This article develops a posthuman ethics of care for fashion by rethinking clothing not as passive commodities but as vibrant material assemblages that entangle human bodies, labor, technologies, and planetary resources. Drawing on new materialism and posthuman theory, the article argues that fashion sustainability requires a fundamental epistemic and ethical shift, with care as its guiding value. Care is reconceptualized beyond human-centered ethics to encompass the non-human world-materials, technologies, ecosystems, and waste. The article foregrounds affect as central to fashion's power, showing how emotional attachments to clothing sustain overconsumption but can also become catalysts for change. The example of textile waste reveals the slow violence of disposal practices, including the neo-colonial dumping of secondhand clothing in the Global South. To move from critique to transformation, the author emphasizes habit, agency, and responsibility. Drawing on the concept of "revolutionary routines," the article argues that meaningful change emerges through everyday practices of care, supported by collective action and political structures. Ultimately, the article contends that a posthuman ethics of care-rooted in material literacy, affective responsibility, and planetary accountability-offers a necessary framework for reimagining fashion as an ethical practice oriented toward a sustainable future.
The article confronts a popular historical stereotype that links visible makeup in the nineteenth century to sex work and women's sexual availability. The notion of "visibility" featured in such narratives is interrogated first: primary sources suggesting that "makeup" could occasionally be spotted (and vehemently condemned) where there in fact was none raise profound issues concerning the possibility of clearly distinguishing between aspirational and stigmatizing styles in cosmetics. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, makeup increasingly started to be described as a work of decorative art associated with aesthetic refinement rather than with social degradation. At the same time, as it provocatively blurred the distinction between art and life, makeup was seen to interfere with emotional expression and interpersonal interactions, including erotic encounters. Men, for their part, repeatedly expressed their disgust with cosmetics as some kind of "dirt" that stands in the way of sexual attraction. The article proposes a reassessment of nineteenth-century discourses about makeup by centering women's agency in shaping their own image and questioning the nature of desire which is foregrounded in both appreciative and dismissive accounts of the period's beauty practices.
While fashion fusion has received considerable scholarly attention, visual fusion within non-Western fashion contexts remains underexplored. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork and interviews conducted in Guangzhou, China, and Nairobi, Kenya, this study examines Chinese-Kenyan everyday clothing as a distinctive form of South-South interaction. The findings reveal that visual fusion in this fashion circuit is not a seamless blending of cultural forms, but rather a negotiated and commercially driven process. At the design level, Kenyan printed garments are reworked through earth-tone palettes, patchwork, and adjustments in silhouette. At the level of global fashion esthetics, garments combine African, Chinese, and Western motifs into commercially mobile styles. These forms are first generated through the imaginative manufacturing of Chinese merchants, who function as new cultural intermediaries, and are subsequently completed through the self-Africanized perceptions of Kenyan traders and consumers. In this process, brand symbolism, celebrity culture, affordability, and practical needs shape the local uptake of visually fused garments. The result is a blurred yet durable fashion field that is neither fully Chinese nor fully Kenyan, but remains socially legible, wearable, and profitable. This study demonstrates how global fashion is being reorganized through South-South everyday fashion practices.
Makeup is an important element of the fashionable body worldwide, but so far it has been largely overlooked by academia. The few histories published to date are Eurocentric/American in their perspective and most have been written for a general audience. This article starts with a brief overview of relevant literature and argues for a rigorous methodology in researching and writing makeup histories, in addition to careful reassessment of accepted narratives. It calls for global perspectives on the subject, introducing parallels and contrasts in the global histories and practices of makeup that are discussed in this special issue. Also reviewed are the prejudices inherent in makeup history - racism and misogyny - as well as its philosophical contradictions. Makeup was used medicinally yet it contained poisonous ingredients and may still do so. Its production and use are connected to contemporary debates about nature and artifice as well as concerns such as animal cruelty and sustainability.
The Cult of Beauty at Wellcome Collection offered an interdisciplinary exploration of the human pursuit of beauty, interweaving historical artifacts with contemporary art and innovative installations. Through its transhistorical, cross-cultural approach, the exhibition broadens visitors' understanding of beauty beyond traditional binaries, embracing it as both scientific and poetic, engineered and inherent. The curatorial approach is intentionally non-linear, fostering diverse perspectives. Makeup is explored within this framework, revealing human endeavors to enhance appearance and the continuous innovation and creativity. Methodologies of interdisciplinary curatorial praxis, fashion and material culture are employed concurrently in the exhibition. It combines historical and contemporary makeup objects and relevant ephemera across time, geographies, and cultures, juxtaposed with larger-scale, collaborative, transdisciplinary commissioned installations, thereby demonstrating sociocultural, scientific, and technological turning points in the context of makeup. The exhibition delves into the material culture and innovation of makeup, showcasing how design transformed the industry. It also highlights the importance of accessibility and sustainability in the cosmetics sector. New, transdisciplinary commissions bring a fresh perspective to the understanding of makeup, revealing the material science of makeup, exploring how scientific knowledge is acquired through sensory experiences and the impact of social media and new digital technologies on global beauty trends.
Cristobal Balenciaga is considered one of the most innovative designers of the twentieth century, with an influence extending well beyond Europe and North America. Within one year of showing his first haute couture collection in Paris, the Australian press reported on Balenciaga and details of his collections were promptly relayed back to receptive audiences in both metropolitan and regional centers. Australian women did not have to wait long before they could see and buy Balenciaga garments for themselves, as original models were imported, reproduced and adapted in Australia by 1939. This article traces the transfer of Balenciaga's clothing to Australia during the inter-war period and after the Second World War, with a focus on Sydney couture salon Germaine Rocher. In 1934, Vera Fels emigrated from Paris to Sydney, and established couture salon Germaine Rocher, producing authorized reproductions of Paris models. Existing Australian fashion histories have largely overlooked pre-Second World War haute couture in Australia, with more emphasis on the postwar period. Encompassing rich stories of migration and the transfer of haute couture technical knowledge to Australia in the early to mid-twentieth century, this study provides new understandings of the wearing of couture in Australia as well as trans-cultural relations and Australia's fashion history.
