Fashion and Memory

Elizabeth Wilson writes that fashion can be understood as ‘poised ambiguously between present and past’ (2003 [1985]: vii). Being bound up intimately with time, as well as having a selective – and sometimes skewed – perspective on the past, fashion provides a lens through which to explore the cultural practices of remembering and forgetting. These themes informed ‘Fashion and Re-collection’, an interdisciplinary symposium held at London College of Fashion in January 2013.1 Memory provided a common point of departure, facilitating meaningful exchange between scholars from different disciplines. This thematic issue on fashion and memory brings together a selection of articles developed from, and in response to, the symposium theme. Although diverse in conceptual vocabulary, the papers share an emphasis on what could be remembered, or remembered differently, through the critical study of fashion. All contributions come from postgraduate scholars and so the issue also serves to showcase emerging doctoral research in the field.