Letter from the Editor
Illustration by Mike Thompson
Welcome back to FSJ!
Thanks for joining us for this issue, where we’ve taken stock of the year that has passed since we relaunched our journal and revamped our community mission. This fall, we’re thinking about the discussions we inspired in the last year, and how we might keep those dialogues moving into 2022.
Last fall, we shared the results of our groundbreaking ‘Making it Work’ survey, compiled from the responses of our community to questions about how you’ve managed to eke out careers in this competitive, highly specialized field. We paired it with essays from and about established and emerging scholars, museum professionals, and designers who honestly and transparently shared the stories behind the survey responses. We determined that The Fashion Studies Journal would strive to be a radical voice in this field, willing to speak up about inequity and oppressive practices.
This fall, we’re doubling down on this commitment to share work that pokes and prods into the inherently political nature of fashion studies. Tuva Wiking Holmlander shares her ethnographic research on a small group of young Afghan migrants to Sweden and how dress has become a tool of protection and pillar of group identity in the midst of crisis; Sofia Agostini interviews four tailors in Miami facing a changing landscape for their craft—a craft that holds at least one of the keys to a more sustainable way of dressing; and Elena Wang illuminates the work (and working conditions) of five young designers carving out careers in a continually pandemic-defined industry.
Illustration by Mike Thompson
Additionally, we’re continuing two other conversations we started in 2021, on fashion and motherhood and mental health. If you thought we were done with those topics because the issues were on the shelf, think again! In this issue, we pick up those threads through two reviews and two personal narratives that keep the discussion going.
Lastly, this issue demonstrates some of the ways we would like to be of service to our scholarship community. Our trusty contributor Osman Nemli is back with a philosophical “revue” of the Met Gala. Osman is a professor of Philosophy with an interest in fashion that doesn’t always find its way into his academic publishing schedule. We love receiving work from him and providing a space for him to work out ideas about subjects just outside of his regular purview, and we hope we can do the same for other scholars from various disciplines. If you yourself are fashion-studies-curious and want a platform to express your thoughts, send us your pitch ideas! Fashion studies is inherently and proudly interdisciplinary, and FSJ is proud to be part of forging this boundaryless community: one that also includes the voices of emerging scholars and current students. Take, for example, Sawnie Smith, a graduate student at NYU who has written her first review with us for this issue.
If you follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or subscribe to our email Newsletter, you may be aware of the call for contributions to an upcoming FSJ issue with a team of guest editors we’re very, very excited about. The issue, ‘Border Garments: Fashion, Feminisms, and Disobedience,’ is being put together by the Colectivo Malvestidas (Tamara Poblete and Loreto Martinez) in collaboration with Ellen Sampson and Karen Van Godtsenhoven, and we are tremendously proud to be supporting its publication on our site. The full call for papers is here and submissions are due Dec. 1, so start thinking, if you haven’t already, about what you might have to contribute!
On behalf of the whole team, thank you all so much for your continued engagement with FSJ, and please enjoy the issue!
