter estimates. Low values of alpha are in particular observed for regions of high mass star formation (HMSF). These observations may argue for a more rapid and violent evolution during collapse. This would enable "competitive accretion" in HMSF, constrain some models of "monolithic collapse", and might explain the absence of high--mass starless cores. Alternatively, the data could point at the presence of significant magnetic fields ~1 mG at high gas densities. We examine to what extent the derived observational properties might be biased by observational or theoretical uncertainties. For a wide range of reasonable parameters, our conclusions appear to be robust with respect to such biases.Comment: accepted to Ap

Re-examining the consumption-wealth relationship : the role of model uncertainty

This paper discusses the consumption-wealth relationship. Following the recent influential workof Lettau and Ludvigson [e.g. Lettau and Ludvigson (2001), (2004)], we use data on consumption, assets andlabor income and a vector error correction framework. Key …ndings of their work are that consumption doesrespond to permanent changes in wealth in the expected manner, but that most changes in wealth are transitoryand have no e¤ect on consumption. We investigate the robustness of these results to model uncertainty andargue for the use of Bayesian model averaging. We …nd that there is model uncertainty with regards to thenumber of cointegrating vectors, the form of deterministic components, lag length and whether the cointegratingresiduals a¤ect consumption and income directly. Whether this uncertainty has important empirical implicationsdepends on the researcher's attitude towards the economic theory used by Lettau and Ludvigson. If we workwith their model, our findings are very similar to theirs. However, if we work with a broader set of models andlet the data speak, we obtain somewhat di¤erent results. In the latter case, we …nd that the exact magnitudeof the role of permanent shocks is hard to estimate precisely. Thus, although some support exists for the viewthat their role is small, we cannot rule out the possibility that they have a substantive role to play

The sources of management innovation: when firms introduce new management practices

Management innovation is the introduction of management practices new to the firm and intended to enhance firm performance. Building on the organizational reference group literature, this article shows that management innovation is a consequence of a firm's internal context and of the external search for new knowledge. Furthermore the article demonstrates a trade-off between context and search, in that there is a negative effect on management innovation associated with their joint occurrence. Finally the article shows that management innovation is positively associated with firm performance in the form of subsequent productivity growth

Free Trade’s Looming Threat to the World’s Garment Workers

In this working paper, the authors challenge the ideology of free trade. The paper focuses on the damaging effects of one particular free trade policy – the phase-out of textile and apparel quotas – and its impact on the global garment industry