Sustainable Fashion (Chapman University)
This course will study sustainable fashion through a holistic approach that considers the past, present, and future of clothing consumption. The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions and 20% of global wastewater. We will explore how designers, organizations, and movements are responding to issues of worker exploitation and environmental pollution. We will examine methods of sustainable production, the role of policy in the fight for change, and the discourse surrounding “sustainability” in the fashion industry. We will explore how the current fashion system was shaped by the radical transformation of clothing consumption in the twentieth century and how innovations in the twenty-first century are leading towards a sustainable future.
Week 9: Is Fashion Recyclable? - Tues, Oct 24 & Thurs, Oct 26
Circular fashion systems, recyclable clothing and the practice of mending.
Week 10: Can Custom Be The Key? - Tues, Oct 31 & Thurs, Nov 2
Applications of robotics and digital technology as sustainable interventions.
Week 11: Is Second Hand The Solution? - Tues, Nov 7 & Thurs, Nov 9
Brief history of second hand clothing history and contemporary issues.
Wk 12: Intro Sustainable Interventions - Tues, Nov 14 & Thurs, Nov 16
Introduction of Sustainable Interventions Pitch
Wk 13: Peer Feedback - Tues, Nov 28 & Thurs, Nov 30
Submit sustainable intervention research and receive peer feedback.
Wk 14: Pitch Workshop - Tues, Dec 5 & Thurs, Dec 7 (Optional Class Meetings)
Bring questions to Prof Kinnard during class times. Attendance is optional.
Wk 15: Final Pitch - Fri, Dec 15 by 11:59 PM (No Final Exam)
Final pitch due by Fri, Dec 15 at 11:59pm
Week 1: How Are We Feeling? - Tues, Aug 29 & Thur, Aug 31
A check-in and consideration of the subject matter.
Week 2: How Did We Get Here? - Tues, Sept 5 & Thurs, Sept 7
Why colonialism and racism is key to the contemporary “sustainable fashion” discourse.
Week 3: What’s The Problem? - Tues, Sept 12 & Thurs, Sept 14
Fast fashion, overconsumption and globalization.
Week 4: The Problems With Production - Tues, Sept 19 & Thurs, Sept 21
The challenges with denim, examples of vertical integrated fashion and slow fashion.
Week 5: Can We Slow Down? - Tues, Sept 26 & Thurs, Sept 28
Local manufacturing and natural dyes.
Week 6: Midterm Project - Tues, Oct 3 & Thurs, Oct 5
Midterm project workshop and presentations.
Week 7: What About Technology? - Tues, Oct 10 & Thurs, Oct 12
Tech powered alternatives to harmful materials and issues in greenwashing.
Week 8: No Class - Tues, Oct 17 & Thurs, Oct 19
Field trip on Sat, Oct 21. No class meetings on Tues or Thurs.
Introduction to Creative and Cultural Industries (Chapman University)
This introductory course outlines the core debates in 21st century related to culture, media and creative industries as they inform our ideas and relationships regarding identity and technology. Students are introduced to the foundational methods of media and cultural analysis and critical inquiry.
Unit 3: Cultivating Creative Community
Week 8: Connecting to Creative Networks
Creativity and community.
Week 9: Creative Community Event
Student use class time to attend a CCI related event.
Week 10: Protecting Creative Labor
How and why creative labor is protected.
Unit 4: Who Owns Culture?
Week 11: Museums
Considering the power of museums.
Week 12: Intellectual Property
Exploring creative ownership via the example of artist Richard Prince.
Week 13: Cultural Policy and Funding
How funding and policy influence creativity.
Unit 1: Creativity, Culture and Capitalism
Week 2: Ways of Seeing
An introduction to critical viewing through John Berger.
Week 3: Culture in Mass Reproduction
The theories of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno.
Week 4: Defining the Cultural and Creative Industries
A brief history of the cultural and creative industries.
Unit 2: Who is Creative?
Week 5: Social Inequalities
Exploring issues of value and inequalities in the creative industries.
Week 6: Human vs Machine
Creative technologies and debates surrounding artificial intelligence.
Week 7: Midterm Exam
Midterm review and in class exam.
Fashion: Culture & Industry (Chapman University and ArtCenter College of Design)
This course provides a review of fashion as a cultural industry, examining the production systems and commercial institutions that comprise the contemporary global fashion industry. Students will learn about fashion through scholarly writing, magazine articles, podcasts and documentaries. This course aims to introduce students to different perspectives on fashion, from a wide scope of media sources. Students will work on a research project analyzing a particular aspect of fashion, synthesizing primary sources and scholarly perspectives. The topic of the research project should be the choice of the student and should focus on examining an existing component of the fashion system - a person, form of fashion media, institution, company, or practice.
Week 8: Fashion and Sustainability
An introduction to fashion and sustainability.
Week 9: Contextualizing Fashion and Dress
An introduction to cultural appropriation.
Week 10: Fashion and Race
How fashion relates to race and identity.
Week 11: Fashioning Gender
How ideas of gender influence fashion.
Week 12: Research Check In Meetings
10 Minute Individual Meetings with Professor Kinnard to review Annotated Bibliography
Week 13: Research Presentations
Student presentations during class.
Week 14: Research Presentations
Student presentations during class.
Week 1: Introductions
An introduction to the course and its participants.
Week 2: The Study and Display of Fashion
How and why fashion is studied in museums and academia.
Week 3: Origins of the Fashion System
An introduction to how systems and values established in the past remain operating today.
Week 4: Material of Fashion
An overview of textiles, fabrics, fibers, and the fashion design process.
Week 5: The Fashion Brand
How branding informs ideas of value and authenticity in the fashion industry.
Week 6: Fashion and Bodies
Exploring fashion as an embodied practice.
Week 7: The Fashion Show
An introduction to the fashion show as a venue for spectacle and commerce.
Performing Style and Identity (Chapman University)
This course explores the performance of identity through dress within a contemporary global context and in relation to gender, race, and class. How can practices of dress embody critical thought and ideas? The class examines the relationship of style and identity through the following units: Contextualizing Dress as Embodied Practice, Fashioning Identity, Style as Resistance, and Performing Style and Identity in Critical Practice. Students will examine their own personal dress narratives and will analyze the work of a contemporary artist who incorporates identity as a key part of their work.
Week 1: Introductions
An introduction to the course and its participants.
Week 2: Defining Dress and Identity
An introduction to bodies, dress and adornment.
Week 3: Family Threads
Performing style and identity in family photos.
Week 4: Contextualizing Dress Practices
Explore the meaning of contextualizing dress practices through the lens of cultural appropriation.
Week 5: Mexican Traditions and Contemporary Fashion
Explore contemporary Mexican femininity through quinceañera dresses and huipiles.
Week 6: Defining Muslim Fashion
Modest body politics: faith, fashion, and ethnicity.
Week 7: Reinterpreting Traditional Korean Dress
The evolution of hanbok style.
Week 8: Family Threads Project Presentation
In class exhibition of Family Threads Project.
Week 9: Embodied Activism
Explore the relationship between dress and activism.
Week 10: Independent Research Day
Students use class time to choose a research subject.
Week 11: Identity and Representation in Hip Hop Fashion
The history of hip hop fashion as a mode of resistance.
Week 12: Feminism, Gender, and Punk Style
Riot Grrrl and the body politics of punk style.
Week 13: Research Presentations
Student presentations during class.
Week 14: Research Presentations
Student presentations during class.
Body, Appearance and Adornment (Cal State LA - Online Course)
Modern to contemporary exploration of humanities performative expression of body, dress, and adornment through the lens of race, gender expression, identity politics, and economics. This course explores the performance of identity through dress within a contemporary global context and in relation to gender, race, and class. How can practices of dress embody critical thought and ideas? The class examines the relationship of style and identity through the following units: Contextualizing Dress as Embodied Practice, Fashioning Identity, Style as Resistance, and Performing Style and Identity in Critical Practice. Students will examine their own personal dress narratives and will analyze the work of a contemporary artist who incorporates identity as a key part of their work.
Week 8: Family Threads Peer Review
Peer review of the Family Threads Collage and Collection.
Week 9: Embodied Activism
Explore the relationship between dress and activism.
Week 10: Identity and Representation in Hip Hop Fashion
The history of hip hop fashion as a mode of resistance.
Week 11: Independent Research
Select your research subject.
Week 12: Feminism, Gender, and Punk Style
Riot Grrrl and the body politics of punk style.
Week 13: Annotated Bibliography
Complete Annotated Bibliography.
Week 14: Research Presentations
Peer review of Research Presentations
Week 15: Critical Practice Research Paper
Submit Critical Practice Research Paper.
Week 1: Introductions
An introduction to the course and its participants.
Week 2: Defining Dress and Identity
An introduction to bodies, dress and adornment.
Week 3: Family Threads
Performing style and identity in family photos.
Week 4: Contextualizing Dress Practices
Explore the meaning of contextualizing dress practices through the lens of cultural appropriation.
Week 5: Mexican Traditions and Contemporary Fashion
Explore contemporary Mexican femininity through quinceañera dresses and huipiles.
Week 6: Defining Muslim Fashion
Modest body politics: faith, fashion, and ethnicity.
Week 7: Reinterpreting Traditional Korean Dress
The evolution of hanbok style.
Historic Survey of Fashion, Fiber and Materials (Cal State LA - Online Course)
An interdisciplinary premodern history course exploring fashion, fiber, textiles, crafts and related art and design movements.