Vogue's view on Education
Diachronic and transnational perspectives on vogue magazine, from the archives to the Classroom
Perspectives diachroniques et transnationales sur le magazine Vogue. Des archives à la salle de classe
Published on Monday, July 01, 2024
Abstract
Nous nous intéresserons en particulier à l’histoire de Vogue au prisme de l’éducation, et nous tenterons d’explorer les différentes façons dont des dynamiques éducatives ont été à l’œuvre au sein de, autour de, ou en opposition au célèbre magazine, à travers l’histoire et dans différents contextes nationaux. Dans le cadre du colloque, nous entendons le terme « éducation » d’au moins deux façons, considérant d’une part que le magazine vise à « éduquer » des publics larges et divers de manière plus ou moins directe ; d’autre part, qu’il est souvent « actionné » dans des contextes plus ou moins directement éducatifs. Nous entendons donc « éducation » non seulement dans une acception institutionnelle, mais aussi dans une conception plus large, englobant tout transfert de connaissances.
Announcement
Argument
If famed fashion magazine Vogue holds a unique place in (fashion and publishing) history, it also holds a special place in historiography. It has indeed been productively explored from a myriad of disciplinary viewpoints in turn, including but not limited to cultural history (Hill 2004, Kurkdjan 2014), sociology (Rocamora 2006, Moeran 2008, McDowell 2013), business history (Cox & Mowatt 2012), marketing studies (Minowa/Maclaran/Stevens 2019), art history (Johnston 2000, Söll 2009, Krause-Wahl 2009 & 2015), literary studies (Reed 2006, Pender 2007, Yamamoto 2020), linguistics (König 2006), etc. Vogue’s content and especially its imagery have furthermore regularly been probed to deconstruct or challenge dominant historical narratives (Mahood 2002, Twigg 2010, Conekin 2012, Cheang 2013, Chan 2017, Peters 2017, Parkins 2020, Sivinski 2020, Xepoleas 2022). Following from our own previous studies of Vogue, from the perspective of the mediated and mediating functions of fashion photography (Van de Casteele 2022 & 2023), transnational entanglements and national editions (Fröhlich, Morin & Ruchatz 2021, Assadsolimani 2023a), as well as anniversary editions and retrospective exhibitions (Morin, Van de Casteele in Lécallier 2020, Assadsolimani 2023b), we now seek to offer a platform for scholars to meet and discuss the history of Vogue and its relevance today. Indeed, we contend it is now time to confront varied approaches, and that the study of Vogue magazine, as a multifaceted print medium, is best served when all such relevant perspectives come into a dialogue.
Our focus will lay in particular with Vogue’s history in relation with education, and we aim to explore the ways in which educational dynamics have been at work within, around or even against the magazine, across time and national borders. We understand education in the context of Vogue in at least two ways: in that the magazine itself educates large and diverse audiences, and in that it is used in educational settings. We thus not only adhere to an institutional concept of education but also embrace a broader understanding of education as the transfer of knowledge. Vogue furthermore has a long history of establishing conventions of style, dress, and manners, while also setting standards for layout, illustration, and fashion photography. Following Madleen Podewski, we conceptualize magazines as “little archives” that arrange, format, and popularize time-bound knowledge. We aim to shed light on such periodical production of historic meaning and iconic pasts (Podewski 2023), and how a magazine has organized the complex array of consumer goods and offered guidelines for good taste and social distinction, either authoritatively or in the manner of an advising best friend.
If we consider (women’s) magazines such as Vogue are placed within the framework of prescriptive literature, what can we infer from its content as to its intended and actual uses? How do we retrace and make sense of the culture(s) of reception and the “imagined communities” (as defined by Benedict Anderson) – of femininity, taste, class, and beyond – formed around the magazine at different periods and in various places? Taking into account the vast transnational network woven by national editions (most prominently British and French Vogues, but also from the 1970s, Italian, Brazilian, German, Spanish, Singaporean, Korean, Taiwanese, Russian, and Japanese Vogues, see Button 2006, as well as Garrity 1999, Bartlett 2006, Matthews-David 2006, Moeran 2006, Kopnina 2007, Mészáros 2019, Paccaud 2021), issues around the construction of national identities also crucially come to light. How have these receptions been re-mediated in popular culture (literature, movies, etc.)?
Beyond the ever elusive issues of reception, contemporary (re)activations of the vast corpus Vogue issues offer will be of special interest to us: from the museum walls to the classroom, Vogue has lent itself to multifarious educative uses, as a tool for teaching, as well as a documentary repository. Popular magazines are particularly suitable for use in teaching settings, as they provide an accessible entry point and an opportunity for exploration, while also presenting methodological and analytical complexity (Pabst 2023, Morin 2024). When using Vogue as a source for fashion history, it is important to consider its media-specific logic and formatting. The past does not present itself in the magazine as it was, but is rather discursively reworked.
The very formation of Vogue related archives is to be historicized as well, and the access granted (or not) to those should finally be questioned. The intertwinement of fashion heritage with education will be especially relevant here; and so will methodological reflections of how to (re)construct the production history of glossy cultural images and texts.
We hope to see all these questions and more addressed and debated during the symposium. We strive to foster an interdisciplinary, international discussion. We therefore invite proposals for 20minute papers, to be followed by 10-minute discussions, from colleagues working in the fields of (cultural) history, communication and media studies, fashion studies, photography history, periodicals studies and other relevant fields.
Submission guidelines
Please send a 500-words abstract and a short biographical note
by September 2nd, 2024
to Jasmin Assadsolimani (jasmin.assadsolimani@tu-dortmund.de), Alice Morin (alice.p.morin@gmail.com) and Marlène van de Casteele (marlene.vandecasteele@esmod.com). Notifications of acceptance will go out by Septembre 12th, 2024.
Convenors
- Jasmin Assadsolimani (Technische Universität Dortmund)
- Alice Morin (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle/University of Southern California)
- Marlène van de Casteele (ESMOD Paris)
Venue
ESMOD Paris
12, rue de la Rochefoucauld
75009 Paris
Provisional Bibliography
Assadsolimani, Jasmin. “Make America en vogue again. Die Konstruktion einer nationalen Identität in der US-amerikanischen Vogue nach dem Trump-Wahlsieg.“ Zeichen des Fremden und ihre Metaisierung in ästhetischen Diskursen der Gegenwart, Ed. by Wolfgang Lukas, Martin Nies, Marburg: Schüren Verlag 2023a, 135–168.
———.“30 Jahre »Vogue« – der Blick zurück als Inszenierungsstrategie von Modernität.“ Jahrbuch nmt 2022, Ed. by netzwerk mode textil, Wißner-Verlag: Augsburg 2023b, 24–35.
Bartlett, Djurda. “In Russia, At Last and Forever: The First Seven Years of Russian Vogue.” Fashion Theory 10, no. 1–2 (2006): 175–204. https://doi.org/10.2752/136270406778051094.
Button, Janine. “Vogue Timelines.” Fashion Theory 10, no. 1–2 (2006): 279–288.
https://doi.org/10.2752/136270406778051076.
Chan, Heather. “From Costume to Fashion: Visions of Chinese Modernity in Vogue Magazine, 1892–1943.” Ars Orientalis 47 (2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/ars.13441566.0047.009.
Cheang, Sarah. “’To the Ends of the Earth.’ Fashion and Ethnicity in the Vogue Fashion Shoot.” Fashion Media: Past and Present, Ed. by Djurdja Bartlett, Shaun Cole, Agnès Rocamora,
Bloomsbury, 2013, 35–45. https://chooser.crossref.org/?doi=10.5040%2F9781350051201.Conekin, Becky E. “Eugene Vernier and ‘Vogue’ Models in Early ‘Swinging London’: Creating the Fashionable Look of the 1960s.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 41, no. 1/2 (2012): 89–107.
Cox, Howard, and Simon Mowatt. “Vogue in Britain: Authenticity and the Creation of Competitive Advantage in the UK Magazine Industry.” Business History 54, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 67–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2011.617209.
David, Alison Matthews. “Vogue’s New World: American Fashionability and the Politics of Style.” Fashion Theory 10, no. 1–2 (2006): 13–38. https://doi.org/10.2752/136270406778051049.
Garrity, Jane. “Selling Culture to the ‘Civilized’: Bloomsbury, British Vogue, and the Marketing of National Identity.” Modernism/Modernity 6, no. 2 (1999): 29–58. https://doi.org/10.1353/mod.1999.0016.
Hill, Daniel Delis. As Seen in Vogue: A Century of American Fashion in Advertising. Texas Tech University Press, 2007.
Johnston, Patricia A. Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen’s Advertising Photography. University of California Press, 2000.
König, Anna. “Glossy Words: An Analysis of Fashion Writing in British Vogue.” Fashion Theory 10, no. 1–2 (2006): 205–24. https://doi.org/10.2752/136270406778051085.
Kopnina, Helen. “The World According to Vogue: The Role of Culture(s) in International Fashion Magazines.” Dialectical Anthropology 31, no. 4 (2007): 363–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-007-9030-9.
Krause-Wahl, Antje. “American Fashion and European Art—Alexander Liberman and the Politics of Taste in Vogue of the 1950s.” Journal of Design History 28, no. 1 (2015): 67–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epu041.
———. “Between Studio and Catwalk—Artists in Fashion Magazines.” Fashion Theory 13, no. 1 (2009): 7–27. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174109X381337.
Kurkdjian, Sophie. Lucien Vogel et Michel de Brunhoff, parcours croisés de deux éditeurs de presse illustrée au XXe siècle. Institut Universitaire Varenne, 2014.
Ed. Lécallier, Sylvie. Vogue Paris, 1920-2020. Paris: Paris Musées/London & New York: Thames & Hudson, 2021.
Mahood, Aurelea. “Fashioning Readers: The Avant Garde and British Vogue, 1920-9.” Women: A Cultural Review 13, no. 1 (2002): 37–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/09574040110097317.
Mészáros, Zsolt. “L’Élégance Genrée: Étude Comparative Entre Le Premier Volume de Monsieur et de Vogue Français (1920).” Visuelles Design : Die Journalseite Als Gestaltete Fläche / Visual Design: The Periodical Page as a Designed Surface, Ed. by Andreas Beck, Nicola Kaminski, Volker Mergenthaler, Jens Ruchatz, Wehrhahn, 2019, 155-168.
Minowa, Yuko, Pauline Maclaran, and Lorna Stevens. “The Femme Fatale in Vogue: Femininity Ideologies in Fin-de-siècle America.” Journal of Macromarketing 39, no. 3 (2019): 270–286. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0276146719847748.
Moeran, Brian. “Economic and Cultural Production as Structural Paradox: The Case of International Fashion Magazine Publishing.” International Review of Sociology 18, no. 2 (2008): 267–81.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03906700802087944.
———. “Elegance and Substance Travel East: Vogue Nippon.” Fashion Theory 10, no. 1–2 (2006): 225–58. https://doi.org/10.2752/136270406778051012.
Morin, Alice (with Vincent Fröhlich & Jens Ruchatz). “Logics of Re-Using Photographs: Negotiating the Mediality of the Magazine.” Journal of European Periodical Studies 7 (2022/2): https://openjournals.ugent.be/jeps/article/id/84858/.
Morin, Alice. “Women Magazines and Fashion Magazines as (Re)Sources for (De)Constructing Womanhood, from Producers to Readers to Researchers.” Womanhoods and Equality in the United States: 20th and 21st Perspectives, Ed. By Christen Bryson, Anne Légier & Amélie Ribieras, New York: Routledge, 2024.
Pabst, Philipp. „Populäre Zeitschriften im Seminar. Ein kommentierter Syllabus.“ Handbuch Zeitschriftenforschung, Ed. by Oliver Scheidung, Sabina Fazli, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2023, 551–562.
Paccaud, Emmanuelle. “La presse magazine comme espace médiatique transatlantique.” Belphégor. Littérature populaire et culture médiatique, no. 19–2 (2021). https://doi.org/10.4000/belphegor.4179.
Parkins, Ilya. “Queering the ‘Modern Bride’: Lessons from Vogue.” The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 11, no. 2 (2020): 292–309. https://doi.org/10.5325/jmodeperistud.11.2.0292.
Pender, Anne. “‘Modernist Madonnas’: Dorothy Todd, Madge Garland and Virginia Woolf.” Women’s History Review 16, no. 4 (2007): 519–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/09612020701445867.
Peters, Lauren Downing. “‘Fashion Plus’: Pose and the Plus-Size Body in Vogue, 1986–1988.” Fashion Theory 21, no. 2 (2017): 175–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2016.1252520.
Podewski, Madleen. “Zeitschriften als ›kleine‹ Archive. Handbuch Zeitschriftenforschung, Ed. by Oliver Scheidung, Sabina Fazli, transcript, 2023, 97–108.
Reed, Christopher. “DESIGN FOR (QUEER) LIVING: Sexual Identity, Performance, and Decor in British Vogue, 1922-1926.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 12, no. 3 (2006): 377– 403. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2005-003.
Rocamora, Agnès. “‘Over to You’: Writing Readers in French Vogue.” Fashion Theory 10, no. 1–2 (March 1, 2006): 153–74. https://doi.org/10.2752/136270406778051030.
Sivinski, Stacy. “Velvet, Silk, and Other Ecstasies: Exploring Affective Encounters with Clothes in Early Issues of Vogue.” The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 11, no. 2 (2020): 174–94. https://doi.org/10.5325/jmodeperistud.11.2.0174.
Söll, Änne. “Pollock in Vogue: American Fashion and Avant-Garde Art in Cecil Beaton’s 1951 Photographs.” Fashion Theory 13, no. 1 (2009): 29–50. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174109X381346.
Twigg, Julia. “How Does Vogue Negotiate Age?: Fashion, the Body, and the Older Woman.” Fashion Theory 14, no. 4 (2010): 471–90. https://doi.org/10.2752/175174110X12792058833898.
Van de Casteele, Marlène. “La ’lisibilité photographique‘ au Vogue américain (1940-1942).” Photographica 4 (2022): 40-54. https://journals.openedition.org/photographica/738
———. “Une nuit de ténèbres au Vogue (1936). Horst P. Horst et la noirceur comme stratégie photographique.” Modes Pratiques 5 (2023): 101-117.
Xepoleas, Lynda May. “Subversive Beauty: Reassessing the Surreal in 1930s American Vogue.” Journal of Surrealism and the Americas 13, no. 2 (2022): 174-193. https://jsaasu.org/index.php/JSA/article/view/12
Yamamoto, Yuko. “When Faulkner Was in Vogue: The American Women’s Magazine Fashioning a Modernist Icon.” The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 11, no. 1 (2020): 127–43.
https://doi.org/10.5325/jmodeperistud.11.1.0127.
Subjects
- Europe (Main category)
- Zones and regions > America
- Periods > Modern
- Society > History > Women's history
- Society > History
- Mind and language > Representation
- Society > History > Social history
- Mind and language > Education
Places
- Salle boisée - 12, rue Catherine de la Rochefoucauld
Paris, France (75)
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Date(s)
- Friday, December 13, 2024
Attached files
Keywords
- Vogue, éducation, identité, mouvement transnational, archive, salle de classe, pratique, transfert de connaissances
Contact(s)
- Alice Morin
courriel : alice [dot] p [dot] morin [at] gmail [dot] com - Jasmin Assadsolimani
courriel : jasmin [dot] assadsolimani [at] tu-dortmund [dot] de
Information source
- Marlène VAN DE CASTEELE
courriel : marlene [dot] vandecasteele [at] esmod [dot] com
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Vogue's view on Education », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, July 01, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/11wr0