The thesis addresses the reception and consumption of Japanese fashion in the U.K. between 1980 and 2006 and concomitant constructions of Japanese identity in the critical discourses surrounding fashion. It examines the impacts of the sartorial traffic emanating from the Japanese fashion system, the creative outputs of which are polarised in Western critical thought as either unreflective cultural borrowings (Japanisation, appropriation) or as embodying an unfathomable Eastern aesthetic (zen, wabi/sabi, wa). Building on a substantive account of the cultural impacts of the initial encounters with the West, the investigation identifies sites where Japanese sartorial culture is consumed in the form of text, image and artefact. A variety of methodological approaches are mobilised in the analysis of data from retail outlets, cultural institutions and media publications. Material pertaining to "high-concept designers" whose outputs are largely consumed within visual and intellectual contexts is balanced by that from "high street apparel makers" operating in a more commercially-oriented manner. Findings regarding the role of an "intermediate matrix" of designers/brands employing creative approaches and retail strategies that supersede issues of culture, race and historicity are presented in order to map a creative continuum in contemporary Japanese fashion design. In addressing the imbrications of Japanese identity and contemporary sartorial practice, the thesis interrogates research findings from creative, commercial, critical, curatorial and mass media sources within a framework of existing academic accounts of the construction of Japan in the Western mind. The conclusion articulates new readings of the nature of "Japanese-ness" available to a globally connected audience and identifies a gendered differentiation between visual representations of Japanese-designed fashion mediated through the gatekeepers of sartorial culture in the United Kingdom.

This practice-led thesis places archival research within the framework of a contemporary art practice and proposes an interpretive reading of tailoring patterns as informative documents and inspiring drawings in their own right. Conventionally, patterns are treated only as a means to an end, aiding garment production. It is rare for patterns to be analysed by contemporary dress historians for their contribution to history. This thesis will demonstrate how tailoring patterns are undervalued and neglected, and remain a hidden craft. This qualitative research is conducted in the archive in order to gain a deep understanding of a group of patterns – here military patterns – that in turn inspired an artistic and curatorial output. An archive of uniforms worn by officers of the British Raj held at the National Army Museum was identified for this research; these uniforms were closely examined, handled and drawn in situ. The drawings were placed next to military patterns from different sources and scrutinized using a case-study method. The analysis revealed that information could be derived from the patterns making them relevant in respect to an understanding of dress history. The archival research is further interpreted in art and curatorial practice in the second half of the thesis by suggesting that patterns are unique abstracted drawings of the human form, carrying with them not only the outline of the garment but also impressions of the body. A reflective approach to the practice illustrates how the archival research became the primary source materials to create romantic Love Garden sculptures. The researcher positions his own emerging practice at the blurring of fashion, art and curatorial practice; and articulates how other artists, practitioners and designers have responded to the pattern as an object and a drawing, producing work in the context of art, fashion and design. The thesis demonstrates that military patterns and the tailoring knowledge they comprise represent rich and rewarding source materials for producing contemporary artworks, and also vital historical documents in the context of dress history.

This thesis explores a history of fashion and art in post-war Britain. The historical analysis of this study focuses on how institutions and spaces of public culture – such as museums, galleries, exhibitions and art schools – were used as locations for editorial photo-spreads published in the British editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar between 1945 and 1962. Fashion magazines participate in the cultural production of art by depicting its institutions, its products and producers as fashionable. This thesis interrogates the ways in which the field of fashion, and fashion media in particular, thereby gives symbolic value to the field of art through its mediation. In its examination of the ways in which representations of art and fashion have been meaningfully constructed for a high fashion magazine readership, the thesis contributes to a further understanding of the relationship between fashion and art, and affords new insights into the cultural history of post-war Britain. The theoretical framework of this study engages with Agnès Rocamora’s model of ‘fashion media discourse’, which brings together the work of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. This thesis draws upon Foucault’s work on ‘discourse’ and Bourdieu’s concept of ‘cultural production’ in order to conduct an ‘archaeology’ of post-war British fashion media and its participation in the cultural production of art. This thesis has developed Rocamora’s concept in its application to a specific historical study of fashion media. In doing so, this thesis contributes to a wider understanding of how the theoretical work of Foucault and Bourdieu can be applied in the scholarly research of fashion media and histories of fashion. This thesis contributes to the further knowledge of practices in history concerning methodologies of archival research and textual analysis.

This thesis identifies and characterises a minimal aesthetic evident in a strand of fashion emerging in New York and Paris from 1964 onwards. It examines the way in which a minimal aesthetic has been applied to the practice of fashion design and retail architecture, specifically in a high-fashion context. The research establishes that the earliest manifestation of a minimal aesthetic in fashion design, took place in 1964, in the work of the French fashion designer André Courrèges. Designers who later adopted similar principles include Jil Sander (1968), Calvin Klein (1968), Zoran Ladricorbic (1976), Donna Karan (1984), Helmut Lang (1986) and Narciso Rodriguez (1997), among others. The study identifies the origins of the principles of a minimal aesthetic and examines them through two distinct case studies that consider the practice of designers Donna Karan and Helmut Lang, both of whose work emerged during the 1980s. The investigation re-evaluates the significance of Minimalism in fashion history. It challenges accepted views of Minimalism in fashion as merely a trend of the mid-1990s, or as a local phenomenon. The thesis maintains that these principles find expression in the designers’ work, in the architecture of the flagship stores and in the inter-relationship between the two. Additionally, it investigates the meanings that these products convey to the consumer. Through an evaluation of the retail architecture, it establishes parallels between the principles of this aesthetic and earlier elements of a post-war Modernist architecture. The study of the dynamic inter-relationship between elements of fashion design and those of architecture focuses on the definition of a minimal aesthetic. Furthermore, these claims are contextualized within other fields such as material culture, cultural and historical studies and sociology. The thesis employs a qualitative methodology comprising empirical research based on case studies and object-based analysis, all of which draw upon theory that addresses the means of interpretation. The study has developed through an analysis of dress and the retail architecture associated with the case study designers’ work. Through empirical research, the research shows how contemporary attitudes, practices and theories have emerged which are essential for the analysis of dress and the spaces it inhabits. The primary sources, garments from the collections of André Courrèges, Donna Karan and Helmut Lang held at key international costume archives at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, are discussed in relation to other archival and published sources.

The childlike character of ideal femininities has long been critiqued in feminist literature, from Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) to Susan Faludi (1992). Yet, despite the partial gains of feminism the ‘woman-child’ continues to be a prominent subject-position in fashion photography of the West. This thesis builds upon earlier feminist critiques of the infantilisation of women by considering the meaning of childlike femininities in the period spanning 1990 to 2015. In particular, it questions whether representations of childlike femininities can shed their dehumanising, ‘second sex’ connotations and be resignified to a more progressive end in the contemporary context. The possible appeal of ‘girly’ subject-positions to women, following several waves of feminism, is explored through reception studies carried out with female participants in focus groups, as well as theory on the ‘female gaze’. Images were principally drawn from three British fashion magazines: Vogue (UK), i-D, and Lula. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, this thesis demonstrates the ways in which discourses on childhood, girlhood and womanhood overlap and intersect to produce the figure of the ‘woman-child’ in the fashion media and beyond. This subject-position is shown not to be singular but rather as appearing in a number of guises. The many permutations of childlike femininity are subsumed into four overarching categories: the Romantic woman-child; the femme-enfant-fatale; Lolita style; and the Parodic woman-child. This thesis thereby contributes to existing debates in fashion studies by considering in greater detail the different discourses on childhood and femininity that come into play when women are positioned as childlike. A multi-faceted visual methodology is employed, combining visual analysis of imagery with experimental reception studies. Reception studies were conducted in focus groups with female participants and provide insight into the way these women made sense of the ‘woman-child’. In addition, they provide an indication as to whether the participants liked or disliked childlike femininities in the fashion media, thus pointing to the possible investments women might have in childlike subject-positions. Finally, including an element of social research served to challenge and/or reinforce the researcher’s own readings of the imagery, pointing to new avenues of research and expanding the discursive field of enquiry. This aspect of the thesis makes a methodological contribution to literature on the reception of still media imagery in fashion studies, magazine studies and feminist media studies.