FASHIONING THE EAST-ASIAN SCREEN
3-4th May 2012, Nottingham Castle, UK
About “Fashioning the East-Asian Screen”
It is no coincidence that almost simultaneously in the 1890s the very first issue of Vogue appears and the birth of cinema takes place. The invention of modern life involves this parallel between fashion’s history and the screen. However, most of the emphasis in this relationship is celebrated and documented through American and European cinema. While the relationship between fashion and Western cinemas has already been explored in a number of important publications there has been scant attention to similar themes and issues when it comes to non-Western cinemas, for example, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and so on. This two-day event seeks to address this gap both in our knowledge about fashion and the screen and the role that fashion, clothing, style, costume, and design plays in East-Asian cinemas. We are also interested in how the screen has influenced fashion cultures in the region. Furthermore, we wish to consider the concept of the screen and East-Asia in their broadest sense to include all screens not just cinema but also television to new media and similarly we intend the concept of East-Asia to be fluid and transcultural rather than limited and fixed. Our primary aim with this event is to begin to map an East Asian context in terns of the multiple and mutual contacts between fashion and the screen.
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