FSJ seeks contributions to its next themed issue on Partnership and Togetherness, to be published Winter/Spring 2022.

Our journal sees dress as a site of connection and seeks to build community wherever possible. But how do fashion and dress support, reflect, and expose cultural ideas of partnership in its many relevant forms and appearances? We are building an issue around this complex and nuanced subject, and we would love to include your written or visual work.

Some ideas to get you started:

The expectations for romantic partnerships are changing. How is this being reflected in dress?

Business and creative partnerships and collaboration are essential to the fashion industry, on both large and small scales. Do you have a story to tell about a particularly successful or unsuccessful example of such, or reflections on how togetherness might be strengthened in the fashion business?

The pandemic can be seen as a dress rehearsal for other disasters that will require humans to band together in solidarity. Has fashion played a role in this togetherness or lack thereof? Could it be a space of increased solidarity going forward?

Are there any lessons from fashion history that could illuminate a way forward for better partnerships?

What does authentic community look like in fashion academia, what benefits could it have, and how can it be nurtured?

Are you a fashion design practitioner? Have you created any work that reflects themes of partnership or togetherness that we could feature in the issue?

We accept written work (up to 5000 words) of either a traditional academic or more creative, personal style (and anything in between or hybrids thereof), as well as photographs, illustrations, and other visual content. We are also interested in recorded interviews and other works on video.

Please familiarize yourselves with our mission statement to best gear your submission to the interests of our editorial board and readership. We prioritize perspectives that are equitable, critical but solutions-oriented, feminist, queer, and actively antiracist.

Please submit pitches by October 15th to info@fashionstudiesjournal.org with the subject line “Submission: Partnership Issue.” Pitches can be informal, but the more information you provide about what you’d like to submit, the better (i.e., projected length, possible sources or accompanying visuals, etc.).