Syllabus
Fashion and The Body
Dean's Seminar
Spring 2025
GenEd: Critical Thinking in the HumanitiesGenEdCCAS: Global Cross Cultural
TANYA EFREMOVA
OFFICE HOURS
PHIL 509D
Wednesday 11.30 am - 12.30 pm (or by appointment)
EMAIL tatiana.efremova@gwu.edu
Fashion offers us many joys: it helps us stand out and blend in, it lets us enjoy the expressive looks of the Met Gala while being at our most comfortable wearing jogging pants. Its magic is rooted in ways it engages with the body: stifling it to fit an impossible standard and helping us reinvent it. This class explores fashion as a vehicle of constructing and reimagining the body, and with it – our ideas of gender, cultural identity, and global consumption. We will look at gender politics of the post-war era through the study of the 50s full skirts, examine the power of stiletto heels to express protest, chart the connection between the Japanese kimono and oversized streetwear, think about fashioning non-standard and queer bodies, as well the artificial body of the Barbie doll. We will explore the collection of the First Ladies’ gowns presented at the National Museum of American History and discuss the changing role played by American women over the past century. We will also examine the implications of fashion as a Western construct and consider how dress industries functioned beyond the ideas of designer collections and fashion market (in the Soviet Union) or fashion season (in African cultures). In class, we will analyze fashion images and videos, magazines and look-books, as well as new media sources such as Instagram and TikTok. This course will challenge you to think across media and share your thoughts in a blog.
Course Objectives
After completing this course students will:
1. Have developed their ability to present independent and reasoned analysis of primary and secondary sources relevant to the study of fashion history and theories of embodiment, adopting appropriate academic conventions;
2. Formulate an argument based on the analysis of scholarly literature on fashion and the gendered body and situate this argument in a wider historical and cultural context;
3. Frame questions, analyze evidence, and draw conclusions about fashion trends in terms of their global implications. Use cultural comparison as a tool for understanding how social, cultural, or economic contexts shape cultural understandings and behaviors.
4. Be able to present their work in writing and in digital form.
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- Tanya Efremova Tatiana Efremova
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