Granata - Experimental fashion: performance art, carnival and the grotesque body

Francesca Granata is Director of the Fashion Studies MA and Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons School of Design, the New School, New York. She holds a PhD from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and is the editor and founder of the journal Fashion Projects. Her work has appeared in Fashion Theory, Fashion Practice, and The Journal of Design History, as well as in a number of books and exhibition catalogues.

Experimental Fashion is very well written and rich in illustrations. It is highly engaging and thought provoking. It is a very welcome contribution to the field of fashion studies, not least through its attention to an aspect of fashion - experimental fashion - that has so far been given little attention.

Agns Rocamora, Reader in Social and Cultural Studies at London College of Fashion, University of London and author of Fashioning the City (I.B.Tauris, 2009)

Series Editors: Reina Lewis & Elizabeth Wilson

Advisory Board: Christopher Breward, Hazel Clark, Joanne Entwistle, Caroline Evans, Susan Kaiser, Angela McRobbie, Hiroshi Narumi, Peter McNeil, zlem Sandikci, Simona Segre Reinach

Dress Cultures aims to foster innovative theoretical and methodological frameworks to understand how and why we dress, exploring the connections between clothing, commerce and creativity in global contexts.

Published and forthcoming:

Branding Fashion: Bridging the Self and the Social Consumer

by Anthony Sullivan

Delft Blue to Denim Blue: Contemporary Dutch Fashion

edited by Anneke Smelik

Dressing for Austerity: Aspiration, Leisure and Fashion in Post-War Britain

by Geraldine Biddle-Perry

Experimental Fashion: Performance Art, Carnival and the Grotesque Body

by Francesca Granata

Fashion in European Art: Dress and Identity, Politics and the Body, 1775-1925

edited by Justine De Young

Fashion in Multiple Chinas: Chinese Styles in the Transglobal Landscape

edited by Wessie Ling and Simona Segre Reinach

Fashioning Indie: Popular Fashion, Music and Gender in the Twenty-First Century

by Rachel Lifter

Modest Fashion: Styling Bodies, Mediating Faith

edited by Reina Lewis

Sinophilia: Fashion, Western Modernity and Things Chinese after 1900

by Sarah Cheang

Styling South Asian Youth Cultures: Fashion, Media and Society

edited by Lipi Begum, Rohit K. Dasgupta and Reina Lewis

Thinking Through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists

edited by Agns Rocamora and Anneke Smelik

Veiling in Fashion: Space and the Hijab in Minority Communities

by Anna-Mari Almila

Wearing the Cheongsam: Dress and Culture in a Chinese Diaspora

by Cheryl Sim

Wearing the Niqab: Fashioning Identities among Muslim Women in the UK

by Anna Piela

Reina Lewis: reina.lewis@fashion.arts.ac.uk

Elizabeth Wilson: mail@elizabethwilson.net

At the publisher, Philippa Brewster: philippabrewster@gmail.com

Experimental Fashi o n

Performance Art, Carnival and the Grotesque Body

Francesca Granata

To Jay and Corinna, with love

C o ntents

List o f Illustrati o ns

Publicity shot from Working Girl, 1988, 20thCentFox/courtesy Everett Collection

Georgina Godley, Muscle Dress, spring/summer 1986, The Face, March 1986, no. 71, photograph by Stevie Hughes

Elsa Schiaparelli, Skeleton Dress, 1938, courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Georgina Godley, padded undergarment Bump and Lump collection, autumn/winter 198687, photograph by Cindy Palmano, courtesy of the artist and Georgina Godley

Georgina Godley, dress, Bump and Lump collection, autumn/winter 198687, photograph by Cindy Palmano, courtesy of the artist and Georgina Godley

Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon 1981, courtesy of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garons, padded dress, Body Meets Dress collection, spring/summer 1997, courtesy of Firstview

Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garons, padded top, Body Meets Dress collection, spring/summer 1997, courtesy of Firstview

Fashion spread juxtaposing Jean Paul Gaultier and Rei Kawakubos work, Six, no. 2, 1982

Cindy Sherman, Untitled 296, created for Comme des Garons advertising campaign, autumn/winter 199495, courtesy of Metro Pictures and the artist

Cindy Sherman, Untitled 302, created for Comme des Garons advertising campaign, autumn/winter 199495, courtesy of Metro Pictures and the artist

Merce Cunningham, Scenario, BAM, Brooklyn, 1997. Photograph by Dan Rest, courtesy of Louie Fleck at the BAM Hamm Archives

Merce Cunningham, Scenario, BAM, Brooklyn, 1997. Photograph by Dan Rest, courtesy of Louie Fleck at the BAM Hamm Archives

Leigh Bowery designed coat for sale, i-D, no. 57, April 1988

Leigh Bowery at a club in London, i-D no. 57, April 1988

Lucian Freud, Naked Man (painting of Leigh Bowery), back view, 199192. Oil on canvas, 72 54 in. (183.5 137.5 cm). Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1993 (1993.71). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Image source: Art Resource, NY

Leigh Bowery, Look 9, July 1989, photograph by Fergus Greer, courtesy of the artist

Leigh Bowery, Look 10, July 1989, photograph by Fergus Greer, courtesy of the artist

Leigh and Nicola Bowery, Look 37, June 1994, photograph by Fergus Greer, courtesy of the artist

Leigh and Nicola Bowery, birth performance with Minty, Wigstock, New York, 1993, Wigstock: The Movie

Martin Margiela, autumn/winter 198990, Details, September 1989

Martin Margiela, spring/summer 1990, Details, March 1990

Customised 1930s dress form used as inspiration for Martin Margielas oversized collections, photograph by the author

Martin Margiela, enlarged sweater, autumn/winter 200001, courtesy of Firstview

Martin Margiela, enlarged garments, autumn/winter 200001, courtesy of Firstview