On November 8th and 9th, 2019, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs hosted fashion scholars from across the world at “Europe and Fashion: Questioning Identities and Cultures” conference in Paris. With logistical and administrative help from Parsons Paris faculty and Fashion Studies graduate students, the European Fashion Heritage Association (EFHA), founded in 2014, organized the conference that showcased the scholarly works of about a dozen fashion scholars. Keynote speakers included Valerie Steele, Giorgio Riello, Javier Gimeno Martinez, and Miren Arzalluz, representing institutions from New York City, Warwick, Amsterdam, and Paris, respectively.
Valerie Steele, Director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, kicked off day one of the event, discussing her seminal book Paris, A Cultural History, originally published in 1988 but recently re-published in 2017. She explored Paris’ place in the fashion world, as a capital in a sense. Miren Arzalluz, Director of Palais Galliera, presented her paper Many Identities which outlines her career as a curator and, through this career, navigating identities.
Giorgio Riello, professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, spoke about conspicuous consumption, revisiting seminal works of Walter Benjamin, in the context of globalization and the rise of luxury. Javier Gimeno Martinez, Assistant Professor at the Vrije University Amsterdam, focused on the remodeling of clothing sectors in Europe markets after 1980s economic crises in his talk Redesigning the European Fashion Map.
Other speakers included Giulia Mensitieri, Professor at Parsons Paris teaching Fashion Systems and Global Perspectives to first year graduate students in the Fashion Studies program. If you are interested in seeing the full list of speakers, see it here on the European Fashion Heritage Association website.
The “Europe and Fashion: Questioning Identities and Cultures” conference at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs was a great opportunity for Fashion Studies graduate students from Parsons Paris to listen to and network with established fashion scholars, thanks to the collaboration with the EFHA. To learn more about the EFHA and their ongoing, past, and future projects, visit the website here.
Written by Rocio Sanchez, MA Fashion Studies
Photos by Victoria Nergaard, MA Fashion Studies
