This thesis examines the relationship between art and fashion in order to first, justify fashion as an art form, and second, demonstrate the applicability of critical theory to the study of fashion through an examination of Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 2006 menswear collection, titled “Killa,” presented in Milan, Italy, in 2005. “Killa,” loosely based on William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies and its 1963 film adaptation, opens with crisp, white, tailored suits worn by neatly groomed models. Steadily throughout the collection, these tailored suits are exchanged for wide-legged, cropped shorts, and tanks in browns and beiges. By the end, models appear on the runway with painted faces, wild hair, and highly patterned, dark-colored body suits and billowing capes. While “Killa” appears to demonstrate the narrative regression from civilized to savage demonstrated in Golding's novel, this thesis argues that McQueen's collection actually strives to promote a more positive ennobling of the Other. A careful study of his life and career suggests that McQueen perceived himself as the Other within the community in which he worked and lived. Frustrated by frequent misinterpretations of his work and false accusations of his character, “Killa” becomes McQueen's ultimate confrontation with Otherness. Positioning the Other at the climax of an elite fashion show, represented by Mesoamerican designs depicted through the highest quality tailoring, McQueen's Other is respected and revered, rather than looked down upon. In this way, McQueen challenges the perception of his own character within the fashion community. Ultimately this thesis seeks to demonstrate the necessity of the application of critical theory to objects of fashion. As demonstrated through the case study of McQueen's 2006 menswear collection, this academic consideration has the potential to reveal important overlooked meanings within the art of fashion. This suggests that McQueen's work, as well as the work of other contemporary fashion designers, merits more thoughtful and careful interpretation in the study of postmodern art history.

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To explore the potential of packaging design structures in menswear. While packaging design and fashion design are two distinctively different fields,their methodologies are distinctively similar.To compare packaging and garment design is therefore to compare their development process and purpose in terms of structure, material, color and print, as well as aspects concerning production and marketing. Both fields aim to create designs that are functional as well as aesthetically pleasing within their particular context; the fundamental contextual difference being that packaging is conceived for a product and garments conceived for a body. Focusing on structure, both packaging and fashion design may use product templates to facilitate mass production. In fashion design these templates are called construction patterns; in packaging design templates are called packaging nets or development nets. Both construction patterns and packaging nets are 2-d structures that gain a three dimensional form according to a construction system, e.g. constructing a box from a flat element using folding techniques. For this bachelor degree work the aim is to explore the potential of packaging design structures in menswear. The result is a lineup of outfits generated by the adoption of packaging nets as construction patterns for garments. Since the outfits are created using packaging design principles and methods, they challenge the contextual distinction both between garment and packaging, and between body and product. By considering garments as packaging for the body, the collection blurs the line between fashion design and packaging design. I believe that the intersection of these two branches of design allows us not only to discover new forms of expression and construction, but also to gain a new perspective on fashion design practice. In addition to structural properties, by also considering the graphic aspect of packaging design, this collection highlights the importance of product differentiation and thus serves as a starting point for future fashion experiments with product branding. / Program: Fashion Design

This practice-led research creates innovative menswear designs for formal white dress shirts, within boundaries of contemporary mainstream wearability. As a result of an historical analysis, a conceptual spectrum is developed to scope the possibilities of the contemporary white dress shirt, from the orthodox menswear shirt to the many variations of the women’s blouse. Within this spectrum for the white shirt, the possibilities for innovation are discussed in terms of a threshold position between the shirt and the blouse - a position that parallels that of the dandy figure who subversively confronts dress norms of the day. This position is then explored in relation to an acceptable/ ‘wearable’ aesthetic which I have labelled ‘Neo-Dandy’. White shirts from contemporary menswear designers are then examined relative to this aesthetic. In doing so, this examination highlights the white dress shirt as a garment that is ripe for experimentation. My own creative design process is then described as taking up the challenge of Neo-Dandy design innovation for the contemporary white dress shirt. On this archetypal garment, different styles and varying degrees of detailing were tested. A range of ‘concept shirts’ were produced, tested and documented, with each shirt succeeding to various degrees in achieving a Neo-Dandy aesthetic. Based on this range, a list of design principles for achieving this aesthetic are identified. The weighting is 60% for the design objects (a collection of men’s white dress shirts that explore wearability and design innovation within a Neo-Dandy aesthetic) and 40% for the design discussion (exegesis and supporting appendices).

Since the establishment of the first European fashion houses in the nineteenth century the male wardrobe has been continually appropriated by the fashion industry to the extent that every masculine garment has made its appearance in the female wardrobe. For the womenswear designer, menswear’s generic shapes are easily refitted and restyled to suit the prevailing fashionable silhouette. This, combined with a wealth of design detail and historical references, provides the cyclical female fashion system with an endless supply of “regular novelty” (Barthes, 2006, p.68). Yet, despite the wealth of inspiration and technique across both male and female clothing, the bias has largely been against menswear, with limited reciprocal benefit. Through an exploration of these concepts I propose to answer the question; how can I use womenswear patternmaking and construction technique to implement change in menswear design?

This research explores the scope of waste as a material and methods for fashion design, drawing together an open mindset and sustainable actions for a menswear collection. Reflective Design Practice is the overlaying methodology used to incorporate a wide variety of textile manipulations and materials. The research approach is to source waste materials, with a focus on virgin yarns for knitwear, exploring and identifying the possibilities for individual elements and analyzing through a photographic lineup, repeating for further development. This emergency, as well as a focus on perfect solutions from the offset, can be a barrier for experimentation. Therefore a change in posture and mindset is necessary. For this thesis, posture, motive, and aesthetic design decisions are embodied in a persona - This persona, delicate, yet rough and in a hurry, as with sustainability, are combined into the Lazy Romantic. Speculatively this research has the potential to open up for landfills as material sourcing for fashion design or landfills being unnecessary as the word waste is no longer defining the material.

Grunden för arbetet bygger på uppdragsgivarens intresse att arbeta med 3D simulering för passformsbedömning av klädesplagg vid produktutveckling. Rapportens syfte är att undersöka programvaran Lectra Modaris 3D version V8R1 funktioner, möjligheter och begränsningar. Fokus ligger på gradering av avatar utifrån kroppsmåttlista för storlek Medium och XXL. Uppdragsgivaren är ett konfektionsföretag av arbetskläder och i studien används två överdelsplagg för herr vid verifiering av korrespondensen mellan virtuell och fysisk miljö.   Lämplig befintlig avatar i programvaran manipuleras efter kroppsmåttlista och fysisk provperson valdes ut efter bröstviddsmått. Ett frågeformulär har upprättats för jämförelse av fysisk och virtuellt plagg samt mannekänger och besvaras av fem deltagare med erfarenhet av att bedöma passform. Rörelsevidd och plaggets längd i 3D korresponderar väl med fysisk avprovning. Studiens resultat och slutsats visar tillvägagångssätt för att uppnå ett trovärdigt passformsresultat som överensstämmer med fysisk miljö. För gradering av avatar bör resultatet kontrolleras, exempelvis mot fysisk person för att säkerställa trovärdigheten i resultatet. För korrekt upplevelse av passform i 3D bör även det virtuella materialets egenskaper fastställas mot fysiskt för att ge rätt fall, veck och dragningar. / The foundation for the study was an interest request from a company who wants to work with 3D simulation for fitting verification during product development of textile wear. The purpose of the study was to examine the features, possibilities and limitations in the virtual software Lectra Modaris 3D version V8R1. The thesis targeting grading of avatar that is based on body measurements for the sizes Medium and XXL. The cooperation company is a producer of workwear and in the thesis two garment for upper part of body that they developed are used, for an equivalent comparison of virtual and physical environment.   Suitable existing avatar in the programme was chosen and graded according to body measurement chart, physical mannequin was chosen after correspondence to chest width. A questionnaire was developed and given to five participants with suitable knowledge that were chosen to participate in the study, for the sole purpose of evaluating graded avatars and compare fitting result on virtual and physical mannequin. The thesis shows that the ease and length of the garment in 3D were equivalent with physical garment. The result and conclusion of the thesis shows an approach to validate settings in 3D, to get a reliable ground for fitting evaluation. The avatar should verificate by being compared to a physical person, to increase the credibility in the results. In the same way, properties of the material should be compared for better basis for fitting verification of the garments drape, wrinkles and strains.

Abstract My aim for this paper is to analyse the character Jeeves' obsession with perfect clothing in     P. G. Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves (1923). My method has been to study the historical context of the British aristocracy at the time of the first publication of the book in 1923, as well as the previous four decades during which the author grew up and decisive changes in the British class society took place. This paper studies sources on the significance of clothing in general, and examines its importance at the time in particular. For my analysis I have borrowed elements from new historicism. The norms, traditions and values of the aristocracy lost in importance during this time, and the aristocracy was divided into individuals who were willing to adopt to these changes and others who fought to defy them. My conclusion is that Jeeves considers the strict dress codes to be an important symbol of the old aristocratic values that he has to defend, in order to legitimize his own position, as he is profoundly devoted to his calling of being a first class valet faithful to the old traditions. Wooster, then, acts as Jeeves' opponent on the matter as he embodies the part of the aristocracy willing to embrace the changes instead.

This thesis explores high-end and bespoke menswear, tailoring and fashion, asking the question - why do some men choose to spend large sums of money to have clothes made for them? Using tailors and high-end menswear as a lens, this thesis unpacks how men construct their notion of self in the digital and terrestrial worlds through the clothes that they wear and the identities they perform. Based on twelve months' terrestrial fieldwork in London and twenty-four months' concurrent digital fieldwork with Instagram, this thesis examines notions of dress, performance and the individual across a multi-dimensional fieldsite set within a blended digital and terrestrial landscape. The fieldwork comprised visiting and interviewing tailors, and observing inside their workshops and at their fashion shows. In addition, the analyst-as-client built relationships with tailors, and constructed a digital self within Instagram through the publication of self-portraits and images of clothing. This thesis is presented in four chapters, flanked by an Introduction and Conclusion. These chapters move from an exploration of terrestrial research in the first two, to an analysis of digital research in the latter two. Five major motifs emerge in this thesis: the importance of the anthropology of clothing and adornment within western society; the nature of the individual in a digitised world; the difficulty in conducting western-centric fieldwork without an element of digital analysis; a methodological restructuring of digital anthropology; and the idea that a digital self can acquire agency. This thesis employs a pioneering blended methodology which brings together the fields of digital anthropology, visual anthropology and material culture to question how selves are constructed in a rapidly changing and increasingly digitised modernity. In conclusion, the thesis argues that individuals construct multiple digital selves and a sense of identity (around the notion of 'authentic individualism') that is illusory.