Fashion, cognition, power, and activism

How do we see fashion, and what does fashion make visible? What agency do we gain through fashion, and what does fashion make us do? What power do we have through fashion, and how does fashion have power over us? The answers will vary depending on how we approach fashion and consumerism and which theoretical lenses we use. But they are essential questions to ask if we are to reflect on agency, designations, action spaces, and fashion activism. In this talk, Otto von Busch will unpack these questions and his own struggle to translate them into theory, action, and teaching.

Bio:

Otto von Busch is Professor of Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design. He has, over the last twenty years, examined fashion beyond consumerism, aesthetic decrees, and arbitrary authority, and worked towards establishing fashion practices that act as shared capabilities, or fashion-abilities. Some of his latest publications include The Psychopolitics of Fashion: Conflict and Courage Under the Current State of Fashion, (Bloomsbury 2020), The Dharma of Fashion: A Buddhist Approach to Our Life with Clothes, (Schiffer 2020), Silhouettes of the Soul: Meditations on Fashion, Religion and Subjectivity (Bloomsbury 2022, co-edited with Jeanine Viau), Making Trouble: Design and Material Activism (Bloomsbury 2022), and The Design Comedy: The Descent Through Inferno (Set Margins 2025).

This talk will be presented via zoom.  
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